Ugh, what a disappointment! First of all, I was expecting non-fiction, but that's my fault for not knowing enough about the book when I picked it up. But more importantly, I was expecting something with a LOT more substance than this book has. I read her first book, Shutterbabe, which was the story of her time as a photojournalist in war-torn countries, and it was just great. Reading Red Book makes me feel as if the author has somehow sold out, leaving behind her heavy-hitting stories for a grou More...

The “red book” is an anniversary chronicle that is passed to Harvard alumni every five years, asking them for basic information, such as address, email, occupation, spouse/partner, children, if any, and a concise summary of the past half-decade of their lives. The author uses this framework to enlarge on these capsulized lives of several 1989 graduates, and constructs an ensemble comedy/drama that entertains as it engages, moves while it thrills.

The central story focuses on four women who gradu More...

What fun--a book about people my age who were much, much smarter in high school. (It's well-written, and enjoyable so far.)

I liked this book, particularly the interesting way of telling the stories (making use of the Red Book). A lot of Gen X cliche, but one part in particular bothered me in its predictability. I did enjoy the characters, though this method of writing about them didn't allow for a large amount of depth. It would be interesting to have had a bit more.

I had such high hopes for The Red Book by Deborah Copaken Kogan but in the end was left feeling somewhat disappointed. The idea for the book was great, but unfortunately, the execution was very poor.

The Red Book tells the story of four class of '89 Harvard roomates: Addison, Clover, Jane, and Mia, and their former classmates, spouses and children. Most of the action occurs at their 20th reunion, where they have gathered on campus with various children, spouses, partners. The characters are a bi More...

Of the four main characters, I liked one, Jane.
The others I was either "eh" about, or disliked.

The women are all a mix of stereotypes, with a level of farce and comedy about their crazy, overachieving, under fulfilling lives. Years without spousal sex. Kids who are indulged to high heaven. Careers that are embraced or discarded almost at random. It was a frustrating book.

If you went to Harvard, you may laugh at places I did not. There's something about the premise--a hardbound red book produced More...

Four women who roomed together at Harvard are together again for their 20th class reunion. Their lives are complicated as they deal with birth, death,infertility, infidelity, job loss, sexuality, repressed ambitions and yearnings. The title refers to the "Red Book," which Harvard apparently publishes for each graduating class every five years. Alumni send in biographical updates along with often witty accounts of their lives. The book juxtaposes appearances-the faces we present to the world--wit More...

So many of us try to project that we have the perfect life, when in reality it is anything but. These four roomates are struggling, Jane with her boyfriend having cheated on her while she was away in the states, Clover with her husband's indifference with their struggle with infertility, Addison, with her rocky marriage and figuring out she has no attraction to her husband, and Mia whose life seems like a fairy tale but her husband is hiding a secret.

I have to be honest I thought the beginning More...

I've started several books lately and not been inspired to pick them up again after putting them down. So maybe I'm seeking a certain kind of story I'm not finding just now.

The Red Book features 4 POV characters (all women) who are returning to their 20 year reunion at Harvard. I know pretty much nothing about Harvard except the name, so there were probably a lot of in-the-know references that went over my head. The intro to the book is a "Red Book" entry from each of the main characters. Appare More...

"Red book" is apparently the book sent out to all Harvard alumni every 5 years to catch everybody up on where everyone is in life (this is a foreign concept to me, having graduated from the 30,000+ student body of UC/Berkeley). This book centers around a group of old Harvard friends who reconvene at the 20th anniversary reunion. It's an ensemble piece, with lots of spouses, kids, and random acquaintances to fill in the story.

It was sort of a guilty pleasure... almost like a soap opera but not q More...

I often approach mainstream women's fiction with some caution because I fear being clobbered over the head with cliches and stereotypes. This book pleased me because there were some unusual characters. A woman doctor who's spent time with Medecins Sans Frontieres before taking her young daughter back to the States, for instance, or a quartet of stage-struck students who all followed their own path. Nearly all of these characters were experiencing some form of economic and emotional adversity. Th More...

i was so excited to read this... because i mixed it up with a different book. by the time i realized my mistake, i was already like a third of the way through & decided to just finish it, because it's not like it's really taxing reading or anything. considering the heaviness subject matter (lots of death, lots of cheating), it read like slightly above-average chick lit. this book was on my to-read list on its own merits (ie, based on reviews), but i wasn't as stoked about it in advance as i More...

Stories of college roommates reuniting years later are a dime a dozen. This novel doesn't add anything to the category. It's a trashy, profanity-filled book featuring elite, ridiculous, unbelievable (and oh-so-conveniently diversified) women, and men, doing and saying elite, ridiculous, unbelievable things. About halfway through I actually wondered if Kogan meant the story to be a satire! I kept thinking I should just return this to the library unfinished, but partly due to my English-major back More...

Every five years Harvard alumni submit information and a biographical essay of the last five years of their lives for the "The Red Book" which is then distributed to every alumni. The Red Book is a snapshot of a group of friends from the class of 1989 (who are coming together for their 20th reunion), all of whom turn out to be something different from who they seem to be in their "Red Book" essay. I thought this book was very good. Some of the writing was stuffy and over done, some of the charac More...

Just finished this and didn't want it to end. The story is about a group of Harvard roommates back at their 20 (or 25? I forget, it doesn't matter) reunion. Harvard has a tradition where every 5 years, before the next reunion people write little biographies and talk about where they've been, what they've done, and those get published in a red book. So bits of history about each of the main characters comes from their red book entries.

I know the premise sounds like every other group of college r More...

I had never heard of Harvard's Red Book before I recently read Deborah Copaken Kogan's novel, The Red Book. Every five years, Harvard compiles a book filled with short essays written by each graduate, sharing what they have been up to in the past five years.

The actual Red Book made headlines recently when infamous graduate Ted Kazcynski, the man known to the world as the Unabomber, returned his questionnaire listing his occupation as 'prisoner' and under the awards section, wrote 'eight life sen More...

http://dallasne.ws/IP2tn3

‘The Red Book’ may appeal most to Harvard alumni, but it features smart and funny (though often overstuffed) prose

"The Red Book," by Deborah Copaken Kogan
By JENNY SHANK Special Contributor
Published: 11 May 2012 07:35 PM

Every five years Harvard alumni summarize their current lives for a volume known as “the red book,” distributed to all alumni. Deborah Copaken Kogan’s lively novel, The Red Book, concerns a group of friends from Harvard attending their 20-year class reunio More...

I read this book in a weekend.

Like many of the main characters in this book, I'm a well educated (though certainly not Harvard educated) woman struggling with motherhood and self... being a grown up though feeling like a college kid, chasing dreams.

So you can imagine how hard it is for me to find time to read a whole novel in a weekend.

It was that good. There were characters I loved, there were characters I disliked, there were characters who surprised me. The story was intensely readable, comp More...

I couldn't decide between 3 or 4 stars, but judging the book on what is essentially is - a really good beach read - merits the 4 star treatment. Contrary to other reviewers, I did not find it too difficult to keep up with the many characters and in fact enjoyed the way the story was presented. Sure it doesn't allow for in depth character development, but that us not the purpose of this book. I also do not understand the reviews that complain of a lack of sympathetic characters. Given a choice be More...

The Red Book was hard for me to get into because it starts with the least sympathetic character, then proceeds to introduce a number of characters it's nearly impossible to keep track of, hopping in and out of all their heads like an especially psychologically perceptive housefly. By the tenth page, I had decided that, in spite of my interest in Ivy League culture and love of Boston, I was not the right audience for this book. But I'm not a reader who gives up easily, and I found that by the mid More...

The Red Book by Deborah Copaken Kogan refers to an actual red book published and distributed by Harvard to its alumni, where everyone’s whereabouts, occupation, and marital status are listed, as well as essays about what they’ve been up to in the past five years. There’s a quaint formality to this tradition, especially in the age of Facebook and the ability of most people to be “Googlable,” but it also forces each alum to regularly take stock of his/her life and be held accountable to themselves More...

There are three inescapable truths about human beings: the way we see ourselves, the way we are perceived by others, and the way we actually exist. A twenty-year class reunion is the perfect venue to display all three views, as the attendees meet, mix, mingle and migrate through survival of the event. In "The Red Book", Deborah Copaken Kogan serves us a slice of Harvard Pie, as the lives of four roommates from the class of '89 are detailed and given a fortyish mid-life checkup as they reunite af More...

The Red Book is the story of 4 Harvard roommates coming together for their 20th reunion. It tells the story of Mia, Jane, Clover, and Addison. Not just them, but their families and other people in their graduating class. All the triumphs that graduates from are expected to have over 20 years and all the surprising failures that they've experienced.


Mia was a fantastic stage actress in college and she married a fantastic director. She expected to have a fabulous career as an film actress. Four chi More...

Have you ever filled out a questionnaire before a reunion at your high school or college? You are asked your new address, occupation, spouse, children, and possibly a paragraph or two more about your life.

Of course you wouldn't air your dirty laundry in what you write. Or would you?

There's so much between the lines in the alumni pages, and even more behind the scenes at the reunion itself. I felt like a voyeur reading the book. So much sex! So many secrets! This is a perfect beach book.

I'm so g More...

Somewhat enjoyable look behind the curtain at Harvard. Few characters to care about, but the ones about whom you did care, were barely fleshed out and were not provided a decent end to their story arc. Set-ups to major plot points were so obvious that by the time you got to that part of the book, you are already over it and have moved on to whatever it is that gave you hope for a climactic end.

Bottom line: if you like you stories about overly self absorbed Ivy league twats who, while facing thei More...

How can I not love a book that mentions Medecins Sans Frontieres, my employer? I love it when I read a novel and some character takes off with MSF to save the world. However in the Red Book that character was pretty minor. But Deborah Copaken Kogan was able to hold my interest with her tale of 4 Harvard ex-roommates attending their 20th reunion. I didn't go to Harvard, but I did go to college in the 80's with plenty of Buffy types, so I could identify. A bit anyway.

Affairs and death play a huge More...

Realizing this is in fact a BOOK I found the entire thing to be highly verbose to the point that I wanted to start skipping over parts about people and the DETAILS! that really didn't seem to matter to the story at all. However, I was fascinated by these Harvard graduates and their imperfect lives like the rest of us, minus the friend with so much money a hundred grand is like borrowing five bucks from someone. Okkkaaayyyy. It felt like a guilty pleasure and I while I most certainly didn't hate More...

This book was your typical overlapping of friends stories. I am going to say right off the bat my least favorite part: WAAAAY too many characters, I couldn't keep anyone straight. My favorite part: the layout. The whole story took place over like 3 days, I didn't see the end coming (until it happened, which is a good thing) and the story was simple despite the large cast. Four girls who roomed together at Harvard come back into town for their reunion and bring their families in tow and secrets g More...

Every five years, Harvard requests that its alumnae send in an updated account of their lives. This is called The Red Book. Alum from all over the world send in updates of what they've been doing, who they are partnered with, the number of children they have, information on their jobs and write whatever they think will be of interest to their classmates. This novel is about the Harvard class of 1989 that is getting together for their 20th reunion in Cambridge, Massachusetts.

The novel centers on More...

I read this as an advance reader's copy. It's the story of 4 women at their 20th college reunion (Harvard class of '89),whose lives are very different from the short blurbs they submit to Red Book, the reunion synopsis. The group treated in the story is diverse in terms of race, nationality, and sexaul preference, and the book at least touches on a raft of social issues, including same-sex marriage, pre- and extra-marital sex,abortion, May-December relationships, infertility and birth control, s More...