In the Unlikely Event (Blume)

Book Reviews
Judy Blume isn’t just revered, she’s revolutionary.... The novel moves with momentum, told in short chapter bursts, newspaper reports and even scripted dialogue.... Blume nails every 1950s detail, from the refinished basements with wet bars and knotty-pine walls to Elizabeth Taylor haircuts and mentions of Bogart and Bacall.... 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.
Caroline Leavitt - New York Times Book Review


A heartfelt novel intended to be heartwarming. In that it fully succeeds.
Sherryl Connelly - New York Daily News


It’s Judy Blume and, therefore, it’s gold.... Despite tragedy at its core, [In the Unlikely Event] soars.
Jacqueline Cutler - Newark Star Ledger


Comfort reading at its most soothing, the turn of its pages like sitting down with a beloved, long-lost friend.
Lucy Scholes - Independent (UK)


Quite simply, extraordinary.
Viv Groskop - Guardian (UK)


Blume, in clear and forthright storytelling, creates realistic characters searching for happiness while dodging the obstacles placed in their way. She does it with a compassionate understanding of life’s setbacks and the power we all have to survive and move on.
Carol Memmott - Chicago Tribune


In the Unlikely Event gives us everything that Blume is known (and beloved) for—the fierce, fraught nature of young relationships, the comfort and confines of cultural identity, the messiness and joys of the body—and takes it to a new level. This novel is her most ambitious to date, and she lives up to its reach with her characteristic frankness, compassion, and charm.
Gayle Brandeis - San Francisco Chronicle


Will appeal to loyal fans as well as new readers.... In Miri, Blume deftly exposes the inner life of a teenager girl during the 1950s—and not the sanitized version so often portrayed. In the Unlikely Event integrates Blume’s acclaimed observation of the teenage experience with intimate knowledge of an unusual series of events, making it a page-turner with cross-generational appeal.
Meganne Fabrega - Minneapolis Star-Tribune


Satisfying, heartfelt.... Delivers on the warm nostalgia that we remember from Blume’s earlier books.... It is her signature unparalleled ability to capture the innermost lives of teenagers that makes In the Unlikely Event vintage Judy Blume.
Melissa M. Firman - Pittsburgh Post-Gazette


[In the Unlikely Event] does not disappoint.... 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—characterizes her adult novels as distinctly as it does her YA output.
Emily Simon - Buffalo News


Blume creates characters who are real and sympathetic.
Amanda St. Amand - St. Louis Post-Dispatch


The details of the time and place ring true, and so do the feelings of the characters.
Margaret Quamme - Columbus Dispatch


An ambitious book that combines adult experience with the sweet familiarity of Blume’s writing for and about younger people.... The novel rivals Tolstoy or Ferrante in its number of characters, families, and stories, and it feels not just believable but like a regular preteen-style Judy Blume page-turner, emotionally resonant and down-to-earth at once.... It’s also the experience of being in Blume’s authoritative hands, reading a dramatic story about daily life told in a funny, orderly, honest style. Blume is always kind to her readers; the suffering her characters experience feels real but never cruel, never melodramatic.... [Her books are] deftly crafted, and she’s done the hard work for us.... Reading In the Unlikely Event is like reconnecting with a long-lost friend.
Sarah Larson - The New Yorker


Judy Blume is back—and on her game!... A deftly written story that captures a town coping with loss and the sudden fame that horrible tragedy brings. You won’t want to turn the last page.
Kim Hubbard - People Magazine


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.
Aimee Levitt - Chicago Reader

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.
Alexis Burling - Oregonian


Has [Judy Blume’s] signature warm, personal touch.
Megan O’Grady - Vogue.com


The three fatal plane crashes that hit Elizabeth, N.J., during the winter of 1951–52 are the inspiration for Elizabeth-native Blume's latest adult novel...while posing the question, how do individuals, families, and communities, deal with disaster?... [C]haracteristically accessible, frequently charming, and always deeply human.
Publishers Weekly


(Starred review.)There is no surprise that [In the Unlikely Event] is smoothly written, and its story compelling. The setting—the early 1950s—is especially well realized.... A new Blume novel will always be big news. —Michael Cart
Booklist


[A] story that mingles facts...[with] fictional characters. Though it's not always clear where truth ends and imagination begins.... 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.
Kirkus Reviews