Customer Reviews

Class Reunion

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3 star:		(1)
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Since discovering Ms. Jaffe, I've been devouring her books as quickly as I can, though I'm also trying to savour them knowing that once I've read them all, there will be no more. While my favorite is still 'The Road Taken'...'Class Reunion' is my now second favorite.

Emily, Annabel, Chris, and Daphne are young women of the fifties when we meet them; starting their freshmen year at Radcliffe, and looking for potential husbands at the neighboring Harvard. These women are so different, and take such diverse paths in their lives, you can't hardly put the book down without wondering what's gonna happen next! There wasn't a character I didn't like in this book...and the ending was very satisfying.

As soon as I finished this book, I picked up the sequel 'After The Reunion', and I'm lovin' it. I have nothing but praise for Ms. Jaffe's and her books, and am looking forward to all the books of hers that I have yet to read. If your a fan of women's fiction...DEFINITELY give Rona Jaffe a try...you won't be disappointed!!

I first read CLASS REUNION after reading Rona Jaffe's THE FAME GAME. I found it to be a hilarious, heartwarming story about four women and how their lives change throughout their college years and lives as wives, mothers, career women, and lovers. There's Annabel, a spirited romantic, Chris, whose love for a man almost destroys her own happiness, Emily whose desire to please results in her own emotional breakdown and Daphne who prefers to look at life through rose colored glasses not realizing the high price that she and her family will pay in the future. Then there are the men in their lives who add to the mix. Max, whose alternative lifestyle will result in a tragedy, Alexander, Chris's husband who manages to hurt the people whom he loves the most, Ken, the perfect doctor whose patience with Emily is tried and tried again, and Richard, Daphne's College Sweetheart who took what he wanted regardless of who he hurt in the process. A wonderful book about women's friendships and the painful reality that as much as you may try, you just can't go back in time.

A must-read, at least every 5 years before your own class reunion. You'll identify w/each character...the odds are, one will be reminiscent of yourself, another of your best friend! So much so, you'll be wondering if Rona Jaffe stole your diary!! The trials & tribulations of 4 friends, each w/a distinct personality, culture & lifestyle. Linked by memories which are endearing, poignant, humorous, sexual, sometimes shocking. It's typifies life's roller coaster ride. Only the real world could be so unbelievable & unpredictable. A literary hot fudge sundae!

Maybe 15 years ago I first read "Class Reunion", not knowing at that time that there exists a sequel called "After the Reunion".
I really loved "Class Reunion" and read it several times over the last years.
Of course I wanted to read other Jaffe novels, but only two more were published in Germany, "The last Chance"(which I found as excellent as "Class Reunion") and "The Best of Everything" which I found kind of hard to read and a bit boring, but the movie with Joan Crawford is very good, much better than the book. Very dramatic, a soap opera.
There`s only one other American novelist that I can recommend as much as Rona Jaffe, and that`s Nancy Thayer.

I discovered this author in the 1960's when her "the best of everything" hit the best sellers list. Once again her "Class Reunion" takes the female psych through their paces with a powerful saga of the lives and loves of college students and the years thereafter. The characters are very believable and we will all recognize someone from our college days emerging from its pages. If you are truthful enough maybe even yourself.

This is a wonderful novel that tells the story of 4 college girls coming of age in the 1950s: Emily-The Idiot, Chris-The Intellectual, Susan-the Golden Girl, and Annabelle-the Harvard Wh*&#.

Each has her own personality, issues, and baggage they bring with them and deal with throughout the novel.

There is a strong sense of movement and travel from one point and time to the next as this novel spans the 1950's, 60s, and into the 1970s, and it is fun travelling along with these girls's adventures as they navigate through life.

This is easily one of Rona Jaffe's best.

A must-read, at least every 5 years before your own class reunion. You'll identify w/each character...the odds are, one will be reminiscent of yourself, another of your best friend! So much so, you'll be wondering if Rona Jaffe stole your diary!! The trials & tribulations of 4 friends, each w/a distinct personality, culture & lifestyle. Linked by memories which are endearing, poignant, humorous, sexual, sometimes shocking. It's typifies life's roller coaster ride. Only the real world could be so unbelievable & unpredictable. A literary hot fudge sundae!

"Class Reunion" is Jaffe's best book (her only disapponting novel was "The Best of Everything").
This is definitely a keeper and I reread it once in every decade. Each time I discover different things that have not been obvious to me when I read the book the last time.
What I enjoyed as well was the sequel "After the Reunion". It tells how the life of the four women continues.

If you are trying to find another author who writes in a similarly compelling way, try Nancy Thayer (Three Women at the Water's Edge, Nell, Family Secrets, Belonging).

Rona holds your interest in the lives of four girls and the men in their lives over three decades after meeting at college in the 50's. You'll find yourself in one or all of these girls, whether it was yesterday or today, which makes it such a wonderful read. Rona doesn't drag their lives out and you see spans of years, showing changes in all four girls' lives, from students to mothers with happiness, heartache, trials and tribulations,and I'm anxious to read the sequel It's a book that when you finish, you still want more.

I read this book years ago at first publication and absolutely loved it. So memorable it's on my list of top ten favorite fiction. The characters are very real and well depicted, most of us can easily recall a classmate of our own to identify with each one of them. These girls grew up in an era when catching the right husband was considered the ultimate goal for every proper young lady. Once they had accomplished that, they were expected to set up a house, become gourmet cooks, and fulfill their husband's every wish without complaint. They did what they were expected to do by marrying well and having a family but soon learned this did not automatically equate to happily ever after. This novel is about their struggles to keep their marriages alive and their families intact while maintaining the illusion of having successfully accomplished every woman's dream life. Then comes the Class Reunion where they reunite and begin to examine the cracks in those beautiful facades. Gathering together and drawing strength from one another, they each start on their own individual journey to a new life.

Highly recommended along with the sequel "After the Reunion" which catches up with these 4 ladies after the first reunion, picking up after the changes on which they were all embarked at the end of the first book.