After the Wreck, I Picked Myself Up, Spread My Wings, and Flew Away by Joyce Carol Oates
HarperTeen (paperback), 2007
320 Pages
Author Website
OPENING SENTENCE
In the blue we were snow geese, flying.
REVIEW
A teenage girl tries to put the broken pieces of her life together after her mother is killed in a car crash, the same crash that almost killed her. She copes with her guilt and grief by isolating herself with her Aunt and Uncle who become her guardians and indulging in ever-risky behavior.
JCO is one of my favorite writers. This is my first time reading After the Wreck, I Picked Myself Up, Spread My Wings, and Flew Away. I’m working my way through JCO’s back catalog. There’s a lot I haven’t read.
I loved After the Wreck, I Picked Myself Up, Spread My Wings, and Flew Away. JCO’s young adult fiction is as good as her adult fiction. I loved the use of a first person narrator in this novel. This is one of my favorite points of view when it works. JCO pulls it off. This novel is a very realistic, often sad to the point of heart-breaking portrayal of grief and loss. I felt and believed every word.
RATING
