In Five Years

Ugly cry, face blotchy, eyes puffy, nose stuffed, tissues handy-type cry. This book was not what I expected. Thank goodness the review I read contained no spoilers, other than how good this book was. A story of love and friendship and planning out your life. To say anything else about this book is to say too much. Just read it and think!

There's a well-known adage that advises all to "live like every day is your last." And there are numerous stories where a character becomes terminal and alters her reality to account for those final moments. Less often, comes the adjacent storyline following the impact it has on those who love them. IN FIVE YEARS is a beautiful reminder that sometimes what is right is messy and that the best choices can also be painful. It's a ballad to the hopelessly romantic, a push to believe they deserve it all.

Corporate lawyer, Dannie, has it all: perfect boyfriend, perfect NYC apartment, and soon-to-be perfect job. However, a single hour spent five years in the future (in another apartment with another man) causes her to rethink everything she thought she knew to be true. Dannie tries to convince herself it was just a dream...until she meets the man in the most uncomfortable situation. She then begins everything she can to prevent what she now knows is the future.

Honestly, I have no idea how to review this book. Words are hard, even 36 hours after putting it down. I absolutely devoured this story in under 12 hours (with three kids at home, no less) and it was an experience I wish I could have again. Sadly, I can only ever re-read it, so I show more will be recommending it to everyone I know, if only to vicariously read it for the first time through them. This book left me sobbing which is something I haven't done in decades. But it was the most beautiful, "Steel Magnolias" raw emotion I've ever experienced from a book.

I could say this book is about relationships between friends, family, and fate and it is! But ultimately, this book is a plea for everyone to look at their own lives - not from a logical, brain-first approach as most of us have been taught. Instead, the author implores you to live with with your heart and to enjoy every moment with your eyes wide open. show less

Thanks to Atria Paperback/Simon and Schuster Publishers for a gifted copy. All comments and opinions are my own.

This 3.5 star book had a lot of buzz when it first came out in 2020. I received a gifted copy from the publisher in 2021 but just recently read it in May 2022. I didn’t intentionally put it off, but it took the suggestion from my friend Val that we both read it and then discuss together to make me pick it up. And it turned out to be a different type of book than I thought. No matter how others have labeled this novel, it is not a romance, but a story of friendship, best girlfriend friendship.

This is about two long-time best friends who live in New York City, both single but different in so many ways. Dannie is organized and show more has her life planned out – her career, her boyfriend and now fiancé, her budget, and her future – including where she will be in five years. Bella is the “poor little rich girl” – wild, whimsical, impulsive, and believes in fate.

After accepting her boyfriend’s marriage proposal and receiving her dream job offer both on the same day, Dannie falls asleep. When she awakens she’s with a totally different (and sexy) guy, a different apartment, a different engagement ring – and it’s five years in the future. She tells herself it’s a dream and files it away in the back of her mind.

But four-and-a-half years later she meets Bella’s latest boyfriend, who is the very same guy from that long-ago premonition/vision/dream/alternate reality. That’s the set-up but it isn’t the story you’re expecting. And you’ll need tissues.

Even though there are aspects of the plot and the characters I would argue with, and some things I would have changed completely, I still found myself engrossed and emotionally caught up in the story. This would make a great book group read and I’m looking forward to discussing with my friend. show less

I love a story with a time travel element to it. I also love a good ‘girl in New York’ story, so In Five Years should fit me perfectly. But this story did more than that, it delivered beyond my wildest expectations. The combination of friendship, heartache and general life plans going awry had buckets of emotion, complicated by one very strange dream five years into the future. In Five Years isn’t what you think it will be, it is so much better.

Initially I was put off a little by the introduction to the main character and narrator of the book, Dannie. She’s just a little too perfect to relate to and seems to have the world at her feet, from the boyfriend who makes her coffee just the way she wants it (hazelnut Coffee Mate) to show more nailing the perfect job. I was all ready to hate her, but shortly after the most perfect engagement scene, life for Dannie changes in a big way. She falls asleep and wakes to find herself five years into the future in a different apartment, with a different man and engagement ring. What happened to her life plan? How did she end up where she never planned to me? Fortunately, when she wakes again time is linear. Now fast forward five years and Dannie’s five year plan is working out brilliantly. She’s smashing out her perfect job, she has the apartment she wants and the perfect fiancé in the perfect job. She just forgot to get married, but that’s okay. She still has her best friend Bella, flighty as ever until she isn’t. Bella’s new serious boyfriend is Dannie’s future fiancé from the dream. Surely this all can’t be coming true?

The main thing to know before you read In Five Years is that this isn’t what you think. Yes, you get a love story but it’s not the traditional one you expect. Everything turns out okay, but not in the conventional way. These clever twists on the predictable are what makes the story, and come to think of it, Dannie’s character is too. She is introduced to the reader as the perfect princess, but she leaves the story as someone who is broken but rebuilding in a way that won’t rely on numbers to make up her world any more. The other characters are a little more predictable, such as David, Dannie’s fiancé. He’s almost robotic, performing to Dannie’s expectations – again, until he isn’t. Bella, her best friend, is the most unpredictable of all the characters and something Dannie is disparaging of for quite some time. It takes a crisis and for Bella to behave in a very un-Bella like fashion for Dannie to realise that not everything is scripted and predictable.

In Five Years is a light and easy read, but grips the reader with glimpses of the unpredictable that cascade towards some big revelations and emotional finales. It’s worth spending the time with this story to realise that the surprises in life can be just as worthy as the ones you prepare for.

Thank you to Hachette for the copy of this book. My review is honest.

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“I look out on that view. The water, the bridge, the lights. Manhattan on the water, shimmering like a promise. I think about how much life the city holds, how much heartbreak, how much love. I think about everything I have lost there, this fading island before me” (230).

I really liked this book—even more than I was expecting. As I was reading, I kept thinking about how much I was enjoying it—Dannie’s goodness, her drive to succeed, her need for control; she was completely relatable. I kept thinking, “This book is a five, but the ending could definitely be its fall from grace.” Surprisingly, I was really satisfied with the ending. I give this book a five because there’s not anything I’d change about it. While there show more were some predictabilities, like knowing Bella would end up with the future-dream Aaron, I was completely surprised by how the ending, the premonition, was tied into reality. I also really liked that there were no villains—no bad guys. David was such a fantastic fiancé. Aaron really was loyal to and loved Bella. Bella and Dannie were true to one another. So even though there was this shadow of a love triangle hanging over the plot, it was unexpectedly delivered in such a way that showed really sucky circumstances with really good humans. And the ending wouldn’t have been quite as satisfying without Dannie’s brief encounter with Dr. Mark Shaw in the bagel shop after Aaron leaves her DUMBO apartment. It’s easy to feel the hopeful possibilities of this unknown and uncontrollable future. show less

In Five Years was not what I was expecting AT ALL! Don't think that means I'm disappointed with it because I'm not, not one bit. It's an absolutely beautiful, thoughtful and moving read.

What appealed to me initially was how the main character, Dannie, falls asleep and wakes up five years later. As a fan of time travel I thought she was maybe travelling into the future. There's a man there when she wakes up, one who it seems like she's meant to be with, but what about her current life, her current boyfriend? After a brief spell as her future self she's back in her normal life but the reality of what happened is with her throughout the next four and a half years until, out of the blue, she sees the man again.

So you can imagine what I show more thought when I read the blurb. A love triangle situation perhaps? All I can say is that nothing in this book is what I thought it would be. There is a love story but not what I expected. It's so hard to review this book without giving away anything that's not already on the back of the book but that bit about it definitely not being the love story you're expecting is absolutely spot on.

In Five Years is a gorgeous story, beautifully written. It's a story of love, friendship and life, and the unexpected paths it takes you down. It's such an innovative story, and Serle has done an amazing job at creating a story that surprised me at every turn. It's a heartbreaker and I just didn't want to stop reading it. It's just lovely. show less