When "In Five Years" by Rebecca Serle was released last year, everyone was freaking out. People loved the book and waxed poetic about it. I knew I wanted to read it but just never got around to it, even though I had an ARC from NetGalley. I kept putting it off over the past year, mostly because I had heard it was sad and I wasn't in a place to read a sad book. Also, I have a really hard time choosing my next read and breaking away from the domestic thriller genre.
Well, a few weeks ago, on a lonely Sunday night, I was bored and I decided to finally sit down and read it. I finished the book within 2 hours and was sick to my stomach afterwards. This was not the book I was expecting but it was the book everyone deserved.
Publisher's Summary
Dannie Kohan lives her life by the numbers.
She is nothing like her lifelong best friend—the wild, whimsical, believes-in-fate Bella. Her meticulous planning seems to have paid off after she nails the most important job interview of her career and accepts her boyfriend’s marriage proposal in one fell swoop, falling asleep completely content.
But when she awakens, she’s suddenly in a different apartment, with a different ring on her finger, and beside a very different man. Dannie spends one hour exactly five years in the future before she wakes again in her own home on the brink of midnight—but it is one hour she cannot shake. In Five Years is an unforgettable love story, but it is not the one you’re expecting.
My Thoughts
I thought, when the book started, that I knew where the story was going. I thought the book was about Dannie and her weird premonition, and how she was chasing that. I thought it was a funny book about fate but it was so different, it was so much more than that.
Let me say this, I didn't like any of the characters in the book; Dannie was whinny and unlikeable while Bella was obnoxious and annoying. I think it was because I had a preconceived notion about them both because by the end, I did like them.
Despite that, I loved the book and I felt like this book changed me; I literally felt the world move and I can't even explain it. It was a gut wrenching, soul crushing book and the worst part is that you don't see it coming. The first 70% of the book is about Dannie, her life, her relationship, and her trying to figure out why she had that strange dream on the night she got engaged.
The writing in the book was incredible; Serle has a gift and I would read anything she wrote. Between this and her other book I read, "The Dinner List", she has a way of framing a story in a way that you don't know what it's about until you have the full picture.
"In Five Years" was a strange book about fate, the future, relationships, and friendships; it's about how you envision your life playing out a certain way but nothing in life is guaranteed, nothing ever goes how you think it's going to go. It was a beautiful story that didn't make sense until you got to the climax of the book.
Once the full story came to light, I couldn't breathe I was crying so hard. It was stunningly devastating.
On another note, I loved the way the book was laid out-- how we started one way and ended up another; I loved that there were some things left out, you didn't get the full picture of every conversation, every step the character took and in a way it almost made it more realistic. There were multiple subplots that we only touched the surface on, not everything was detailed out and I loved that. It made the story truly focused on the story at large and Serle didn't bore us with unnecessary information.
All in all, this book is about love but as the publisher's summary says, it's not the love you think. Friendship is the true love that never leaves you.
I've also gotten into the habit of reading the acknowledgements of every book I read and Serle always has the most inspirational, beautiful messages in hers. It's worth the read.
All in all, this might be one of my favorite books ever. It's a must-read and there's a reason it has gotten the praise it has.
Did you read "In Five Years"? What did you think?
xoxo
B
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