A high school reunion is a prime premise for a novel. All those pasts, however charmed or checkered, resurfacing to settle a score. Yep, reunions drum up unease and drama. Which is why I've never gone to one of mine. That said, I do enjoy strolls down other people's memory lanes, and by people I mean characters. And so it was with anticipation that I RSVP'd yes to the reunion of a bunch of baby boomers in small-town Ohio in Elizabeth Berg's The Last Time I Saw You.
With insight, tenderness, and humor, Berg introduces us to five members of the class of 1960-something: the Beauty, the B-lister, the Brain, the Quarterback, and the Outcast. Each has lived a full and, in some cases, surprising life since high school. Yet none are immune to the minefield that means going back -- or the obstinate optimism that pushes them forward.
Poignant to the point of near melancholy, The Last Time I Saw You is bittersweet and human, tapping into our wish for second chances -- even if they don't end up looking the way we thought they would.
