You Should See Me in a Crown

Liz’s hair is an important symbol that appears numerous times in the text. It is almost a metonymy, a part of Liz that stands for her as a whole. At the beginning of the novel, Liz strives to control her hair; it is a reflection of her comfort with herself. She begins “wearing my hair slicked back in a tight bun nearly every day. Switched from bright colors to quieter tones so no one would spot me coming” (42). By taming her “defiant” hair and forcing it in line, Liz exerts control over herself and her image (18). Though Liz cannot become like the other students at Campbell, like former prom queen Eden Chandler, she constantly compares herself to them and finds herself less than. She sees her hair as “all defiance where hers is tradition,” and to cope with feeling like an outsider, she slicks her hair back and tries her best not to be seen at all (18). Jordan’s rebuffing of Liz in freshman year of high school is the catalyst for Liz’s insecurity. This moment is also intimately tied in with Liz’s hair. On that day, “My hair was in its full form, big and curly, and fell into my face” as she went up to Jordan (42). When one of Jordan’s friends comments on her hair, no one comes to her defense. Liz takes this incident to heart and begins to make herself smaller, too scared to take up more space than she has to. 

Even Liz’s best friend plays into this insecurity. When Liz decides to run for prom queen, Gabi insists that Liz needs a complete overhaul of her appearance. Gabi tells Liz that she needs a “full face of makeup before school, new hair—” (64). Liz has kept her hair, and by extension herself, under tight control all throughout her years of high school. The weight of it has begun to wear on her and soon she worries that “it’s never going to be enough—the good grades, the low-key clothes and hairstyles and attitude. I’m never going to be the type of person who makes sense to other people. I’m never going to be able to own every part of myself” (65). Throughout the events of the novel, however, as Liz begins to befriend Amanda and Jordan, she also starts to rebuild her confidence. As she does so, her own hairstyle begins to change. Slowly but surely, Liz begins to wear her hair down again. Eventually, at prom, Liz is not only able to wear her hair in a way that “Falls in not-quite-straight but not-entirely-curly waves over my shoulder on one side,” but she is also able to recognize that she—and her hair—look beautiful (181).