After the Wreck, I Picked Myself Up, Spread My Wings, and Flew Away [Hardcover]

Joyce Carol Oates (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: August 22, 2006

In the raw was how the world felt now. My feelings were raw, my thoughts were raw and hurtful like knife blades. . . . In the blue had been my place to hide, now In the raw there was nowhere to hide.

Jenna Abbott separates her life into two categories: before the wreck and after the wreck. Before the wreck, she was leading a normal life with her mom in suburban New York. After the wreck, Jenna is alone, trying desperately to forget what happened that day on the bridge. She's determined not to let anyone get close to her -- she never wants to feel so broken and fragile again.

Then Jenna meets Crow. He is a powerfully seductive enigma, and Jenna is instantly drawn to him. Crow is able to break down the wall that Jenna has built around her emotions, and she surprises herself by telling him things she hasn't told anyone else. Can Jenna bring herself to face the memories she's tried so hard to erase?

Editorial Reviews

From School Library Journal

Grade 9 Up–Jenna Abbott, 15, is struggling to come to terms with the car accident that killed her mother and nearly took her own life as well. Formerly athletic and smart, she suddenly finds herself unable to concentrate or communicate with anyone. She is broken in both body and spirit and desperate to escape into the blue, which is how she remembers the drug-induced haze immediately after the accident. Not wanting anything to do with her father and his new family in California, she moves to New Hampshire to live with her aunt and uncle, and begins looking for ways to escape. She steals OxyContin from her uncle's medicine cabinet and becomes friends with Trina, who is dealing with her own substance-abuse problems. It takes two near-disasters for Jenna to tentatively open up to her classmate Crow and face her fears and grief. Oates is at her best telling the stories of teenage girls dealing with internal trauma and outside pressures. Jenna's pain at losing the only person truly close to her and the isolation she creates for herself are poignantly drawn. Her understanding that her choices are not what her mother would want for her is especially telling and may speak to teens in comparable situations. Similar in topic to E. R. Frank's Wrecked (S & S, 2005), this powerful novel is well worth reading.–Stephanie L. Petruso, Anne Arundel County Public Library, Odenton, MD
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

From Booklist

Gr. 7-10. Haunted by the car crash on a bridge that killed her beloved mother, Jenna, 15, moves in with her aunt's family in New Hampshire, but she cannot deal with her guilt and sorrow. As a passenger in the car, was she to blame? Should she be dead? Therapy doesn't help. She won't reconcile with her dad, and she hates kids who pity her. Then she accidentally overdoses and narrowly escapes gang rape. It's Crow, the kind, gorgeous biker she loves, who saves her. There is too much going on, with everything spelled out, including the metaphor of her need to cross over the treacherous bridge. But Oates gets the contemporary teen voice just right, and Jenna's first-person narrative moves at breakneck speed. Best of all, though, is the end; as in Oates' amazing short story "Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been?" the shocking surprise conclusion grows organically from the story and makes everything new. Hazel Rochman
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Reading level: Ages 14 and up
  
• Hardcover: 304 pages
• Publisher: HarperTeen; 1St Edition edition (August 22, 2006)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0060735252
• ISBN-13: 978-0060735258
• Product Dimensions: 7.2 x 5.4 x 1.2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 12 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 4.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (8 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,930,575 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Joyce Carol Oates is the author of more than 70 books, including novels, short story collections, poetry volumes, plays, essays, and criticism, including the national bestsellers We Were the Mulvaneys and Blonde. Among her many honors are the PEN/Malamud Award for Excellence in Short Fiction and the National Book Award. Oates is the Roger S. Berlind Distinguished Professor of the Humanities at Princeton University, and has been a member of the American Academy of Arts and Letters since 1978.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Courtesy of Teens Read Too, October 16, 2006

By 

TeensReadToo "Eat. Drink. Read. Be Merrier." (All Over the US & Canada) - See all my reviews

This review is from: After the Wreck, I Picked Myself Up, Spread My Wings, and Flew Away (Hardcover)

Joyce Carol Oates's new book for teens has a long title and it really does sort of give away the ending. Although, the ending is probably not the most important, rather the journey and its twists and turns.

Jenna is in a tragic accident with her mother on the Tappan Zee Bridge. Her mother and the driver of the other car are killed, leaving Jenna a survivor, but at what cost? The circumstances of the accident are unclear. What Jenna does remember leads her to believe she might have been responsible.

As Jenna struggles to recover from her injuries, she lives in a drug-induced haze. Her father, who remarried years ago, has a new family. Jenna certainly doesn't feel welcome in his home, so she's told she will be living with an aunt and uncle. Her mother's house is sold and her new home comes complete with two cousins, a new school, and the sometimes nosey concern of a small town.

Attempting to cope with new surroundings and the death of her mother sends Jenna into a tailspin of emotions. She meets new friends, but gravitates to those who help her forget with pills and alcohol. An accidental overdose lands Jenna in the emergency room and under the care of a therapist. Despite the care and concern of her caregivers, her life continues to spin out of control.

Finally there is the arrival of Crow with his dark and mysterious side. Jenna finds she can talk to Crow about things she can't say to anyone else. Does he care about her? Does he have the answers to get her back on track?

AFTER THE WRECK, I PICKED MYSELF UP, SPREAD MY WINGS, AND FLEW AWAY captured me right from the start. Jenna's struggle felt authentic and true. I was touched by her pain and sensitive to her attempts to move on, only to drift back into confusion. Oates definitely outdoes herself with this one.

Reviewed by: Sally Kruger, aka "Readingjunky"

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A powerful novel of grief and recovery, October 8, 2006

By 

Midwest Book Review (Oregon, WI USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: After the Wreck, I Picked Myself Up, Spread My Wings, and Flew Away (Hardcover)

Jenna's life is divided into before and after the wreck: before she lives with her mother in New York; after she's alone and hiding her feelings - until she meets the mysterious Crow, who may be the only person who can understand her trauma and why she's hiding it. A powerful novel of grief and recovery emerges from the telling hand of a long-time novelist who does as good a job for teens as she does for adults.

5.0 out of 5 stars fantastic for teens!, September 19, 2010

By 

Jude - See all my reviews

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: After the Wreck, I Picked Myself Up, Spread My Wings, and Flew Away (Hardcover)

I love Oates and bought this for myself but soon realized it was written more for teens, though I did enjoy it. Gave it to my 14 year old niece and she LOVED it!