Customer Reviews

After the Reunion

5 star:		(2)
4 star:		(5)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

I enjoyed this book just as much as Class Reunion. In fact, Class Reunion should have just been one big book. This book brings things full circle. The girls meet up again and become actual friends as they had started out as in Class Reunion. At the end, I kept wanting more pages b/c I wanted to know what happened to them. (I'd convinced myself on the last page that I saw more text and was disappointed when there wasn't more!) Everyone's "second" life seemed to be working for them and they seemed to be happy. It's kind of like they fell into something wonderful instead of going towards something that they were "supposed" to want. This books makes me seriously think about the things I want in my own life.

I do not read much in the way of "popular fiction" (Danielle Steel, Nora Roberts, Jackie Collins, etc.), but I read "Class Reunion" by Rona Jaffe when I was a teenager. Back then, of course, I was probably looking for the racy parts, but the characters stayed with me and I reread the book a number of times over the years.

I was thrilled when "After the Reunion" was published, and read it immediately. And now, when I feel like revisiting familiar characters ("comfort reading," I call it), I reread "After the Reunion" rather than "Class Reunion." I like the way the characters learn to take charge of their lives in so-called middle age, and escape their rigid 1950s upbringings. They show that it's never too late to change your life for the better! I also like that we get details on the next generation as well, specifically Annabelle's daughter Emma and Emily's daughter Kit. Annabelle and Chris, however, remain my favorite characters throughout both books.

If you are looking for involving fiction that follows several characters, pick up both these books. Definitely read "Class Reunion" first, but don't forget "After the Reunion" as well.

This book continues the stories of the four Harvard/Radcliffe graduates of the '50s. However, it isn't quite as gripping plotwise, as the original "Class Reunion". I don't want to give the plot away, because it is just fascinating how they all end up. However, the ending seemed incomplete in that not everyone's life was tied up and set.

I think that Rona should have a third sequal which takes the four college graduates into menopause. In her later books, Road Taken, and Room-Mating season, she certainly takes her characters into old-age!

But, this is definitely one of the better Rona Jaffe novels, and absolutely required once you finish "Class Reunion".

In the early eighties I read Jaffe`s "Class Reunion", my third Jaffe novel. It was translated into German and I was lucky to find it in hardcover before it came out in paperback.
At the university library I made some research on Rona Jaffe books(remember those were the pre-Internet days) and found out there is a sequel to "Class Reunion" - of course I was thrilled and wanted to know how the story goes on. [...]BR>Not having any experience so far with reading American novels in English I ordered the paperback issue of "After the Reunion" in English and got it after 8 weeks. Spent the whole summer with this novel looking up about twenty words per page, but I succeeded and at the end I had the feeling, it was worth the effort. I definitely couldn`t understand why Rowohlt didn`t find this novel worth to be translated into German.

[...].BR>There`s only one other American novelist that I can recommend as highly as Rona Jaffe, and that`s Nancy Thayer. Both have written some of the best novels for women over the last 20 years.

I wish there would be a TV mini series on "Class Reunion" and "After the Reunion".

As the sequel to "Class Reunion," I read this book long ago and was thrilled to recently find it and "Class Reunion" in hardback for my collection. Although I see that Amazon.com readers rate "Class Reunion" a better book, as I've read (and re-read) the two novels over the years I find that I now like "After the Reunion" better than its predecessor. You should read "Class Reunion" first and get to know (and care about) the characters, and then read "After the Reunion" -- it is truly a "feel good" read.

Recently I found the two books in paperback and, since I've enjoyed them so, bought them for a friend (who up to now has read nothing but Nora Roberts!) to take on her annual camping vacation. She said she loved them so much that she changed her whole vacation routine and read the books from the time she got up until about 2:00 in the afternoon and picked them up again after dinner (her whole family accused her of being anti-social)! When I asked her which of the 2 books she liked better, she said "After the Reunion." I'm hopeful that people will not see the "average reader rating" for this book and choose not to read it, because they will be missing a wonderful story about four(+) characters the reader will truly care about.

What a great sequel! This book flows so seamlessly with it's predecessor 'Class Reunion', that it's difficult to remember where that book ended, and this one started. We pick up almost right where we left off in 'Class Reunion'...5 years after the girls 20th reunion from Radcliffe.

This book also has some new voices too! We hear Kat's (Emily's daughter) narrative, as well as Emma's, who is Annabel's daughter. Also, Teddy, Daphne's youngest son, starts up a journal that we read...but that, I thought, was a bit out of place. In the whole book, there were only about 4 entries in the journal...and while it was nice because it gave you a different point of view into the Caldwell family, I think I would have liked to have seen it a little more developed.

Regardless, the book was great. I was bummed when I finished because I'd gotten so used to picking up a book, and reading about the lives of these four women, whom I've come to feel like I know personally. I just received two more of Ms. Jaffe's books in the mail, and can't wait to start on them...I'm so glad I discovered her books, they've quickly become my all time favorites!

A wonderful Jaffe storytelling sequel to Class Reunion. Now 25 years after four girls have graduated from Radcliffe, they reconnect throughout the book, each with lives of happiness, betrayals, secrets and as you watch them create their goals, you're "pulling" for each one of them. Although I did not read this immediately after Class Reunion, I as able to remember each girl's personality, attitude, lifestyle, dreams... and the men in their lives. You'll find yourself asking "Which one am I like"???

This wasn't quite as terrific as the original Class Reunion, or The Best of Everything, but it certainly came close. This follow up to Class Reunion features the same women with a few additions. Each woman has a story to tell about how her life measured up to the 1950's stereotypical view of women's roles in society.

All of these women, based on the 1980's view of new values, have found that their original choices of home, hearth, and motherhood had unexpected challenges and heartbreak. After the Reunion shows the women regrouping and following destinies they never imagined in college. Instead, each of them breaks ground with a new career as well as a new relationship after discovering their husbands had become drug addicts, cheaters, or drunks.

Jaffe has a style which doesn't rely on loads of dialogue. She breaks the rule and tells the thoughts of her characters. Yet her books are extremely readable and very enjoyable.

I thought is was kind of boring and it did not really keep my interes