I finished reading
Then Again, Maybe I Won't and maybe now I have the Judy Blume YA out of my system and am ready to return to "grown-up books."
I enjoyed Then Again... and it's yet another book I wish I'd read as a kid and not waited until adulthood to get to. Though I didn't like it quite as much as Are You There God, It's Me Margaret, it is still a more than worthy follow-up to that classic novel.
I appreciate Judy Blume's willingness to write about slightly screwed-up characters who don't always do the right thing. Tony Miglione, our 13-year-old protagonist, is a decent kid but far from perfect. He notices that Lisa, the attractive 15-year-old neighbor girl (whose bedroom window just happens to be directly across from Tony's) changes her clothes without closing the blinds. Tony becomes a voyeur, though he seems to have some guilt surrounding it, but not enough to quit. In fact, when his parents ask him what he wants for Christmas, he only requests one item: binoculars. I'm sure you can guess what he plans on using the binoculars for. I like that Judy Blume doesn't make a moral judgement on Tony's behavior and leaves this to the reader.
Joel is Lisa's brother and becomes Tony's first friend upon moving from Jersey City to the posh NYC suburbs along the north shore of Long Island. If you grew up in the '70s or '80s, you'll remember the days when your first friends where friends of geographical convenience. If the neighbor had a kid about your age, that kid became your friend. You tolerated whatever their peculiarities were. What choice did you really have? Joel and Lisa are spoiled rich kids whose self-absorbed parents don't seem to pay much attention to them. Joel likes to make prank phone calls and casually shoplift whenever he feels like it. Tony disapproves of this behavior but is too afraid to lose Joel as a friend--and be labeled a snitch--to call Joel out for his thievery. (Spoiler alert: Joel finally gets caught and this makes for one of the most satisfying scenes in the book).
The adults in the book have their own problems. Of course, we see these through Tony's judgmental eyes, but for the adult reader, it's easy to sympathize or empathize with their plights. Tony's parents are clearly still grieving the loss of their oldest son Vinnie in the Vietnam War. Tony's mother Carmela (yes, I kept picturing Edie Falco's character Carmela Soprano) is taking it particularly hard. One suspects it will be a permanent emotional scar--how could it not be? She is also having a difficult time adjusting to life as a newly affluent suburban housewife. Tony is frustrated by her behavior, but any adult reader can sympathize to some degree. Her navigation of this new environment has to be as fraught as Tony's.
Tony's grandmother is the saddest case in the book. Early on, we learn that she had cancer and her larynx was removed--hence, she cannot talk. Her primary pleasure in life is cooking for the Miglione family. However, when they move to the 'burbs, Carmela decides that grandma will no longer cook for the family (or, more accurately, the maid that Carmela hires strongarms her into appointing her--the maid--into becoming the new cook). Thus, grandma is deprived from the one activity that made her feel useful. Grandma retires to her bedroom and rarely leaves. All attempts to cajole her--even a brand-new color television--fail. Somehow, it never occurs to Carmela to let grandma cook. Though it is never stated in the book, she seems too intimidated by the maid to demote her cooking duties.
In Judy Blume novels, there is no easy resolution. She is unafraid of leaving loose ends and leaving the characters' future post-novel lives up to the readers' imagination. Tony deals with anxiety throughout the book and in the final 1/3 of the book he begins to see a therapist. There is reason to believe that he is making improvements and will be just fine. Joel is headed to military school due to his misbehavior, so his future is unresolved. Does he get his shit together or does he turn into a Trump-like narcissist? And when we leave Grandma Miglione, she is as sad is ever, though she does give Tony emotional comfort at a particularly low point for him. Judy Blume has enough respect for the readers' intelligence to allow us to create our own ending (or endings with an "s").
