While taking one of our daily walks through the neighborhood, I came across a Little Library and stumbled upon this book:
After The Wreck, I Picked Myself Up, Spread My Wings, And Flew Away.
A tad wordy 😅 And aside from the author being a National Bestseller, I had no idea what I was getting into (besides the fact that a "wreck" takes place). So I decided to buckle up and go for a ride!
We open the book and are immediately greeted to a fantastic scene -- a frenzy of scenes.
Our narrator is desperately trying to recall what had taken place. She was in the car, with her mother, driving over the Tappen Zee Bridge, New York.
"Suddenly I am seeing a baby deer in the lane just ahead! -- this shadow shape Mom doesn't seem to see. I am grabbing at the wheel, Mom is the one to turn the wheel ... And the car sprouts wings and flies."
Our protagonist, Jenna, has just been in a fatal car accident with her mother. She awakens in the hospital, badly injured, and has suffered head trauma, brain swelling, amnesia, and facial lacerations.
"I was a raggedy old cloth doll battered and banged and wrung and tossed down."
All Jenna can remember from the accident is the paramedics working to get her out of the vehicle, sirens and lights, transferring her to an ambulance, drawing blood...
And the fact that Jenna is the only survivor; her mother did not make it...
While she recovers in the hospital, Jenna receives visitors. For the most part it is her aunts, on her mother's side. One day, however, her father finally visits.
"Eleven months since I'd last seen Dad, when he'd been in New York City on business. Three years since he'd left us."
In this way, we learn that Jenna's parents were divorced and had been for some time.
Anyway Jenna's father spends most of his visit trying to convince her to come and live with him in California, with his "new family" where she can attend a new school. Ultimately Jenna refuses his offer.
Hospital staff attempt to obtain more information about the accident from Jenna, but she refuses to remember that as well.
"There were skid marks from your mother's car in both lanes. Before the car struck the railing... The question is why...
Why the car driven by your mother suddenly swerved into the opposite railing."
More progress is made towards getting Jenna better, and as such, the doctors begin to lessen her pain medication.
"Nobody should experiment with these drugs because even if you don't become addicted immediately, you start comparing how it felt with the rest of your life: "And nothing will ever be so good again."
This part really spoke to me. Even if you have never experienced addiction for yourself, you have probably heard this expression countless times: nothing will ever feel as good as that high. And it is absolutely true -- one should heed this warning. I was addicted to a stimulant for almost 2 years, quit cold turkey, and for months I was constantly comparing the place that I was, to how it had been before. Jenna is in for a ride!
Slowly but surely, Jenna makes so much progress that she can advance to physical rehabilitation.
"In rehab, sometimes I was a pretty mature 15-year-old, and sometimes I was a bawling 15-month-old."
Obviously it is a struggle, but in due time, Jenna will finally be leaving the hospital!
Her father decides to pay her one more visit. This time he inquires as to why Jenna's "new school" has not received her transfer application yet. But Jenna sticks by her decision: she is not going to live with her father.
"Dad touched my arm and I felt a sudden rush of emotion, as if I wanted to be hugged by him.
Except Dad was saying bitterly, "Your mother turned you against me -- of course."
Again, another scene that hit me. For one, the painful recollection of hearing for myself as a child, "Your father put you up to this," "Your mother has obviously been telling you things about me," "Why not? Did your mother tell you not to?" But also for that painful rejection: needing comfort, and needing it from your parent specifically, only to be cast away and yelled at instead...
It finally occurs that her father is the first person to hear Jenna's secret: that she believes she was responsible for the accident, and therefore her mother's death. However her father won't listen, he believes Jenna's mother was at fault, and he tries shaking sense into Jenna -- literally shakes her by her shoulders!
"If you try to force me to live with you, I'll run away. I don't love you! Not after what you did to Mom.
It's after the wreck now, Dad. You can't hurt me."
September 5th, 2004. Jenna has officially been discharged from the hospital and is now living with her Aunt Caroline in Yarrow Lake.
While the two are driving in the car, I got a giggle from this passage:
"Why do adults feel they have to tell you every damn thing that floats into their heads, as if the quieter you are, no expression on your face, the more it means you WANT TO HEAR THIS! when in fact you're NOT LISTENING!"
Hahaha, I found this very relatable! 😈
Also for this moment of intrusive thoughts:
"I could open this door. Unbuckle my seat belt, open the door, and throw myself out before Aunt Caroline had a clue what was happening and could stop me. Just a fantasy. I'd never do it."
because..
(Image taken from: https://tenor.com/view/haha-i-do-that-vine-haha-vine-haha-equifinality-gif-14899459 )
Anyway Jenna is trying to get accustomed to her "new life," living with her aunt, uncle, and two younger cousins... but easier said than done. What's more, Jenna is on her last refill for prescription painkillers, and school starts tomorrow. Oh, the drama!
She wants to spend her "last day" alone, so Jenna soon finds herself on a forest trail until she twists her ankle and has to stop. Someone approaches her, an older teen boy, who offers her assistance; Jenna refuses.
"Whatever gesture I wanted to make, of independence, self-sufficiency, it's past making now, I just want to go home and soak in a hot bath."
She makes her way back to the start of the trail, only the boy doesn't leave her alone; he follows her (so typical! 🥴). He says to Jenna,
"You know what you look like? Like somebody who's been in a car crash. How'd I know? 'Cause I've been in crashes myself. ... It's the way you move, see. See, you walk like me, like walking on thin ice, scared of feeling pain."
Cut to the first day at Yarrow Lake High School. It seems to be your typical American high school: the girls try to be "friendly," the guys are animals, and the teachers are rude! However it isn't all bad -- Jenna ends up seeing the boy from yesterday at school.
"It's that group of loud-laughing older students. ... They'd be "druggies," smoking cigarettes and drinking out of cans."
He approaches her, and the two finally exchange names. His nickname is Crow (Gabriel Saint-Croix, in full). Jenna discovers that he is French (obviously!), and that he has family living in Quebec, Canada (which is the French speaking part of Canada, in case you didn't know!).
Eventually Jenna returns back to the forest trail, the one where she and Crow met, only she comes across an old railroad bridge on it.
"Since it happened. This is the first time I have tried to cross any bridge."
In the end Jenna does not possess enough strength to cross the bridge, and she has to turn back...
As Jenna continues to fall further into her teen pit of despair, she begins skipping class. One day while hiding out in the girls' bathroom, she can hear a girl in one of the stalls, puking and moaning. It is an older girl from the "druggie" group, one of the girls who hangs out with Crow: Trina Holland, coming down from a cough syrup high. Jenna offers her an extra-strength Tylenol.
"In this way, Trina Holland and I become friends."
It doesn't take long before the two are thick as thieves, with Trina quickly becoming a "bad influence" on Jenna -- drinking alcohol, smoking cigarettes, driving recklessly (which causes a bit of PTSD for Jenna 😅). Trina even tells Jenna more about Crow:
"He works for his crippled dad who was shot up in Vietnam, who's a carpenter or something. Even his sister, one day she comes home with an actual baby and leaves it! ... Crow has such a thing for like, hurt people. Crippled people and losers."
Gasp! No way, is Trina 😏secretly😏 a bitch!? 😱 Again, so typical...
We are slowly approaching the climax now... It is Christmas Eve, and Jenna has just taken too big of a dose of drugs.
"Took all 4 pieces of the BIG Z pill before dinner. Earlier today, 3 or 4 extra-strength Tylenols with Diet Coke."
Her aunt and uncle call her downstairs for presents, but when they find Jenna in her bedroom fading away, they quickly call an ambulance. Jenna overdoses on Thorazine, "a dose strong enough to tranquilize a 200-pound man," and has to have her stomach pumped...
After Christmas Eve, after what everyone else has decided must have been a "suicide attempt," Aunt Caroline signs Jenna up for therapy. But do you think Jenna attends her meetings? no!
No! instead of attending therapy, Jenna decides to wander around until she comes across a store with a sign that reads Saint-Croix Carpenter & Cabinetmaker. Could it be...?
Of course it is! Of course it is Crow and his father's business, because this is that kind of novel! So he takes Jenna inside for a tour, where she meets his father and what she assumes is his younger brother. An older woman also stops by who, again, Jenna can only assume is Crow's sister.
After the tour, Crow offers Jenna a ride home. He tells her how he heard about Jenna overdosing. He also warns her that Trina is not a very good friend. He drops her off while saying,
"Take care, chérie, it's a big step to the street."
Oop, and now it is April! Just as Crow forewarned, Trina has been an unreliable friend, acting catty towards Jenna and brushing her off... Until one night Jenna receives a phone call from Trina, telling her that "there's these really cool older guys who want to hang out with us."
The two of them attend this house party together, a party that is packed with other people! Jenna and Trina drink throughout the night, to the point where they both end up fairly drunk, and as everyone else gradually begin to leave, Jenna suddenly realizes they are the only ones left with the "cool older guys."
The men carry Trina away to another room and unfortunately sexually assault her, while Jenna watches in shock.
"One of the guys rushes at me and shoves me away, shuts the door in my face. I run to the neighboring lakeside house about a hundred yards away.
I'm pounding on the door, pleading for him to please help us, please call the police, my friend is being hurt."
Trina is taken to the hospital to recover from her injuries. Detectives question Jenna about the assault, that there is "an unlikely event of trial. Five of the suspects are in custody and being interrogated."
Eventually Jenna does receive an email from Trina!... Telling Jenna that she is moving to live with her grandparents, and she isn't going to say goodbye in person. Trina decides not to testify, so there is no trial; the sexual assault charges are dropped.
One day after school, Crow encounters Jenna while on his motorbike and he offers her a ride; this time Jenna accepts. They end up back on the trail -- yes, the same trail where they first met!!, in an effort to get Jenna to overcome her fear of crossing the bridge. Crow helps her open up more about the accident...
Jenna hadn't imagined it -- there had been a hawk on the bridge all along!
She isn't afraid anymore; holding Crow's hand, Jenna crosses the bridge.
"In a rush, it comes to me: I can do anything now."
The two of them begin making their way back to the parking lot, but not before Crow imparts some advice to Jenna -- and his advice is to simply forget the memory of the hawk. He tells Jenna that her memory was unreliable at the time; she had just suffered head trauma, a concussion, side effects from the painkillers... So uhhhhyeah! Just forget it, Jenna 🙂
They finally make it back to Crow's motorbike where -- this is the best part of the book! -- just as Jenna discovers she is in love with him, that he has saved her life, Crow ruins everything. He informs Jenna that the little boy she had met before at their shop is Roland, his son. The woman whom Jenna had assumed was Crow's sister, is technically his girlfriend and Roland's mother! And he is moving to Quebec after graduation to be with them! 🥴
"I'll always be your friend, chéire. You know that."
"I will always be your friend too, Gabriel. Forever."
how it ends?.. -- Oh yeah! The novel literally ends just a year later, when Jenna is now 16-years-old, and she has finished in 4th place at the high school district half-mile sprint.
So, hehehehehe, you may ask me, how was this book? Did you enjoy it? The answer is NO!! Excuse my French, but this book was fucking awful!
First, there's the fact that the climax of this novel was Jenna's best friend being raped? Like, what the fuck? 😅 Not that it was necessary or relevant in the first place; nothing happened before it, and nothing changed after it!
Second, it's the fact that it's your typical, cliché, angsty, run-of-the-mill teenage novel garbage with none of the perks! For fuck's sake, Jenna didn't even get the guy, and she lost him in the worst way possible: to a woman who he doesn't love but has a child with! Jenna doesn't even get to confront the shitty "friend" about almost getting the two of them killed at a house party!
Third, and the worst part of all... The whole selling point of this novel is the fact that a young girl loses her mother in a traumatic accident, so for the entire time you're reading, you're groaning to yourself, oh yeah, here it comes, the big dramatic scene where she breaks down and lets it all out, -- and THAT doesn't even come! This 15-year-old girl who is going through the darkest, hardest period of her life not once acknowledges or tries to process her mother's death. The author couldn't have even been bothered to write her a funeral scene! Very lazy writing that shows the author simply could not be bothered with any of the emotional part of storytelling.
The cherry on top? This is from a BEST-SELLING AUTHOR. This 270-page novel of farts came from the mind of a "best-selling author," so I guess anything truly is possible!