Significance of Lejla's blonde hair

Lejla's blonde hair, which she bleaches in college, symbolizes the new distance growing between her and Sara. When Sara first sees her, she hardly recognizes her, and Lejla also pretends not to see her, busy as she is with the many men she flirts and sleeps with. "All that hair, from its root to your navel, is yellow and wrong. An insult to our entire friendship" (158). Throughout the novel, both Lejla and Sara attempt to break with their pasts: Lejla by dying her hair blonde and becoming promiscuous, Sara by going to graduate school and living in Dublin. But no matter how many times Lejla bleaches her hair and no matter how far from Bosnia Sara may travel, the girls ultimately always make their way back to each other. They cannot escape who they are.