A review by kricketa
After the Wreck, I Picked Myself Up, Spread My Wings, and Flew Away by Joyce Carol Oates

3.0

Jenna can't remember exactly what caused the wreck that killed her mother, but she has an ugly feeling that it was her. The pain medicine during her immediate recovery made it so easy to drift away and forget, but the doctors have cut her off and now she's in New Hampshire, living with her aunt and uncle, going to a new school. Always she is trying to get back that ability to drift away "into the blue" (a phrase she uses ad nauseam, along with "before the wreck" and "after the wreck").

Jenna's narration comes in sort of an angry, dramatic stream-of-conscious. I did not particularly warm to it. Everything was so depressing and humorless and the second traumatic situation toward the end of the story was over the top. I can understand the purpose of the book and I definitely wanted to see how it would end, but probably won't showcase it at work or anything.