The New York Times Book Review - Caroline Leavitt
…Blume has threaded these lives together in an essential way and given every one of them importance…Devastating secrets are uncovered, moving love stories play out or fade to black. Blume, whose fiction for adults has the same emotional immediacy as her books for children, makes us feel the pure shock and wonder of living, the ways we get through catastrophe—and the ways we fail. But our connections might save us. "Terrible things can happen in this life but being in love changes everything," one character says. We are all passengers in this world, Blume suggests, fastening our seatbelts, hoping we reach our desired destinations and bracing for what comes next.
From the Publisher
Makes us feel the pure shock and wonder of living. . . . Judy Blume isn’t just revered, she’s revolutionary.” —The New York Times Book Review
“[A] page-turner, emotionally resonant and down-to-earth. . . . Reading In the Unlikely Event is like reconnecting with a long-lost friend.” —The New Yorker
“Gives us everything that Blume is known (and beloved) for. . . . This novel is her most ambitious to date, and she lives up to its reach with her characteristic frankness, compassion, and charm.” —San Francisco Chronicle
“Judy Blume is back—and on her game! . . . You won’t want to turn the last page.” —People
“A page-turner with cross-generational appeal. . . . Will appeal to loyal fans as well as new readers.” —Minneapolis Star Tribune
“A fascinating novel. . . . Blume, in clear and forthright storytelling, creates realistic characters searching for happiness. . . . Just as dramatic as the devastation and panic caused by the crashes are Blume's ruminations on the mysteries of the human heart. ” —Chicago Tribune
“Judy Blume is still here, opening our eyes to the daily astonishments of life all these years later.” —USA Today
“Quite simply, extraordinary. . . . Utterly brilliant.” —The Observer (London)
“Blume succeeds in capturing the condition of an entire community. . . . No one captures coming-of-age milestones and stomach butterflies like Blume, and those scenes are worth waiting for.” —The Boston Globe
“Judy Blume’s writing is simply a delight. . . . Blume is a master at presenting the complexities of life. This novel is entertaining, heartbreaking, and redeeming.” —The Missourian
“Heartwarming.” —New York Daily News
“Satisfying, heartfelt. . . Delivers on the warm nostalgia that we remember from Blume’s earlier books and will appeal to her admirers—of which I am absolutely one—who regard any new book by this trailblazing literary and cultural icon as a celebratory event.” —Melissa M. Firman, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
“Blume creates characters who are real and sympathetic.” —St. Louis Post-Dispatch
“Excellent and satisfying. . . Has all the elements of Blume’s best books: the complex relationships between friends and family members, the straight talk and lack of shame about sex, and, most of all, the compassionate insight into the pleasures and pains of growing up.” —Chicago Reader
“Has [Blume’s] signature warm, personal touch.” —Vogue.com
“Vividly rendered. . . Blume deftly demonstrates just how different the personal fallout from tragedy can turn out to be. . . . As Blume proves over and over again not just in In the Unlikely Event but in all of her fiction, life does go on in spite of hardship. We love. We lose. We fail. We may fall. But the lucky ones, we try our best to endure.” —The Oregonian
“Soars. . . . It’s Judy Blume and, therefore, it’s gold.” —Newark Star Ledger
“Judy Blume is revered. She is claimed, and cherished, and clutched close to the hearts of American adolescents and former adolescents, everywhere that books are read. . . . Blume’s great gift is [her] personal touch; her unflinching but reassuring voice—that of a no-nonsense big sister who gives it to you straight, then gives you a hug.” —Buffalo News
“Characteristically accessible, frequently charming, and always deeply human.” —Publishers Weekly
“Compelling. . . . Smoothly written. . . . A new Blume novel will always be big news.” —Booklist (starred review)
Kirkus Reviews
2015-03-17
A beloved author returns with a novel built around a series of real-life plane crashes in her youth. Within 58 days in the winter of 1951-'52, three aircraft heading into or outbound from Newark Airport crashed in the neighboring town of Elizabeth, New Jersey, taking 116 lives. Blume (Summer Sisters, 1998, etc.), who was a teenager there at the time, has woven a story that mingles facts about the incidents and the victims—among them, Robert Patterson, secretary of war under Truman—with the imagined lives of several families of fictional characters. Though it's not always clear where truth ends and imagination begins, the 15-year-old protagonist, Miri Ammerman, is a classic Blume invention. Miri lives with her single mother, Rusty, her grandmother Irene, and her uncle Henry, a young journalist who makes his reputation reporting on the tragedies for the Elizabeth Daily Post. In addition to the crashes, one of which she witnesses firsthand, Miri faces drama with her mom, her best friend, the adviser of her school newspaper, and her first real boyfriend, an Irish kid who lives in an orphanage. Nostalgic details of life in the early '50s abound: from 17-inch Zeniths ("the biggest television Miri had ever seen") to movie-star haircuts ("She looked older, but nothing like Elizabeth Taylor") to popular literature—"Steve was reading that new book The Catcher in the Rye. Christina had no idea what the title meant. Some of the girls went on dates to Staten Island, where you could be legally served at 18....The Catcher in the Rye and Ginger Ale." The book begins and ends with a commemorative gathering in 1987, giving us a peek at the characters' lives 35 year later, complete with shoulder pads and The Prince of Tides. Though it doesn't feel much like an adult novel, this book will be welcomed by any Blume fan who can handle three real tragedies and a few four-letter words.
