LAST TIME I SAW YOU by Elizabeth Berg, 2010.

  This contemporary novel concerns a group of people who are attending their 40th (and final) high school class reunion. Her cast of characters pretty much includes all the usual stereotypes: jocks, cheerleaders, nerds, etc., each of whom have reasons for attending this last reunion. Divorced Dorothy wants a chance at the class heartthrob, Pete Decker, who is desperately trying to win back his estranged wife Nora; Mary Alice Mayhew, an independent sort usually ignored by her classmates at Whitley High, comes hoping to see a certain someone again; Lester Hessenpfeffer, a nerdy widowed veterinarian, who realizes the person he longed most to see was not who he actually wanted; Candy Armstrong, the blonde beauty who has a painful secret and needs a true friend. It's all about missed opportunities, paths not taken, choices made, and seeking to right wrongs done decades earlier. As these characters and others converge during the reunion weekend and as their old secrets and hidden motives and long simmering desires are revealed and new bonds forged, they learn things about each other and themselves in unexpected and at times surprising ways.
  Berg writes in the easy, breezy style she does so well, providing an entertaining story with characters who are at once familiar and recognizable and thus the reader can connect with them. In their late fifties, Berg's characters have issues with aging, marriage, love, death, a sense of belonging, of being connected with those from their past, and of being understood by those they shared their school experiences with. She has the dialogue down pat; she provides a fine reunion background, complete with decorations and drinks and bathroom chats and all the greetings and the "who is that?" and "whatever happened to...?" types of comments that are prevalent at such an event. Although there's not much depth involved, Berg does tell a good story and offers up some moments of true emotional insight between several of the characters.
   Does all come right in the end? Not necessarily, but for most of the people in this novel, changes do occur, and they are the better for them. An entertaining and at times thought-provoking story, I enjoyed it as a casual light read.