3 stars

Once again, I seem to be the outlier with this book, as I wasn’t as enamored with it as most other readers were. It’s not that I didn’t enjoy reading this – certain parts of it were well-done and overall, I appreciated the different, interesting direction that the author Rebecca Serle ultimately took the story. For me, the strongest aspect of the story was the friendship between Dannie and her childhood best friend Bella –the way their relationship was written, the bond that they shared, it was one that many of us who also grew up with a best childhood friend could relate to (on a personal level, it reminded me of my relationship with my own childhood BFF). But with that said though, it’s precisely because Dannie and Bella’s friendship was portrayed so strongly that the entire story arc involving Aaron felt a bit contrived to me. In a sense, it felt as though Aaron’s role was created merely to complicate the plot rather than for any other significant purpose. It’s kind of hard to explain without giving away the ending, which I don’t want to do obviously, so instead, I will say only that some parts of the story felt “gimmicky” (which is something I can’t stand), to the point that after finishing the book, I was left with a feeling of having been misled. There were also moments where the threads of the story didn’t blend together as smoothly, which made it feel like I was reading two different books at times.

The other thing was that I didn’t really feel an emotional connection to any of the characters, which was surprising given the marketing of this book as a “tug at your heartstrings” love story. There were actually plenty of emotional scenes in the story, but for some reason, I didn’t feel anything when I read them. I’m not sure if this was because of the way the characters were written or the setup of the scenes was insufficient, I just know that I was expecting to feel more than I actually did.

Overall, this was a decent read, one that I liked well enough but didn’t “love” as expected. Regardless, I’m still interested in reading this author’s other works, especially her previous novel The Dinner List, which has a fascinating premise and has been on my TBR for while.

Received ARC from Atria Books via NetGalley.

I was not familiar with this author so I was not sure what to expect from this book. I was looking for a light-hearted book during this difficult time. Even though this wasn't as light-hearted as I expected, I still thoroughly enjoyed this book.

This is a story of life-long friendship between two girls. It is a story about girl meets boy and fall in love. It is a story about life dreams, ambition, sacrifice, and life. I could tell you more but why? Go in to this book without knowing anything or too much. This book will warm your heart and break your heart and then stitch it back together.

One of the first books I read in 2020 was Colleen Oakley’s You Were There Too, another novel dealing with a dream-man. Because of this, I couldn’t help but compare the two – I’m pleased to say I enjoyed In Five Years far more and, for whatever reason, I did not expect this one to be a sci-fi, time travel novel, whereas I did with You Were There Too (and was disappointed because of it).

I do not want to give anything away here, but at one point Dannie says “I saw what was coming, but I did not see what it would mean.” and just…wow. From page one the book leads the reader to believe one story will happen, yet once things get rolling it turns into a much different story, one I enthusiastically sunk into and truly could not put down! While not the book I expected, I enjoyed this one so much.

Have you ever had anyone ask you the question, Where do you see yourself in five years? Well in this book, Dannie, is asked this at her job interview. This happens to be the interview she has waited her whole life for. She nails the interview and from there celebrates with her boyfriend (soon to be fiance). Later Dannie falls asleep, and dreams that she is in a different apartment, with a different man, and a different ring on her finger...Oh, and it is five years into the future. She spends an hour in the time before she wakes up and is back in her reality.

Great start to the book!! From there, you spend the rest of the book with Dannie and her life and waiting for the inevitable. I loved this authors writing style, how developed her characters and story were. I loved this book! 4⭐⭐⭐⭐

Song/s the book brought to mind: Wonderwall by Oasis

Well thank you to Rebecca Serle for completely breaking my heart with In Five Years. It was not at all what I expected, and you better be prepared to cry your eyes out, I sure did!

Don't you love when a book completely surprises you in a good way? I sure do, and that's what In Five Years did to me. It may be a short book at 250 pages, but it is bursting with heart and will give you ALL the feels. Friendship, heartbreak, loss, hope, love - it's all here folks! I thought it was a book about time travel, but wow was I sure wrong. I think the synopsis is slightly misleading but I'm almost happy it is, and I have never said that! I don't think it's good to know too much about it, just know you'll need lots of tissues.

I both listened to and read the book and I loved both ways so much. The narrator for In Five Years, Megan Hilty, was fantastic and she did a great job with her inflections, pauses and everything else. It sounded like she put her heart and soul into reading Dannie and I really appreciated that. Clearly I highly recommend the audio if that is how you like to enjoy your books.

This was my first time reading a novel by Serle but I'm not going to hold off reading her book before this (The Dinner List) any longer! Now please excuse me while I pick the pieces of my heart up and put it back together...

Thank you to Libro.fm and the publisher for both my advance listening copy and advance review copy. All opinions and thoughts are my own.

A lovely book told in beautifully crafted stories of friendship, love and life. I loved the depth of the charcters and found myself reading into the night. This is a enjoyable read and one I highly recommend. The charcters are well drawn and relatable, the story of their lives is heartfelt and real. A most enjoyable read.

What a valentine of a story. Two longtime friends on different paths,one cannot see past her five year plan,a meticulous moment by moment security blanket she and her fiancé have in place. The other seems blithely float through life. Dannie and Bella. Dannie the planner has a dream so real and intense it unnerves her to seek answered through therapy. Dannie, has a plan so strict it structures her life ,dictates where she will live and who is best for her. Bella lets the planet unfold and speak to her. Unfortunately for Bella the planet has chosen s harder path and Dannie is at odds to reconcile the two paths. This is a love letter to friendship’s loyalty however tested. It is also a moment to cherish those decisions we make as kids on playgrounds everywhere to trust in our instincts and love what we see in each other.

A fun and heartbreaking story. Love the depth of the characters and how everything turned out, even though it was sad. I thought I knew what to expect and thought I wouldn’t like it, but this story caught me by surprise and I really enjoyed it. Looking forward to reading more by this author in the future.

I very much enjoyed this book, which came as a surprise after Serle's last novel fell flat for me. Serle's characters were so wonderfully developed and the premise of this book was so interesting that I read it in one sitting. Highly recommend.

In this modern love story, a dream set five years into the future will have a dramatic effect on corporate attorney Dannie’s life. This dream stayed in the back of my mind throughout the story, keeping me wondering if the dream would one day come true.

The relationship of Dannie and David frustrated me. Dannie is sharp as a whip but judgmental and selfish. She wastes too much of David’s life and he deserved more. On the other hand, I loved Bella, Dannie’s best friend. This free spirit was a gem.

I felt a bit let down by the the ending but think the author may have purposely ended this way to make room for a follow-up.

If you could get a glimpse of your life in five years - would you want to see? And if you saw something very different than you expected - would you change your path or would you try hard to stick with your current vision of the future?

Dannie has just had a great interview for her dream job and gotten engaged to her boyfriend. Suddenly she finds herself five years in the future - in a different apartment and with a different man. When she wakes up - she feels it must have been a dream, but it didn’t feel like a dream.

I love thinking about alternate possible futures for each of us. I am also drawn to books that explore these topics. I really enjoyed In Five Years. It was an emotional read and I loved seeing where things went and especially the final few chapters.

Thank you Atria and Netgalley for the advance reading copy. Highly recommend.

I really loved this book. It sets up perfectly in a way that's going to keep you hooked from start to finish. I needed to know how this was going to play out, if it was going to play out. It did leave me wondering how it happened, but I guess some things we never get an answer to.

So, the basic set up of this story is that Dannie has a plan. Everything in her life is carefully crafted and it's all going according to plan. Until one night she wakes up and it's five years later. She doesn't know how she got there or why she's there and that sets us off on Dannie's journey.

Once she starts to come into contact with those things that she saw almost five years ago, she can't understand them, starts to fear them, is unsure how her life will play out because of it. I loved going on this journey with her. It's definitely a journey of self discovery. A journey of growth. I hurt for her and how she ended up where she did but, the book also left me hopeful about her future, which I loved. It leaves it open-ended and leaves us wandering and hoping she'll find happiness.

Once I got to around the 55% mark, I couldn't put this book down. I had to know, I had to get to the end. I loved it.

This story follows a corporate lawyer (Dannie) who is living with her fiancee (David), who is also a businessman with a Type A personality in New York. Dannie has a dream that puts her five years in the future with another man, who she eventually meets and spends some time trying to prevent the dream from coming true. While the title and reviews lead you to believe that the book is about Dannie's love story, the true storyline is about Dannie's friendship with her childhood best friend, Bella. This was the best part about the book and was much deeper than any love story.

Review: In Five Years, Rebecca Serle—Thank you to the publisher & NetGalley for the gifted copy.

When was the last time a book made you sob? Not just shed a tear or two, but physically sob?

Y’all, it’s been a while for me. But, I didn’t realize how much I needed that cry.

In Five Years was an incredible story of female friendship and the love between friends. Dannie and Bella were both strong, empowering, and engaging women and their friendship and story is one I’ll be carrying for a while.

Also, I’m not a hugger, but I need a big one after this book.

I have been <B>HOODWINKED, BAMBOOZLED, LED ASTRAY, RUN AMOK, AND FLAT OUT DECEIVED.</b>

Dannie, the always in control, always with a plan, lawyer, nails her dream job interview and says yes to her boyfriend's marriage proposal all in one night. When she falls asleep, she wakes up in a different apartment, with a different man -- five years in the future. It feels so real for her, when she wakes "back" up in 2020, she can't stop thinking of the man from her vision. Four and a half years later, she meets him. In real life.

I <I>expected</i> a cute love story with some degree of magical realism. How does Dannie end up with the man from her dreams? What I <I>got</i> was, yes, a beautiful story of love, and friendship, and living in the moment. But this book DESPERATELY needs a content warning. The entire storyline of the book shifted about 50% in, and I wasn't prepared for the emotional and somewhat triggering content that followed. Although how Dannie ends up with her dream man felt easy for me to guess after a certain point, I enjoyed one aspect of the ending.

SPOILERS: <spoiler>I thought, oh, of course, Bella is gonna DIE after suffering through OVARIAN CANCER at age 33 and Dannie and Aaron will fall in love in the aftermath. This sucks. Hate them for that. BAD PLOT, NO! I did appreciate that, in the end, Dannie and Aaron were not in love. They did not realize their feelings for each other. They came together in a time of grief, because they were each the closest thing they had to the person they loved most, the person they had just lost. They ended up expressing their grief with each other, and making a half-hearted promise to maybe meet for lunch next week. So I did like that it wasn't a "love story", at all, and everyone calling this a romance is straight up DELUDED.</spoiler>

Dannie irritated me as a character, but I loved all the themes this book explored. Her friendship with Bella was so real. Raw. Honest. Unapologetic. I love books that explore female friendships and their dynamic so well. I'm not disappointed or upset about the book itself -- I actually really did like it and found it easy to read. I'm upset at how it is being marketed, because I went in expecting something <I>totally</i> different and did not have time to emotionally prepare myself to be completely wrecked.

Thank you to Netgalley and Atria books for this ARC!

From my blog: Always With a Book:

I absolutely loved Rebecca Serle's last novel, The Dinner List, so I knew without hesitation that I wanted to read her latest book and I am so glad I did. It's absolutely not what I was expecting, but in so many ways, it was even better than I thought it would be, if that makes sense.

While this book has the feeling of time travel, it really isn't and believe me that sense of it is only a tiny part of the book. This is really more about a vision and how we all have them, but what if you have a vision that you just cannot shake? One that is so overpowering that it causes you to adjust plans so you insure that vision does not come to fruition.

This book is one that sneaks up on you when you least expect it. It takes you on such an emotional journey and is definitely one that you will be thinking of long after you finish reading it. I highly suggest going into this one blind - don't read a ton about it as you want to experience the story for what it is without any spoilers.

Rebecca Serle has earned a spot on my must-read list and I know I will be waiting to see what she writes next. She writes such thought-provoking books. I was an emotional mess with this one, but I loved it all the same.

Loved this book. Couldn't put it down. Had the right balance between magical realism and story. The characters were well rounded with enough flaws to make them human but not too flawed to care about what happened to them. Looking forward to more books by this author.

4 Stars!
Dannie Kohan is a young, ambitious, Manhattan corporate lawyer who is extremely passionate about her job. She’s worked hard to get to where she is, and is determined to succeed. Everything in her life is planned and predictable. She stays in her comfort zone, and is a type A personality. She thinks she has everything figured out, and is on track to soon being engaged and landing her dream job at the top firm in the city. She has an interview for a job that will make her career, and they ask her the typical question... Where do you see yourself in five years?

Dannie nails her interview, and then goes to sleep that night feeling she had everything she could ever want. The perfect man, and the perfect career. Then she wakes up in a different apartment with a gorgeous stranger that isn’t her fiancé. It’s the same night, but it’s five years later in 2025. When she wakes again she’s back in her normal life in 2020, but she feels rattled and can’t shake the memory of the man that felt so real to her. She can’t quit thinking about him, but tries to put it in the back of her mind. Then four and a half years later she crosses paths with the man from her vision. Was he a premonition of her destiny, and what will become of her future?

In Five Years by Rebecca Serle is a deeply emotional, heartbreakingly beautiful story about soulmates and friendship. It’s about love, loss, fate, and indescribable connections. This was a unique, unforgettable story packed with all the feels!

Dannie Cohan is on the right path in her five year plan personally and professionally - a budding lawyer on a path to a successful career and a stable relationship with her fiancée. Her meticulously planned life suddenly takes a turn when a vivid dream takes her 5 years into the future Dec 15, 2025, wearing a different ring, in a different apartment, and with a different man! She wakes up back into the present in 2020, but can’t seem to shake off how real the vision was and have always kept her vision tucked away in the back of her mind. Fast forward 4.5 yrs later and she runs into the same man in her vision and the series of events that follows are what makes this book completely and utterly clever, moving, and heartbreaking.

I loved how the course of life’s unexpected moments and the unpredictable nature of destiny will take its course no matter what we do to try to avoid it.

I loved this book for the characters, the plot twists, and the beautiful relationships between life-long friends and the power to love and be loved.

In Five Years by Rebecca Serle
⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
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Dannie Cohan is on-track to achieve her five-year plan. She nails an interview for a very important job and gets engaged to her boyfriend all in the same day. When she goes to sleep that night she has a very vivid dream, one in which she is five years into the future with a beautiful apartment that is not hers, with a beautiful man that is not her fiancé. Dannie has trouble shaking the dream... especially when she meets her best friend’s new boyfriend, the literal man of (and from) her dreams. Played out across five years, In Five Years is a powerful story of love and friendship, and trust me... it’s not going to be what you expect.
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First of all, hi 👋🏻 Life got crazy and I stepped away from Bookstagram for a bit. I hope everyone is safe and healthy during these unsettling times ❤️ Maybe not the best *time* for an emotional book, but if you want a story that will rip you to shreds and make you cry your eyes out, this one is it. At first glance, it seems very much like a meet-cute, impossible love story. And yes, it did remind me a lot of One Day In December in that way. About halfway through, though, something happens that drastically changes the course of the story. In Five Years is a kind-of love story but honestly, it is fully a story that explores the love found in female friendships. I don’t want to say more and spoil the twist, but if you’re up for a highly emotional yet captivating read I recommend this one. Four stars because I didn’t love the ending, but it didn’t take away from my overall enjoyment of the book. Thank you @atriabooks and @netgalley for my advanced readers copy! In Five Years is out now!