In the Unlikely Event (edição 2015)

I'm one of the few people that have never read a Judy Blume book. I enjoyed this read as an interesting study of people in the 50's and a good story but it wasn't great literature. At some times I wondered what was the point but I think the point was a recreation of that time and the unbelievable events that happened in Elizabeth, New Jersey. The title, I thought, is particularly clever. ( )

Best part of book was finding out this was based on actual events in author’s youth. It would affect middle schoolers profoundly to see results of plane crashes. Taking place in 1951, the kids should be more reserved. So many characters that you weren’t sure were important yet their viewpoint was there. Impressed with journalist uncle. Mother Rusty was trying to be friend which wasn’t true of that time. Miri becoming so sexual didn’t seem true. Rest of it was compelling and more realistic. Except for Natalie with visions and eating disorders. Funny how Miri’s dream of being part of friends family came true in odd way. Not a true Blume book with feelings that drew investment into characters. ( )

3.5 This much is true: in a 3-month span in 1951-52, three different planes crashed in Elizabeth, NJ. Judy Blume lived there at the time as an eight grader. Clearly those events have been percolating in the back of her mind for a good long while. All the characters are fictional and she does a wonderful job of intertwining them is subtle ways so that the crashes truly have an impact on the town and its inhabitants. The main character, Miri Ammerman is a 9th grade girl who has her own concerns of friendship and young love and family issues. She lives with her young, beautiful single mother, Rusty, her widowed grandmother Irene and her Uncle Henry, a newspaper reporter in town. She is best friends with Natalie Osner, a wealthy girl whose father is the town dentist (Dr. O) and whose mother Corinne is the type of homemaker and society member that makes things happen Natalie has a younger sister and older brother. In Miri's eyes they are the perfect family and they accept her as part of it and she is happy and ensconced in her small-ish town life. When the first plane crashes in Dec. things begin to shift and change for Miri. She and her mother witness the fire ball in the sky and the resulting landing on the frozen river. There are no survivors. Natalie begins to "channel" one of the victims, Ruby, a dancer and this leads her down her own path of change and struggles. Miri tries to "go on" with her life and finds her first love, Mason. They have a sweet and mutually caring relationship that develops with the story. When the second plane crashes in Jan, it hits an apt. building in town and some of the victims are closer to home, tightening the circle of those impacted and the loss it creates in Elizabeth. There begins to be talk of conspiracies and deliberate attacks (this is the height of the Cold War and McCarthyism, the Rosenbergs, and space exploration) and fear takes root. The third crash in Feb. breaks things wide open, including Miri's family, her relationship with Mason, her friendships, and the Osner family. Throughout the book, Blume flits from character to character to show different view-points and impacts of the crashes. This is mostly effective, especially from the main characters, but a little confusing and gratuitous when random, minor ones are included. News articles ("written" by Henry Ammerman) are also included, grounding the personal stories in the broader public event. Great attention to 1950s era detail and big picture/little picture outlook. ( )

More of a 2.5. The real life events were an interesting basis for the story. There was not as much depth as I would have liked and the plot is predictable. It was a fast, light read and I enjoyed it. ( )

I almost just posted a gif of someone's head exploding since that was my reaction while reading this book.

Judy Blume takes real life events that happened while she was growing up in New Jersey, and uses these events to shape the lives of the fictional townspeople in her book. If you are interested you can go here to read more about these plane crashes, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Airlines_Flight_6780. I honestly did not know that much at all about these events and was shocked that there were three plane crashes in short succession in Elizabeth, New Jersey in the 1950s. Besides that interesting historical factoid this book really was not at all what I expected it to be. I have read other Judy Blume adult novels and some I had a hard time with Summer Sisters and others I thought were really good like Wifey.

Using the events of the 1950s, Judy Blume follows several families in the town of Elizabeth, New Jersey and we get to read about all of the ways the crashes changed the town and people.

So the big problem for me was the abundance of characters we got in this book. All told in third person, we go skipping around a bunch of different characters every other page or so. There is a heading for each change to the POV (which by the way is totally necessary) since after a while, I had a hard time keeping straight who was talking, what was going on with them, etc.

I think that Miri Ammerman is supposed to be the main character in this book, however, we also focus on characters such as Miri's best friend Natalie, her brother Steven, Natalie's mother and father, Miri's uncle and Miri's uncle's girlfriend, Miri's boyfriend, Miri's boyfriend's brother's girlfriend, etc. It was too much.

It also didn't help that I really didn't care for Miri and found her to be boring. There is a scene where Miri writes an op-ed piece for her school newspaper about the plane crashes and hypothesis that someone is doing it in order to target children and I rolled my eyes. This scene was supposed to set up how Miri is going to be a great writer someday apparently. Miri and her mother at times were not sympathetic characters at all.

I think this could have been a stronger novel if we had cut out all of the extraneous people, by either focusing on Miri, or just Miri's family. I was overwhelmed by the sheer number of people and plots that were going on with everyone.

Due to the sheer number of characters, the flow of the novel was all wrong from start to finish. It's hard to keep the flow going if every other page you are jumping back and forth between people, and then not following up with said person for about 20 pages, or in some cases, not at all. It was maddening to me.

The writing at time reminded me of classic Judy Blume (talking about feelings down there, periods), but it didn't grab me like older Judy Blume novels. I found myself bored and at times caught myself yawning while reading. It didn't help that we had run on sentences all of the time, and I had to go back to figure out who Blume was talking about when she decided to go and highlight another tertiary character out of the blue. Also when we have Blume depicting the plane crashes it just reads like a manual. I had the same problem when I read Alice Hoffman's The Museum of Extraordinary Things. Taking a real life event and using that to shape a book is a good idea. But it felt like the event was shoehorned in the book and didn't really have much to do with the book at all.

The setting of the town of Elizabeth, New Jersey really didn't come alive for me at all. I think it could have, if some portions were cut. I was really confused by the layout of the town, and also trying to understand the different schools, neighborhoods, etc.

The ending kind of made me sigh. Miri even in her 50s apparently is still ridiculous. I just shrugged my shoulders and was glad to set this book aside. I would only recommend to hard core Judy Blume fans who want to read her first novel in 15 years. ( )