Coline is an angry high school student. She lives in a small mining town in northern France, suffering from deindustrialization. The abandoned slag heaps, near shopping centers and mini-golf courses, are the only rewilded places in the area.
To survive in a social environment that shows her no mercy, particularly due to the proliferation of stereotypical discourse that pervades it, she takes refuge in an offbeat imaginary world and develops a passion for the music of Afro-descendant poet and singer Jamila Woods, with whom she develops a close relationship. In her wake, she develops magical thinking and language, allowing her to express her questioning about her lesbianism, veganism, and attraction to nature, in an environment where such concerns occupy little space. Until, during an evening even more difficult than others, Coline decides to flee into the night, among the vegetation of the slag heap.
Written from Coline’s perspective, in a inhabited language that rings all the more true as the dialogues between young people come from writing workshops with high school students, this book offers a dive into the thoughts and angry humor of a generation in search of meaning and beauty.
