Un endroit où se cacher

by Joyce Carol Oates, Dorothée Zumstein (Traduction)

Avant, j'étais une fille normale, j'avais une vie normale. Après, il y a eu l'accident. En me réveillant, j'ai tout vu en bleu. J'étais dans le coton. Un monde douillet et bleu. Mais maintenant, le bleu s'efface, le douillet s'envole. Et je suis seule à nouveau. En colère. Contre moi. Contre l'univers tout entier. Je cherche un endroit où me cacher.

Genres: Young Adult, Fiction, Realistic Fiction, Teen, Contemporary, Juvenile, Romance

300 pages, Paperback

Published February 3, 2010

About the author

Joyce Carol Oates is an American writer. Oates published her first book in 1963, and has since published 58 novels, a number of plays and novellas, and many volumes of short stories, poetry, and nonfiction. Her novels Black Water (1992), What I Lived For (1994), and Blonde (2000), and her short story collections The Wheel of Love (1970) and Lovely, Dark, Deep: Stories (2014) were each finalists for the Pulitzer Prize. She has won many awards for her writing, including the National Book Award, for her novel Them (1969), two O. Henry Awards, the National Humanities Medal, and the Jerusalem Prize (2019).
Oates taught at Princeton University from 1978 to 2014, and is the Roger S. Berlind '52 Professor Emerita in the Humanities with the Program in Creative Writing. From 2016 to 2020, she was a visiting professor at the University of California, Berkeley, where she taught short fiction in the spring semesters. She now teaches at Rutgers University, New Brunswick.
Oates was elected to the American Philosophical Society in 2016.
Pseudonyms: Rosamond Smith and Lauren Kelly.

Reviews

[Kelly · Rating 4 out of 5]

Whenever I read Joyce Carol Oates I kind of hate myself. It's overly dramatic and a tries a little too hard to be artsy, yet when I finish, I can't stop thinking about it. It's a very haunting quality.

[Aline · Rating 5 out of 5]

Comme toujours avec Oates, c'est déroutant, dérangeant, puissant, avec beaucoup de profondeur. Ses personnages sont tout en nuances de gris, plus foncés que clairs ici. J'aime beaucoup l'écriture, le ton. Dans ce roman, on pourrait tomber dans le stéréotype, mais non. On est embarqué dans le malheur, la tristesse, le désespoir même, de cette gamine, qui va presque toucher le fonds avant d'enfin ouvrir la porte à l'espérance, à la paix, à la vie. J'ai trouvé ce livre très bien construit, complexe. C'est une réflexion sans concession sur la perte, le deuil, l'amitié, les limites que l'on se fixe, l'adolescence, la maturité... Je recommande.

[Erin · Rating 4 out of 5]

Jenna Abbott is a high school freshman trying to come to terms with the car accident that killed her mother and sent her to the hospital. Jenna vows that she won't let anyone get close to her again - they always leave her anyway. So when she goes to live with her aunt and uncle in New Hampshire, she pushes her family and former friends away, choosing instead to befriend Trina. Trina, who has many problems of her own, takes Jenna under her wing and introduces her to the world of cutting class, underage drinking, and drug use. After Jenna is rushed to the emergency room to have her stomach pumped, she starts to evaluate her friendship with Trina.

Throughout the entire ordeal, Jenna's thoughts are constantly on two things: the car accident, and the mysterious biker named Crow who has caught her attention. Will Jenna ever allow herself to let anyone in?

This story had a lot of feeling behind it. Jenna is extremely broken by the events that take place, and does everything in her power to prevent it from happening again. Her struggle to cross the bridges in her life - physical and emotional - make for an authentic story that was hard to put down. It did drag a bit in the middle, during her "friendship" with Trina, and I found myself asking how many wrong/illegal things this girl could talk Jenna into doing before something bad happened or before she got smart and left Trina behind.

[Rhuddem Gwelin · Rating 4 out of 5]

JCO might be the best YA novel writer there is. This one does skid along on the edge of banal and sterotypical but never teeters over and in the end I find myself reading quite breathlessly. It's a page-turner and don't you just love the title?

[Arminzerella · Rating 2 out of 5]

Jenna Abbott wakes up (sort of) in the hospital after a terrible car accident on the Tappan Zee bridge, where her mother was killed and she was terribly injured. She’s on so much medication that she seems to drift up out of herself and “into the blue” – a phrase she keeps repeating to herself. That’s where she wants to stay, too, so she doesn’t have to think about what’s going to happen now. Despite her wishes, Jenna does have to come down, and she does have to make decisions about her life now that her mother is gone. She can’t bear to live with her father, who left them for some new family that he’s made, and who doesn’t know her or understand her and hasn’t been at all sensitive about the situation that she’s in, so Jenna chooses to live with her aunt and uncle and their family. It’s a really difficult transition for her. She leaves behind all of her friends, her home, and everything that used to be important to her. She’s extremely prickly with her new family and doesn’t make friends quickly or easily. There’s one person who seems to understand her – Crow – an older guy that goes to her high school, but Jenna’s too hurt and angry and then embarrassed to really open up to him until the end.

The one friend Jenna does make is Trina, and Trina is trouble with a capital TR. She’s reckless and careless and drinks, does drugs, and parties whenever she can. Jenna’s drawn to her for some reason. During the last party they attend together, a bunch of older guys get rough with Jenna and Trina. Jenna escapes serious injury only because she gets sick and throws up on one of them. The rest take Trina into another room, strip her, and attempt to gang rape her. Jenna manages to get help, but not before Trina is severely beaten. Trina refuses to speak to Jenna, and her mother moves her away – no charges are pressed against the guys who raped her. Jenna gets some flak from the guys who are still in school with her – for ratting them out. It’s Crow who steps in and defends her, and it’s then that she finally finds someone who understands what she’s been through.

There’s no romantic ending for Jenna and Crow. We find out that Crow is a much more complicated person (with a more complicated life) than it first appears – he’s already got a daughter and as soon as he graduates, he’ll be moving to another city to live with the mother of his child. Jenna discovers that she has the strength to go on and even the desire. Once she wants to live, things begin to fall into place for her.

Short, with short sentences, readers will race through Jenna’s troubled story. For those who like gritty, issue-rich teen fiction, this will be most appealing. Jenna’s anger and drug dependence didn’t do a whole lot for me – I think because I'm not struggling with these issues. I'm not sure that I ever did. I was most intrigued by Crow, and would have liked to hear a story from his perspective. Still, this was a decent story, and should be appreciated by a wide audience. I’m glad that Joyce Carol Oates didn’t give Jenna’s story a romantic ending – this was much more realistic.

[Tiffany Brooks · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is my favorite book. I read it at a time where I was struggling with everything happening in my life as a teen. This book was really transformative in the way that you read it and don't think you'll relate but it kind of reaches you anyway.

[Natalie · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5 stars

This was a really great YA story about love, loss, injury and addiction. It had a good story line, relatable characters, some few important messages to take away but the writing style just didn't really work for me.

It's hard for me to explain how this book was written. It had really short chapters (sometimes only a paragraph of a few lines) and instead of pulling me into the story and making me more engaged, it did the opposite. It was really jarring to read and pulled me out of the story. It also seemed like at some points it was trying to be much more deep then was really necessary.

I've read Joyce Carol Oates before, but one of her adult books, and I don't remember this writing style so maybe it was done for this book in general or just didn't work for this story (for me).

[LeslecturesdeMylene · Rating 4 out of 5]

16/20 - https://www.leslecturesdemylene.com/2...

[Wendy · Rating 5 out of 5]

This was a very sad book in so many ways. A very quick read.

[Jennifer Wardrip · Rating 4 out of 5]

Reviewed by Sally Kruger, aka "Readingjunky" for TeensReadToo.com

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.

[Mari · Rating 3 out of 5]

Marking this three stars is strange, because this is a well crafted book, if not one that you enjoy reading. It's short, and relatively easy to read, though it does take on hefty topics like drug abuse, drinking, and rape. I've read complaints about this book "trying too hard" but I enjoyed the way JCO played with words and structure. It gives the book a duality: flimsy, yet gritty, much like the life of our protagonist after she's involved in a fatal car accident.

I understood Jenna all throughout the book, even when I wanted to slap her.

I liked the character of Crow, but his involvement in the storyline was the weakest part for me, and the most forced thing. There was a bridge scene that had me rolling my eyes, because it takes Crow like 10 minutes to get Jenna through some issues she's been battling all book long. Okay.

Either way, I can appreciate this book for it's merit and substance.

[Kevin Hinman · Rating 1 out of 5]

Oh? Another Joyce Carol Oates story in which young women are sexually abused by older men. No one presses charges and the cycle of violence continues for another Oates day. Oh, there's some other drek about a car crash and some hunky older boy that reads like it's out of R. L. Stein.

Just awful.

[Fanny · Rating 1 out of 5]

Jag kunde inte hjälpa det. När jag börjat läsa en bok (och i det här fallet kommit nästan halvvägs) måste jag avsluta den.

[Nataly · Rating 4 out of 5]

After the Wreck, I Picked Myself Up, Spread My Wings, and Flew Away Is; about a 15-year-old girl named Jenna Abbott. Who is trying to accept the car accident that ended up killing her mother and sent her to the hospital and a rehabilitation center. She will not let anyone get close to her because she feels that everyone leaves her. Once she begins to live with her aunt and uncle in New Hampshire she pushes important people out of her life. She later becomes friends with Trina who is an extremely bad influence on Jenna she teaches her about underage drinking, cutting class and usage of drugs. Which causes Jenna to go to the hospital and after she goes through that experience she begins to evaluate her friendship.

The romance that happens in this story does seem believable. It’s believable because there are relationships in which one partner has built sort of a wall and the other partner tries to help them out to get rid of that “wall”. Crow becomes this person that Jenna can trust and she tells him things that she's kept hidden from a lot of people. This is a healthy relationship because he is always there for her.

I genuinely enjoyed the book very well. It is a bit over dramatic but I couldn't stop reading, once I began to read I could not stop. At the beginning of the book I was a bit confused about what happened but then I began to connect the dots. I liked that Jenna came to her senses and realized that Trina was a bad influence on her and cut her out of her life. Her romance with Crow made me feel that there are people out there who don’t judge you and are here to protect you and make you feel safe.

[Sirah · Rating 3 out of 5]

I suppose I should have expected that a teen novel about recovery would inevitably involve drugs, which means it would inevitably involve a rape scene. If you were not expecting this, consider this a trigger warning. It's not graphic, but it's there.

Anyway, aside from the PTSD I will now have to deal with for the next few days, I rather enjoyed this book. The title is poetic, and the rest of the novel follows that theme, cleverly using words, punctuation, sentence structure, and sometimes poor grammar to illustrate a depth of feeling that is almost palatable. It was very easy to empathize with the main character even as she makes unhealthy choices because I as the reader get an intimate look into the brokenness in her brain. This isn't a romantic tale either; I appreciate the break from the cliché "love fixes everything" rhetoric. While romance plays a part in this story, it is neither the focus of the book nor the solution to the conflicts therein. I don't have much else to stay about this book. It's a raw and real book, but beautiful in its brokenness.

[Pam · Rating 5 out of 5]

Fifteen year old Jenna Abbott blames herself and will never forgive herself for the accident that took place on the Tappan Zee Bridge. Before the accident Jenna was happy, lived with her mom, and had a very normal life. She did well in school and sports, had friends, and enjoyed her life. After the accident...

Jenna must recover mentally, emotionally, and physically from the car accident. She is in the hospital and rehab for a lengthy time and then goes to live with her Aunt Caroline and her family, leaving her entire past life behind. Jenna is loved but pushes people away and builds walls. She feels she will never be happy again. Her life takes a terrible downward spiral, one that she cannot get out of. She falls in with the wrong crowd, gets into drugs and drinking, and thinks less and less of herself. Can Jenna be saved?

This is an outstanding book and such an emotional roller coaster. JCO gets to the heart of Jenna's pain and angst. Considered a young adult book, but this old lady loved every word.

[Kristen · Rating 3 out of 5]

Totally possible that I just wasn't in the mood for a book like this, especially as I generally enjoy Joyce Carol Oates, but this book was just...okay. The recovery story of a young woman whose mom dies in the car accident that she survived, this just felt disjointed and incomplete. And disappointing. I just finished it with the thought, really? That's it? I mean, yeah, duh, I get some of it, but it just felt off. It was a quick read, so yay for that, but I don't know that I'd recommend it unless you're just looking for something fast and easy.

[Courtney Chappell · Rating 2 out of 5]

This was a very dramatic book. Jenna gets in a car crash which kills her mother. She moves in with her aunt and then connects with a group of kids at school that don’t make good decisions. I kept wanting her to turn her life around, but it wasn’t until Crow comes and saves her that she does. She has only a couple of times with Crow yet decides she is in love with him. Almost every scene, she would think about him. It got to the point that it was just annoying. The ending came very abruptly too and I didn’t enjoy this book very much.

[Guizotte · Rating 4 out of 5]

Un roman sur la reconstruction, si elle est possible, après un grave accident dont Jenna se sent responsable et où sa mère est morte. J’ai beaucoup aimé la manière de décrire les troubles psychologiques, la recherche d’un ailleurs où oublier ce qui s’est passé, par les médicaments contre la douleur notamment, les difficultés à tisser des liens, à retrouver sa place dans la famille. On y retrouve la noirceur habituelle de l’autrice mais tout de même avec des pointes d’espoir qui laissent une impression positive à la fin du roman.

[Christine · Rating 1 out of 5]

This book has been on my list to read for a long time, and it was very disappointing that I was not fond of it. The book showcased how Jenna handled her grief about the accident, but following her thoughts and interactions was difficult. Whether it was the writing style or the character herself, trying to understand Jenna's thoughts and feelings was as aggravating as untangling a ball of Christmas lights. Whether this was supposed to signify her concussion or not, it should not have been a spotty description throughout the book.

[Claudette · Rating 4 out of 5]

After the Wreck, I picked myself Up. Spread my Wings, and Flew Away by Joyce Carol Oates is actually a book written for Adults but I find it is perfect for teens as well. It deals with 15 year old Jenna recovering from a car accident in which her mother was killed. Not only does she have to learn how to live her life now without her mother, she is also dealing with a transition into a new high school and a new family. Sounds stressful? It is.

[Salty Swift · Rating 3 out of 5]

Realistic, if not a bit simplistic picture of post-dramatic syndrome a teen girl suffers after a car accident that involves her and her mom. Drug abuse is the focal point of the story along with depression and finding a balance in new family structure. I only wish the turns the story takes were less sugary...

[Crabbygirl · Rating 1 out of 5]

I've read this author before - in the adult section, and with mixed thoughts - but I thought I'd try her out as a YA author. in a word: yuck. the drama is over-the-top, the psychiatric help is absent, and the surrogate parents are willfully blind. whereas I found her characters in her adult novel behaving realistically, I thought these characters were little more than stereotypes.

[Erin · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5. I enjoyed it but it was fairly predictable. Except the role of Crow. I am glad the relationship between Jenna and Crow progressed as it did.
I do think people should have been more understanding and sympathetic about a child (15) who has gone through what she had. Esp her teachers.

[khdjh hmzh · Rating 3 out of 5]

I have mixed feelings (not a really good one tho) reading this book, its a fast pace book which i could finish it off in one sitting. At first its kinda boring and meh (where you will be a bit frustrated with Jenna) but as you went on its kinda captivating in some way. But the repetitions of some sentences kinda get in my nerve tho.

But i totally can feel Jenna pains after the wreck, the feeling of the world is against you no matter which ways you're looking or even when you're looking hard enough. Where you feel people just being nice to you because they sympatized of your situation.

However, Jenna is one lucky girl as she really has people who genuinely dote on her, Aunt Caroline's family. Her mother's sister. And new friends she able to make (Im proud) cause one know how hard to make a new friend, and even harder to find a better one.

I like her friendship with Crow, Crow is kinda bad boy, who she had a crush on, I like how they meet and the progress of their relationship. Crow is a good man by heart at least to Jenna.

Im gonna give 2 stars but I will settle with 3 cause Jenna did pick herself up, and she wasnt desperate desperate girl.

[Karen Crowe · Rating 5 out of 5]

Fascinating page-turner.

[Mauri · Rating 5 out of 5]

I loved this book. Could not put it down. I love the way ms Oates can really delve into a character. Great book. Author seems to really understand teens and young adults.

[Ashley · Rating 1 out of 5]

I was looking forward to this book but I personally had a hard time with the way the book was written as well as the writing style and I'm sad I had a hard time enjoying it.

[Colette · Rating 3 out of 5]

“See, people come into your life for a reason. They might not know it themselves, why. You might not know it. But there's a reason. There has to be.”

[Elin · Rating 4 out of 5]

En sån där vidrig bok när mamman dör. Jag minns ännu hur det blåa lugna havet visade sig vara morfin.