How do you feel about class reunions? People tend to have strong opinions one way or another when it comes to not just looking back on our past high school and college experiences, but reconnecting with friends and acquaintances from those days. This makes class reunions the perfect backdrop for all manner of novels.
Reunions can bring out the best and worst in us. They can be a chance to reconnect, reconcile, remember. Or, judging from the pages of these books, they can lead to bruised feelings, arguments, reopening old wounds, and—in the case of one book on today’s list—murder.
I feel like I’ve read about reunions far more than I’ve attended them. Thus far I’ve only attended my 10-year high school reunion. (I’m relieved to report no murders occurred.)
Plenty of people stay connected to their former classmates without the help of a school reunion. They might create their own annual traditions if they live far apart or they might live local and see each other just as much as they did before. I hope these books help you reflect on your own school days and relationships of yore. Perhaps one of these novels will prompt you to reach out to an old friend or perhaps it will simply be a vicarious reunion experience. Either way, I hope you enjoy the mix of genres and themes.
7 novels set during class reunions
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The Last Time I Saw You
Your Perfect Life: A Novel
American Pastoral
Gaudy Night: A Lord Peter Wimsey Mystery with Harriet Vane
The Hunting Party: A Novel
The Most Likely Club
Friends Without Benefits
Do you have any favorite books set during class reunions, or any good stories about attending your own reunion? Tell us all about it in the comments section!
P.S. 25 boarding school novels that are better than your class reunion and 10 campus novels that will take you back to your school days.
24 comments
I love Elizabeth Berg! I’ll have to find this one.
All of her books are great!!
Another good one is “in my dreams I hold a knife”, by Ashley Winstead
I really enjoyed that one too! I expected to see it on this list!
I agree!
Yes! Came here to suggest this one also! I loved it!
I agree on this one!
I loved American Pastoral in college and may need to reread this one.
The Red Book by Deborah Copaken Kagan. 25th reunion at Harvard.
Oh I just loved Elizabeth Berg’s book! It’s been awhile since I’ve read it but it stayed with me. We are almost the same age and as so have had similar experiences.
I love class reunions, mine and my friends. I even go to the ones where I only went to grade school. But they are small towns and small classes and I always have fun catching up with everyone.
The Finishing School by Joanna Goodman was an engaging story surrounding a former student who returns as a guest of honor for the 100th anniversary of her school – so a reunion of sorts. She returns hoping to find a solution to a mysterious incident from her time at the school.
“Class Reunion” (1979) by Rona Jaffe is probably the first college reunion novel I ever read. We had a paperback of it one summer and it made the rounds of myself, my three sisters, my mother, a visiting cousin. It was sudsy and somewhat trashy but better than you might think. The main characters had attended Radcliffe in the 1950s, and I still remember how fascinated we were at their version of college: no men in the dorms! a 10pm curfew! a dress code that forbade wearing slacks! We loved it.
I have a great story! I reconnected with my high school crush at our 30 yr high school reunion. On graduation night I sat on his lap after getting brave from drinking a few beers, then I didn’t see or talk to him again for 30 years! We started dating and got married 4 years later:) We’ve been married for 4 years now & are so happy!!
What a wonderful story! That’s been my dream for 50 years now. I’ll keep hoping!
I really enjoyed The Last Time I Saw You
Life After Truth by Ceridwen Dovey
The Last Time I Saw You was the first book I thought of! Good one!
At my 10 year High School reunion I had a super cute guy that I had a crush on come over and tell me he loved me! The crush may have been in Junior High?
No kidding!!!!!
I was married with children by then, as was he.
Just goes to show, sometimes are inner feelings are reciprocated.
He was super cute. We were both too young and too shy to speak up at the time.
And in the interval my husband came along freshman year(an exchange student from Brazil) and very brazenly told me “I love you!” at our first meeting.
Moral of the story: Speak Up Guys!!!!!
I have been happily married for 43 years.
Eight Perfect Hours by Lia Louis. The college reunion figures in the plot of this read, full of coincidences.
I have a great read for this list! It’s not a class reunion but these siblings reunite for their annual party. They all have secrets and a few unexpected guests as well. It’s called Malibu Rising by Taylor Jenkins Reid. I love EVERYTHING she’s written so far!
I would add The Guest List.
Class Reunion by Rona Jaffe is another great one.
I really enjoyed In Twenty Years by Allison Winn Scotch too!