The Red Book

Books that feature college friends are some of my favorites, so this new novel by Deborah Copaken Kogan was right up my alley.

The Red Book(also the title of this novel) is published every five years to let Harvard grads know what their fellow alumni are doing.  Sprinkled within this story are entries in the Red Book giving vital information about the class of 1989- their current location, job, spouse, children and a brief summary they have written about themselves.

Clover, Addison, Jane, and Mia are former classmates who became friends during college. They are all gathering together again for their reunion - now twenty years older and wiser than when they first met.  Their reunion weekend is kicked off by Addison's arrest for unpaid parking tickets from their college days. Each woman has had their own struggles in life to deal with and this time to see their old friends again helps them each remember who they were before they went their separate ways. 

There were many things I enjoyed about this novel: the Red Book entries, the way in which each woman struggled to still keep their own identity even after marriage and children...eventually all stories converge when everyone meets up at Jane's mother's house.  This is the only part of the book that felt too chaotic to me - almost as though it could be a television comedy.  However, despite that one section, I truly loved this book.  Each woman takes what has happened to her at the reunion and is somehow changed by it in the future which we are able to see a small glimpse of at the end of this novel.

Book clubs everywhere should enjoy this one as should all women's fiction readers.