Then Again, Maybe I Won'T: A Novel

by Judy Blume

Unable to accept or explain his family's newly acquired wealth, his growing interest in sex, and a friend's shoplifting habit, a thirteen-year-old finds the pains in his stomach getting worse and worse.

• ISBN10: 0440486599
• ISBN13: 9780440486596
• Publish Date: 1 July 1986 (first published 1 January 1971)
• Publish Status: Temporarily Withdrawn
• Out of Print: 27 August 2015
• Publish Country: US
• Imprint: Bantam Doubleday Dell Publishing Group
• Format: Paperback
• Pages: 164
• Language: English

Reviews

[MurderByDeath]

...maybe that's the trouble.  Maybe kids don't always want you to give them everything."   What can I say?  I've been in the mood for Judy Blume and revisiting my childhood.     This book is more clearly dated, especially from a class-distinction POV; nowadays even 'posh' people don't look twice at owning a truck.  But I doubt very much that anything important has changed: Judy Blume nails what it means to be a confused teen with more questions than answers and no good place to ask them, and she so clearly illustrates that kids don't care about money; at least not until their parents have taught them to.     Then Again, Maybe I Won't is Blume's only YA book told from the POV of a boy and in typical Blume style she doesn't pull any punches.  Tony is a boy going through puberty with all potential for embarrassment that comes with it.  As a teen myself, I read it because it was scandalous, of course, but after reading it I also remember thinking "huh - girls aren't the only ones that got screwed".  It was a nicely equalising thought.   I'm guessing recent editions of this book have been updated to remove most of the anachronisms.  If so, I'd recommend it to anybody's teen - but only because I'd probably have no chance of getting them to read the "old fashioned" original.