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Book Review of In Five Years

In Five Years
In Five Years
Author: Rebecca Serle
Genre: Literature & Fiction
Book Type: Hardcover
debbiemd avatar reviewed on
Helpful Score: 3


Great book. Dannie is a high powered New York attorney with a plan for how her life will be. She has just gotten engaged to her long time boyfriend and is living in her dream apartment when she wakes up from a nap . . . in a different apartment and with a different man five years in the future. After one hour she falls back asleep and wakes up again in her life. After a visit with a therapist, she moves forward with her life with only an occasional thought about the new apartment and new man. Until 4 1/2 years later when she actually meets the new man.

This was the basic premise on the book jacket. So I thought this was going to be a variation of a boy meets girl love story. Oh but it wasn't. It was so much more! Because the man from the future is the new boyfriend of her best, best, best friend Bella. And you are confused about how this is going to go. How is she going to end up not with her very nice fiancee but with her bestie's boyfriend? And then Bella is diagnosed with cancer and so you read the entire second half of the book seeing the writing on the wall. Beautiful Bella will die and that is how they will hook up. Until you get to the last two chapters. And you realize this is not a boy meets girl love story. This is a story about love and best friend love and dying and grief. And it is sooooo much deeper than just a fluffy boy meets girl story.

And the "future" one hour happens in present and is not at all what you - or Dannie - thought it was. Which is kind of sad, but kind of good. And then the last two pages - and hope for the future emerges with an unlikely person. So kind of a surprise ending. This was a beautiful story with great characters I fell in love with and identified with. Both heartbreaking and heartwarming. Loved it!