REVIEW ⭐️⭐️⭐️.5 | In Five Years by Rebecca Serle, for release March 16, 2020
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Type A, boss lady Dannie has her life planned out to a T, including where she sees herself in 5 years with her fiancé and her career. One evening, she falls asleep and wakes up 5 years in the future in a completely different apartment. She’s madly in love with another man who is not her fiancé. She only gets a glimpse of this life until she wakes back up in her normal life. However, she soon comes face to face with the man from her dreams and is left wondering whether her premonition will come to fruition.

So let me just say, I was I was hooked from the first 2 chapters. I loved the premise and desperately wanted to know how the heck Dannie and Aaron were connected. I kind of expected it to be a romance, but it was really about Dannie and her journey of finding different types of love in life.

Even though it wasn’t a romance, I was kind of confused by dannie and Aaron. Even by the time I got to the end, I didn’t clearly understand this weird spark between them. Maybe there wasn’t supposed to be? Either way, it didn’t work for me.

I did appreciate the portrayal of friendship between Dannie and Bella was beautiful though and unlike how most friendships are portrayed. Part of me wondered if it was purely a friendship love, or if she loved her romantically as well? Any thoughts?

Overall, this book is beautifully written...but maybe it just wasn’t the right time for me to read it. I liked it and I enjoyed it, but I’m left not quite knowing how to feel about it. I think I need to mull it over.

Massive thank you to netgalley and atria for access to this ARC.

Five stars, without a doubt. Until the end of the book, I was convinced I knew what was happening, and it was *still* good, even though (I thought) predictable. The twist at the end made the book even more lovely, rich, poignant, and heartbreaking. Serle creates fantastic characters, complex and neither 100% right or wrong. Even the secondary characters seem to have depth in a way a lighter (although now I wonder if I'd really consider this light? Probably not) book often does not.

Do you believe in fate and destiny? Where do you see yourself in five years and if you could see what's ahead, would you do anything to change it?

Dannie Cohan is a successful Manhattan corporate lawyer. She knows she's checking off all the right steps on her five-year-plan - engagement to her boyfriend, getting dream job and living in the perfect neighborhood in Manhattan. But on the same night of her engagement, she wakes up and finds herself in a different apartment in. Brooklyn with a different man and realizes she's five years in the future. She wakes up again an hour later and finds herself back in the present but she can't forget her dream and what it means. However, she knows she can't tell her fiancé or even her best friend, Bella, so she pushes it to the back of her mind ... until she meets that very same man 4.5 years later.

This book was so good! It is totally not what you expect it to be. It's about love, but more importantly, it's about friendship and loyalty. It's a page turner with heartbreaking twists and turns. I was hooked from the beginning and wanted to finish in one sitting. It's a perfect mashup between Maybe In Another Life by Taylor Jenkins Reid and One Day in December by Josie Silver. My only issue is that I had a hard time connecting with Dannie but I still loved it.

This book was nothing like I expected. If you're looking for a swoony romance or easy to read chick-lit type book, that's not what you're getting here. This was a hard-hitting contemporary fiction that hit me right in the feels. After reading the blurb, I thought I had an idea of how this book would go, but I wasn't prepared for what happened. It had twists and turns I didn't see coming, but I loved it.

Dannie is an attorney and a number oriented person. As a fellow Type-A person who knows it takes 24 minutes to get to work without traffic, and 7 minutes to get to my mom’s house, I appreciated Dannie’s character. She's just interviewed for her dream job on the same day she got engaged to her long-term boyfriend. Her life is going pretty perfect. She falls asleep and wakes up to her life, 5 years later. 5 years later, she's in a different apartment and engaged to a different man.

It was just a dream, but it didn't feel like a dream to Dannie. It's something she held on to for years... Dannie's story isn't a romance. It feels weird calling it a coming of age story, but it felt that way. Dannie had growth and figured out the person she wanted to be with the help of her best friend, Bella. Her friendship with Bella was my favorite part of the book. The last 10% of this book had me sobbing, and even though the ending wasn't what I thought it would be, I feel like it fit the book and it fit Dannie's story.

This book was complicated, made me think, and really made me feel. The writing felt effortless and had a great flow. Even though it wasn't easy to read at times, I flew through it and never wanted to put it down.

4.5 stars

Wow! I literally could not put this book down. I shirked adult responsibilities just to read this to completion (thank god for frozen pizza). I was enthralled from the very first page until the bitter end... not that the end was bitter. It's just a saying.

Dannie is a lawyer, at a job interview for the company she has aspired to work for since she was little. She is asked the simple question of 'where do you see yourself in five years?'. She has the response perfected to a 't': a senior partner within the company she is interviewing for, married to her boyfriend of 2.5 years, and living in Gramercy Park. Celebrating her job interview, her boyfriend David, proposes. Things seem to be headed in the right direction for her five year plan.

That night, after falling asleep, Dannie wakes up 5 years in the future to different surroundings, a different ring on her finger and a different man in her apartment. After some time in the future, Dannie wakes back up in 2020, completely distressed. Feeling out of control for a type a personality is/was hard for Dannie to swallow. The situation seemed more something she would expect to happen to her best friend Bella.

4.5 years later, Dannie meets the man from her vision. Here the story stretches out, as things aren't how she thought them to be.

This story took so many twists and turns; I was not expecting the outcome of this book and I absolutely loved it. This book has all things you could ask for in a book, romance, the feeling of things out of your control, dogged determination, complacency, surprise, friendship and above all else love.

This is my first time reading a book by Rebecca Searle and am glad I was given a chance to review this. This is definitely a top book for 2020.

This story was really interesting in the beginning and I enjoyed it, but it felt a bit rushed.

Thank you Atria Books, Rebecca Serle, and Netgalley for the advanced copy. I'll certainly be reading more from this author.

In Five Years. I loved it. I recommend you read it. But it’s a challenging book to review.

I CAN’T share the plot beyond the basic premise that Dannie goes to sleep and wakes up on the same day five years later in an apartment that doesn’t belong to her, engaged to a man who is not the fiancé she just said yes to. Sharing any more would spoil some of the major plot points, so I’ll leave it here.

I CAN’T tell you why I felt a twinge of disappointment at the way it ended, because that would spoil the ending. I CAN tell you the disappointment didn’t make me like the novel any less - it was the right ending.

I CAN’T make up my mind about what the author’s ultimate message about fate is. In some ways, the story suggests that our future is destined. In others, it’s clear that even when we think we know our future... we don’t.

What I CAN say is this:

In Five Years is a beautiful novel, and the most beautiful part of it is the friendship between Dannie and her best friend Bella. They‘re more than friends, they are platonic soulmates. And of course I can’t get into more detail because, spoilers.

Also, you won’t be able to put it own. You’ll laugh and cry and stay up way way way past your bedtime to finish it. But it will be worth it.

*Thanks to NetGalley and Atria books for a free copy in exchange for my honest review.

I really enjoyed this book ..... and couldn't predict the ending. Couldn't help imagining myself in the same scenario: what choices would I make? And how valid is the choice without the proper context? Read this book, and think about those paths not taken, those paths we might take, and those paths we wouldn't have taken if we'd known the whole story.

In Five Years was an interesting and emotional read. It had a lead woman character unlike most that star in the books I read. She's very strong, organized, driven by numbers, logic, and goals. Her life is outlined and makes sense on paper. Her best friend is so the opposite. I don't want to give anything away but this took me on a direction I didn't see coming. I cried, I was surprised, I was invested. I maybe wouldn't categorize it as a romance, but there is definitely love.

Five. The number of stars I give this book.

I devoured this book. Kept turning pages. Read while doing my pre-workout stretches, read while I brushed, while I waited for water to boil, while I waited for a meeting to start.

This story was refreshing. Heartbreaking and raw and oh so good. I couldn’t help but think of Love Story by Erich Segal while I read this book. The pace, the tone, the mood, all made me think of Love Story, and then of course the big twist.

Though I thought this was a Romance Read when I started reading, after having read it, I also think it’s just as much Women’s fiction and New Adult fiction.

I highly recommend it.

Thank you NetGalley and Atria books for this ARC.

5/5

OMG I have only cried at one or two books in my life but this book made me want to just lay in the couch and sob my eyes out, then call my best friend and tell her how much I love her and cherish her!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I couldn't do all of that though because I was at work when I finished this book. At first I thought this book is very similar to Josie Silver's One Day in December and I almost put it down without finishing but boy was I wrong!!!!!!!! This is an amazing story of true loves and " the one" but not the one you think. It is about friendship and when you find "your person". If you've found them already you know what I'm talking about. Not gonna tell ya what it's about because you can read the sypnosis like I did lol. Trust me though you will love this book!!!!!! Thank you to Netgalley and Atria for my honest review

I absolutely adored this book. This is more then just a love story. It’s a novel that is heartwarming and so hard to put down. This was very well written and kept me hooked the whole time.

This is a book that's hard to describe to friends. It one where you say " just read it, you'll see what i mean!" I enjoyed it. Thank you to Netgalley and the publisher!

In Five Years follows Dannie, a twenty-something lawyer on the biggest day of her life she interviews for her dream job and her longtime boyfriend David proposes to her. But when she falls asleep and wakes up five years in the future with a different man. When she wakes up in the present she can’t seem to shake that future vision of her life, especially when she meets that man from her dreams four years later.

In Five Years comments on how life doesn’t always go the way you planned, but that’s often for the best. It plays on the favorite interview question: “Where do you see yourself in five years?” recognizing that even the planning doesn’t mean the future will look the way you plan.

I enjoyed In Five Years. It was just the right length, it pulled my heartstrings, and it was not predictable. What I didn’t like about it was that it was not a romance, despite the setup at the beginning. But if you get past the fact that this is not a love story, you find a gorgeous story about friendship and learning accept changes to your life plan in order to find happiness.

In Five Years was the kind of book that snuck up on me in the best kind of way and overwhelmed me with its beautiful writing and storyline in a manner I did not expect. When Dannie somehow ends up five years in the future with a man who is definitely not her fiance, she doesn't think a ton of it - until back in present day, she meets her best friends new boyfriend - the man from the future.

IFY will unfold in a way that you will not expect (at least I definitely did not) and if you are anything like me, it will move you to tears and capture your heart entirely. It might only be January, but I've already found one of my favorites of 2020.

Oh, what a treat Rebecca Serle's imagination is! Like THE DINNER LIST, IN FIVE YEARS takes off in unexpected directions, delivering a novel rich in character, surprises, and lots of things to keep thinking about long after the final page. This is a read first and foremost about friendship--don't miss it!

This was a story about love and friendship. I was immediately hooked and couldn’t put it down. It will stick with me a long time.

Thank you Atria Books and NetGalley for providing me with an advance copy of this book.

This book wasn’t what I was expecting- in the best way! I tore through it in a weekend. Dannie is a complete type A - perfectionist, wildly organized, anal - and her life is moving perfectly according to plan (handsome fiancé, partner track). Until one day she has a dream that puts her five years in the future, in an apartment she doesn’t recognize sleeping with a man she doesn’t know, and it freaks her out. She wakes back up in present time and lives her life unassumingly, meeting this mysterious man as the boyfriend of her best friend, Bella, 4.5 years later. Now the mystery is on to for Dannie to make sure her premonition never comes to fruition.

I thought this would be a cheeky love story, but it’s actually about friendship: how opposites attract, how the bond grows tighter with time, how friends become family, and how friends support each other until they physically can’t. Bella and Dannie’s bond is one that I initially overlooked as surface and silly, but by the end of the book I was seriously sobbing over their connection - it was build over time through memories but, more importantly, through their genuine interactions with each other: loving and annoyed and honest.

I loved that the book didn’t have a perfect ending — and really loved the full circle aspect of Dannie (slight spoiler) beginning to take Bella’s lighthearted nature to heart and applying it to her own life.

Thought this would be a fluffy read but it really hit me hard - grab some tissues. Such a good read, can’t wait for this to be published!

Danni has a 5 year plan and when her boyfriend David proposes it seems like everything is lining up. But when she has a vivid dream of a very different evening 5 years in the future she is filled with questions. Her life continues to follow her plan but a wedding date is never set and then her best friend Bella introduces her new boyfriend Greg, the man from Danni's dream. What is happening? A story of friendship, and love, and the realization that life has its own 5 year plan. A story I could not put down.

Bianca contributed this review to Really Into This

Special thanks to Atria for providing our copy of In Five Years by Rebecca Serle in exchange for an honest & fair review.

Have you ever had a dream about the future? Was it so real you couldn’t shake it? That’s what happens to Danielle Kohan. Finding herself in a different apartment, with a different man, wearing a different engagement ring… and it’s 2025. Who is this handsome stranger, and will they meet in real life? Once Dannie wakes from this hour in the future, she’s changed.

OPPOSITES ATTRACT
Danielle Kohan has a plan. A Type-A lawyer, she’s got her life mapped out. Law school? Check. Clerkship? Check. Interview for her dream job? Check. Dannie’s got it all, including the handsome boyfriend who is ready to propose. All that remains is to plan a wedding and sail into the predictable sunset.

Bella is Dannie’s best friend and complete opposite – a whimsical bohemian. She’s known for falling in and out of love quickly, jetting off to Paris or Morocco for a week. Creative to the core, Bella is the happiest painting, writing, or managing her art gallery.

FIVE YEARS PASS
Dannie’s never told anyone other than a therapist about that dream. Four-and-a-half years have passed since Dannie and David got engaged. But they still haven’t tied the knot. Career-driven, there’s always been an opportunity (or an excuse?) not to get married. For someone who plans life by the numbers, this isn’t expected.

Meeting friends for dinner in Manhattan, she walks up to the restaurant. There. He. Is.

She knows his name, she can envision his apartment. As the story unfolds, so does the connection between the two of them. Life has a funny way of intertwining people in joy and sorrow.

THE VERDICT
I am really into this book! In Five Years by Rebecca Serle is a reminder that life is unpredictable. A smart, raw story of friendship and heartbreak. This book came along at the perfect time for me – I see parts of myself in both Dannie and Bella. But more than that, In Five Years struck a chord as an uncanny amalgamation of my loved ones, facing the same challenges as the characters in this book. If you were a fan of A Walk to Remember or Me Before You, you’ll love this novel.