What Really Happened to the Class of '93: Start-Ups, Dropouts, and Other Navigations Through an Untidy Decade

by Chris Colin and Aamna Qureshi

The homecoming queen, the teen mom, the scientist, the wallflower, the flirt, the discipline case, and the homophobe-how did a decade marked by impeachment, a dot-com bubble, 9/11, and war shake their... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0767914791
• ISBN13: 9780767914796
• Release Date: May 2004
• Publisher: Broadway Books
• Length: 304 Pages
• Weight: 1.24 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.1" x 6.3" x 9.5"

Customer Reviews

It's NOT all about the squirrels...

I am the first classmate featured in the book (although I am also the ONLY classmate not featured on the cover of the book...). When I read my chapter, I was angry at first. I felt I was portrayed kind of like Shrek (layers, donkey!) the Ogre. Especially when the "redneck weapons designer" was followed by a chapter on "Miss saves-the-world-from-corporate-oppression". But as I read through and eventually re-read the book, I began to see it differently. My ire was replaced by an understanding that all of us changed from what we were in highschool - to an extent. My place ahead of the "coffee bean commando" was a juxtaposition of two passionate individuals who were working to fight the good fight in their own particular (if very different) way. I am who I have become. It can be strange reading about yourself written by someone else. Honestly, though - I think I would have found the personal stories told in this book to be intriguing even if I were not one of them. What a long, strange trip it's been...

Humorous, weighty and intimate view of 90s-today

I didn't expect to become fully engaged in the lives of a cohort from the class of '93, partly because mine is 15 years ahead. Yet, I was swept in immediately by the author's charming and breezy writing style. Colin manages to think and write from a humorous and detached vantage point, while at the same time interjecting weighty topics both personal and global. I found plenty to relate to or think about in the stories of Colin's classmates and his honest and intimate chronicle of his own internal experiences in high school and the following decade. I laughed many times while reading the book and also remembered how intense the high school years and decade of initiation into the world of work and adult life can be.

I'm a non-classmate and I couldn't put this book down

I didn't go to the high school in this book, and I'm not a '93 graduate either (though close) and yet I read this book cover to cover, almost without stopping. What kept me going, in part, were the stories of these 16 lives. I'd prepared myself for the usual high school archetypes -- the jock, the homecoming queen, the bully, etc. -- but in Colin's hands, those stereotypes give way to compelling, honest, and intimate portraits. I felt for these people; I couldn't wait to reach the end of the chapter to find out what had happened to them. But beyond just stories, Colin has managed to paint a true, and -- to me, at least -- uncannily accurate description of how people age, how we change over time. I recognized aspects of myself (for better or for worse!) in many of these stories. It's also a portrait of a decade, but a kind of portrait I haven't seen before: Colin shows how the events of the last decade are reflected in the choices these 16 regular Americans make. Those looking for Big Theories should go elsewhere; this is a much more nuanced and personal take on this time in history than that.

The truth about who your high school classmates really were.

In the interest of full disclosure, I am one of the subjects in this book. I was very sceptical of how Chris Colin would portray me and my classmates in this book - would he write it as a "tell all" dredging up old dirt from over a decade ago? Would Chris make each of us caricatures to better fit into our class label? Or would he distort our comments to him from the numerous interviews?Chris did none of the above; in fact, he was more accurate and honest than I think any of us thought possible, particularly given that he didn't know many of us that well in high school or in the years since. Without exhuming any skeletons - except for his own - Chris provides an accurate sketch of who we were and an even better portrait of who we have become in the years since high school graduation. This book is not about what happened to students from one of the nation's leading high schools and how that made each of us a success. No. It is about 16 individuals who took the experiences they had in high school and either embraced them or forsake them as each of us moved into adulthood.While "What Really Happened to the Class of '93" is of interest to those who were a part of that class, or those who may know us, it really is a book for anyone in high school -- or anyone still trying to exorcize some of the demons from those formative four years -- who wants to know who your classmates are behind the labels they carry.

An honest inventory of high school over-acheivers

After a decade of figuring themselves out, the "subjects" Colin's talks to speak so candidly about themselves that you can't help being affected. There's tragedy, growth, old rivalries--everything you'd expect in a reality TV show, but this book stars humans instead of stereotypes. The stories are special because they're so personal, but I doubt they're unique to this high school. Readers of our generation will find something to relate to in this inventory of loosely intertwined lives. It's short stories about the lives of over-achievers told well by another over-achiever.