Judy Blume is one of the authors of my childhood; how cool is it to read one of her books as an adult, meant for adults. Its like meeting up with an old friend.
In her new book, In the Unlikely Event, Blume recalls events from her own childhood in Elizabeth, NJ during the early 1950s where 3 planes crashed in their tiny, pleasant town. The novel is focused on 15 year old Miri, but several other characters get their chance to voice their own ideas and point of view. The book finished 35 years in the future so you can get a true ending to the story.
I listened to Blume talk on NPR about the novel and how she does not normally provide an ending like this, instead telling her disgruntled readers that it is up to them to decide what happens to the characters. Blume stated that she decided to create an ending, because she too wanted to know what happened to them. I really love that. We often think that authors know everything about the characters they write, but this idea makes us feel part of the journey with her. I just really dug that.
Ok, so how was the book? I liked it. It was a really good summer read, something that you would like to read at the beach or pool. Like I said above, Blume switches POV between multiple characters throughout the book, which is something that I really enjoy in a book, and Blume does an OK job with this, others have done it better, for example: Barbara Kingsolver’s The Poisonwood Bible, Tom Rachman’s The Imperfectionists, Jonathan Franzen’s The Corrections to name a few. In these novels you can clearly see and feel the different characters talking; that is make this type of writing so amazing. Blume does an okay job with it. You don’t really feel like you are reading different people’s inner thoughts, it is more a retelling, like a deposition for something.
This is also not a book that you will want to read, put down for a few days and then come back to later; one can easily forget the characters and not be able to keep them straight. Or maybe I am just awful at remembering characters. Shrug.
The good stuff: It was a very satisfying read, especially since it gave nice closure. At times parts of the book were surprising which kept you reading and involved. I also really like the idea of it being based on real events, but the people and their stories are fictional.
I would recommend reading it if you have a passing interest in picking it up.
Next up: The Dinner by Herman Koch
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