Book Review: Heather Donahue's 'Growgirl' Is Inspiring

You remember her as that teary-faced girl in the woods running from some unseen terror in “The Blair Witch Project.” In fact, that’s what all of us know her as—and little else.

Until now, however when she has become a successful marijuana farmer, and an author of “Growgirl: How My Life After ‘The Blair With Project’ Went to Pot.”

Part memoir and part inspiring self-help book by Heather Donahue, now 37, this book offers a personal window into self-reinvention by a rather cool person.

She doesn’t go into great detail about her struggle to “make it” after the runaway success of the independent blockbuster film. But it is funny how people thought she should have been dead, like the pseudo-documentary, or that people actually thought she wasn’t a trained actress who appeared in that movie.

However, Donahue was a trained actress, and it was when “dying” yet again in another B-film that she decided she had to do something different. 

The entertaining book chronicles how she found a boyfriend who led her to the somewhat underground world of farming medical marijuana. All the characters are colorful.

She said the names are changed somewhat, but that no one was doing anything underhanded and everything is above the law. But, it is the fodder of a really good reality show, if anyone were to put a camera on her world.

This is a book that shows how people’s lives can take unexpected 180-degree turns and be far more satisfying than anyone imagined. Even when all is lost, Donahue fights, even more strongly than she did when she was out in the woods.