In the Unlikely Event by Judy Blume

Lynnie

historical fiction

It's been 30+ years since I spent any time with Judy Blume's writing. In some ways, In the Unlikely Event was like spending time with an old friend- unfortunately though, it's the old friend I've outgrown.

There were two aspects of Unlikely Event that I really had problems with- the first is that while the story is interesting in many ways it unfolds slowly. Like the plane crashes the book is centered around, you know it's coming but it's hard to watch.

The second issue is the sheer number of narrators in this book. Each character gets a page or two (or sometimes as little as a paragraph) to tell you the story from their perspective. I lost count somewhere around the fifteenth narrator and found myself annoyed by the constantly switching perspective. Just as someone's story would get interesting, we'd be thrust into someone else's point of view- sometimes about the same event, sometimes regarding something entirely different. It gave me literary whiplash. Worse though, I found that there were so many characters that I stopped caring about most of them entirely.

The story just wasn't focused enough for my tastes.