A review by chanadevorah
Are You There God? It's Me, Margaret by Judy Blume

funny lighthearted fast-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? No
• Flaws of characters a main focus? No

5.0

i never read this book when i was young because my mom told me to and i didn’t want to and i thought periods were super awkward and scary and cringey. it was kind of fun to read as an adult - on the one hand i think the conversations margaret and her friends have about periods are sort of funny, because i’m now long past the part of my life where a period was weird/new/scary/a huge deal to figure out how to deal with. the book does feel very accurate to my memory of feelings and conversations about things like periods, bras, boys, that i had with my peers at the time. the part where they had to keep a “boy book” with a ranked order of which boys they liked and update it every week, but margaret just picked two people and never changed the list had me laughing out loud bc she was so real for that. i also didn’t know that a lot of the book was about margaret feeling alienated from her peers for not being any religion, and her trying to sort out of there is any religion or type of god she feels connected to. this book was really about so much more than periods but a lot of parts about growing up, and how it’s okay to be different or feel different from your peers when it can feel like the end of the world if other kids think you’re weird. also apparently judy blume has written a ton of super “controversial” novels so i guess im entering my judy blume era bc i want to read all of them