In Search of Today’s Judy Blume: Why Gayle Forman’s Novels Fit The Bill
For some of us—okay, for three generations of kids who loved reading—Judy Blume is untouchable. Name something tough, or confusing, or mildly embarrassing, that you went through in childhood, and she has a book to make you feel less alone about it. But we’ve been wondering about something for a while now: is there a modern-day Blume out there? The answer is, yes…and no. There is no other author out there at the moment whose work reaches from Tales of a Fourth Grade Nothing through Forever and on to Summer Sisters. But there are some writers, namely in YA, who capture the spirit of at least one of her books. That’s why this is the first in a series.
Gayle Forman earns our “Today’s Judy Blume” title for the way she tackles loss and grief in a coming-of-age package. In Blume’s Tiger Eyes (1981), 15-year-old Davey Wexler’s father has just been murdered in a hold-up at his convenience store in Atlantic City. In part to deal with Davey’s PTSD, her mother decides they should move into their aunt and uncle’s house in Los Alamos, New Mexico. (Because, of course, the best way to help teenagers feel safe is to force them to move in the middle of high school.) Davey really wishes they’d just let her drop out of school entirely.
Forman’s 2009 novel If I Stay, which hits the big screen in August (watch the new trailer and just try not to flood your keyboard with tears), takes survivor’s guilt to a whole new level. After a car accident that kills her parents instantly and severely injures her and her little brother, Mia is thrown out of her body. She stands by and watches herself in the hospital as doctors struggle to save her, and her boyfriend fights to visit her in the ICU. But whether she lives or dies, it turns out, is actually up to her.
“What would it be like if I stay? What would it feel like to wake up an orphan? To never smell Dad smoke a pipe? To never stand next to Mom quietly talking as we do the dishes? To never read Teddy another chapter of Harry Potter?” Mia wonders. It’s in moments like this when Forman, like Blume before her, knows exactly how to make us feel like we’re not alone in the world. Whether you’ve experienced a death in your family, or just tortured yourself with the what-ifs, you know it’s those details—a pipe, or Harry Potter—that can really sucker-punch you.
Forman also shows grief from the point of view of teenage boys in the sequel, Where She Went, and 2013’s Just One Year (the companion book to Just One Day, which is all about self-discovery, love, and Paris, not death). Spoiler: Forman’s boys don’t just do a lot of sleeping around and avoidance to get over all their feels, though there’s plenty of that too.
These contemporary plots are by necessity much more complicated than a Blume novel; this is a much more sophisticated era for YA literature. But at the core of both writers’ stories is an essential question: If you lose the people who were supposed to guide you into adulthood, how does that change the kind of grownup you want to be? These aren’t tearjerkers, though you might find your pages/devices damp from time to time. They’re tales of inner strength, and the fun bits of life (like sexy rocker/rock-climbing boyfriends, adventures in Bollywood, and really good friends) that make the pain of loss fade into the background.
Who do you think earns the Today’s Judy Blume title? We’ll have more of our own picks in the weeks to come, but we want to hear your suggestions, too!