Are you there, God? It’s me, Janice. Could you please ask Judy Blume to stick to adolescent fiction? She is so very good at it!
In 1967, Miri Ammerman returns to her hometown of Elizabeth, New Jersey, to attend a commemoration of the worst year of her life.
Thirty-five years earlier, when Miri was 15 and in love for the first time, a succession of airplanes fell from the sky, leaving a community reeling.
Against the backdrop of actual events in the early 1950s, when airline travel was new and exciting and everyone dreamed of going somewhere, Blume tells the story of three generations of family, friends and strangers whose lives are profoundly changed by these disasters.
Based on a true story, In the Unlikely Event promises to be very engaging.
While an interesting concept, interspersed with historical references and Blume’s unparalleled storytelling, I kept wishing for more interesting characters.
The characters are involved in adult situations but are written almost solely in the teenage voice, with the narrator changing often, sometimes six or seven times in one chapter. At times it was quite confusing.
For the first several chapters, I had to keep referring back to figure out who everyone was. The one mainstay was Miri, the main character. Miri is 14 and obsessed with such things as dances, first love, her first sexual encounter and the main underlying theme of falling out with a best friend — very interesting topics for a young teenage girl (I’m sure, as they were for me at the age of 14 when I was heavily into Judy Blume’s work).
Unfortunately though, while reading this novel as an adult, I was bored. While not a terrible book, the themes, conversations and character musings were just not very interesting. I was hoping for a more mature, updated version of the books I enjoyed as a young girl, but instead I found a teen book wrapped in adult book’s clothing.
I really had to slog my way through this one and had to stop myself from moving on to the next book on my nightstand. I think I didn’t out of loyalty to Ms. Blume, and quite frankly I feel a little guilty for not loving it.
Sorry to say, but the shine is off the apple for me and I have come away from this book a little disappointed. 2.5/5.
