The Reunion by Meghan Quinn

Narrated by Lidia Dornet, Teddy Hamilton, Laurie West, Rock Engle, CJ Bloom, and Stephen Borne

The One Night is a prequel, but The Reunion can stand alone. Family life fiction/Romance.

Meghan Quinn has always been a top 5 author for me. I’ve never met a Meghan Quinn book I didn’t love. Until now.

I wanted to love The Reunion so much! After listening to The One Night, the prequel, I couldn’t wait to get my hands on The Reunion. As one of three siblings who also planned our parents anniversary parties, I was even more excited to read about these siblings doing the same.

But The Reunion was told in SIX points of view, the three siblings and their love interests. In audio, that’s even harder to keep track of, because it’s not in duet style, so you not only have the six different people narrating their own character, but they also had to be the other person in their chapter. So that is 12 voices!

I liked each individual story. I wish this was told in three novellas, or even better, three full-length novels. But the way it was written, as soon as I got into it, it would end abruptly and hop to the next couple. And stopping in the middle of a chapter (which we all have to do sometimes) made it even more confusing when you pick it back up again.

I also got frustrated with the petty bickering between siblings. It made me not like any of them that much. BUT, The Reunion had a good amount of Meghan Quinn laugh-out-loud moments, they just tended to get lost in everything else.

I wouldn’t quite call The Reunion a romance either. This is more “family life fiction”, and it was missing Meghan’s trademark heat. There were some love scenes, but to me they were overshadowed by all the bickering. There were a lot of relatable family moments as well, I just wish each sibling had a little more page time. I felt like I wasn’t given enough to really connect with any of the characters.

Likes:

Meghan’s trademark humor.
Lots of banter.
I love the premise of the story.
I liked each individual story within the whole.
I absolutely love both covers.

Dislikes:

Too many points of view, especially with audio.
Not enough of each individual couple.
Too much bickering.
As soon as I’d get into it, it would totally change focus to another couple.

The Narration:

SIX narrators and it wasn’t duet-style. So that means that each of the narrators were also narrating other parts during their chapters. That made for at least 12 voices, and at 54 years old, I just don’t have the brain power to follow all that anymore.

The Down & Dirty:

I appreciate what Meghan Quinn tried to do in The Reunion. It’s a hell of an undertaking. But this was basically a three-book-series told in one novel. It had a lot of the humor and heart that I love about Meghan’s writing, but there was just too much going on. The constant switching between couples and points of view really had me struggling to catch up and remember where I was the whole time. I think the best way to enjoy The Reunion, in my opinion, is to read it (not listen) in one sitting. (Or to have a lot more brain cells left in your head than I do.)