I was definitely expecting this to be some fluffy romance with a lot of friendship drama. I was ready for predictable plot twists, but ended with my heart breaking into a million pieces. At it's very core, it's about an unbreakable love between two friends who've been through so much, and deciding who you really want to be for yourself.

I don't usually read romance books, I just don't. I had a feeling about this one though and I gave it a shot. It was not what I expected, but it a good way, it ripped my heart to pieces. This was not a sweeping romance, it was not a love story for the ages that you hold your own relationship to. This was heart-wrenching and incredible. I cried my eyes out and I loved every moment of this story.

"Love doesn't require a future," In Five Years, by Rebecca Serle.

Dannie Kohan lives according to plan. She knows what she wants, she has organized her whole life so far to get "there." And it seems to be working - perfect boyfriend, a best friend who is literally, the best, career fulfillment, and a Five Year Plan to take everything even closer to the ideal she's always imagined for herself. But then, on the night of her engagement, she has a dream of an alternate future. In that dream, it's five years down the line, and it seems that things have taken a HARD turn towards something Dannie has not planned. When she wakes up, Dannie is shaken but keeps moving in the direction she's always chosen. Things are different though, and there is more change - and heartbreak - coming her way.

The clever structure of this novel, and the magical, impossible-to-explain element at its centre, really draws you in as a reader. You are wondering how Serle will bring it together, and she does, with a real deftness. I loved the NYC setting. It made me long to visit the city again, with all of its spirit and energy. We can easily believe that the impossible might happen with such a vibrant backdrop.

Even though I'd been prepared by other readers to, "get the tissues ready," the intensity of emotion in Serle's slim novel surprised me somehow, perhaps because while I'd expected a love story, it ended up being of a different kind, the love story of a friendship.

How much should we even believe that we are "in control" of our lives? Is there a way to care less about what's ahead and really live now? How do you allow yourself to love fully all the while knowing that the other side of that feeling will one day, surely, be grief? This book will make you think about these questions and more. It would be an excellent - and likely very popular - book club choice.

4 1/2 stars

What a ride of emotions! The premise of the book is what caught me from the start. I have always wondered if I could see the future would I want to know. This is a book about relationships and love. The storyline and pace kept me reading and I really wanted to know how it ended. Enjoyed this book from start to finish!

Thank you to @netgalley and the publisher for an advanced copy.

Where do you see yourself in five years? And 5 years ago, is this how you imagined your life to be?

This story was not one that I expected. The story took interesting turns as it enfolded that it kept me on the edge of my seat until the very end. At which point I had been laughing and crying, tears of sadness and tears of joy.

"You mistake love. You think it has to have a future in order to matter, but it doesn't. It's the only thing that does not need to become at all. It matters only infofar as it exists. Here. Now. Love doesn't require a future." Aaron says to Dannie.

This was common theme running through the story. It starts off with Dannie and David, two people totally in love, living together, building their careers and focusing on their futures. They're both on the path that they think they should be on, the path that they're supposed to be on but what they don't take into account is life (or destiny). Life has its own agenda, it operates by its own rules and no matter your plans for the next couple of week or the next 5 years, life will definitely through you a curve ball and you're expected just to go with the flow.

This was an incredible story about different types of love: love between couples, between friends and the love we feel for ourselves.

QOTD: Do you believe in destiny/fate? Do let me know!!
I myself, am a believer in #karma - what we put out into this world is what we get back and destiny is determined by the choices that we make.

I really enjoyed this book, once I picked up it I couldn't put it down. I was so curious about what was going to happen in five years and what happened. I haven't read anything quite like this before and the story and a great plot to it.

I enjoyed this book because it is a story that brings out different emotions and offers many topics of discussion for book clubs. The characters are relatable and you find that you have to keep reading to see what happens next. Imagine if we could have a glimpse into the future 5 years from now, is it what you expected? It wasn’t for Danni, it took right up to the day before she understood what she has “witnessed” in her dream and her 5 year plan turned out to be completely unexpected,. She learns that life can take you in different directions despite a lifetime of planning and that going through the motions in life doesn’t bring happiness.

I read In Five Years over a weekend and couldn’t put it down. Fans of You Before Me and One Day will love it, but it’s so uniquely its own story.
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One night, Dannie gets engaged to her boyfriend and falls asleep when they get home, only to wake up in a different apartment, with a different man, and a different ring on her finger. The news is on the tv in the background and she can just make out the scrolling date: December 15, 2025 - 5 years in the future. When she wakes up again, she’s back in her apartment with her current fiancé.
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While Dannie is unable to shake off this dream, that date five years in the future is always at the back of her mind. As the years pass and she is quickly approaching that date from her dream, Dannie can’t help to do all that she can to try and prevent that night from happening.
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I went into this pretty blind and I recommend you do too as I really had no idea what was going to happen and I was not expecting the turns the book took.
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In Five Years is a story about dreams, destiny, love and friendship. And how even when we think we know what the future holds, we can’t always foresee the curveballs coming at us. Be prepared to stay up turning pages late into the night and have some Kleenex nearby!
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Thank you to Simon and Schuster and Netgalley for the advanced copy!

A special thank you to NetGalley, Atria Books, Simon & Schuster Canada, and Libro.fm for an ARC/audiobook listening copy in exchange for an honest review.

The standard interview question: Where do you see yourself in five years? Overachiever and highly ambitious Dannie Cohan has prepared the perfect answer.

She's having the best day: she nails her job interview and her boyfriend, David, proposed! But when she wakes up, she is not in her apartment, she has a different ring on her finger, and she's beside a man who is not David. It is also five years in the future.

When Dannie wakes up again, she's back in 2020 and it is just before midnight. She is completely rattled and can't stop thinking about what just happened. Determined to put it past her, she doesn't even speak of it—not even to her best friend, Bella. That is until almost five years later when Dannie has a chance meeting with the very man from her astonishing vision that night.

A story of love, loyalty, friendship, and fate, In Five Years will stay with the reader long after the last page is turned.

Serle's latest work is an extraordinary novel whose plot revolves around the tried-and-true interview question. It is thought-provoking, heartbreaking, and smart. And not at all what I expected.

Dannie is forced to reevaluate her life even though her personality is to plan life right down to the minute. But Serle creates some remarkable twists that force her to acknowledge that you can't plan everything, and that life happens.

In Five Years is a beautiful, intricate, and layered work that is not a typical love story—it embraces all of the loves in our lives whether they are the loves you choose or the ones that you don't.

I received an advanced copy of this book from the publisher (Simon and Schuster/Atria Books) and Net Galley in exchange for an honest review.

I want to start this review by saying that this book made me ugly cry. In Five Years follows Dannie, a corporate lawyer who has her life perfectly planned out; she has her dream job, and she’s engaged to her long-term boyfriend, David. After she gets engaged, she has a vivid dream that takes place exactly five years in the future, but she’s in a different apartment, with a different ring on her finger, and there’s a different man. She files this away as just a weird dream, but then four-and-a-half years later, her best friend, Bella, introduces her to the man in her dream. What follows is an emotional and unforgettable story of love, friendship, and heartbreak.

My favourite thing about this book was the friendship between Dannie and Bella. I loved that were opposites who balanced each other out. Dannie is an ambitious corporate lawyer with a life plan, and Bella is a spontaneous gallery owner who is always travelling and going on adventures. Despite these differences and the disagreements they’ve had over the years, they’re basically sisters who would do anything for each other.

I also loved the friendship that formed between Dannie and Aaron. Aaron is the man who appeared in Dannie’s dream, and he is also Bella’s boyfriend. I loved reading about them coming together to rally around Bella when she needed them the most, and I loved that they were able to be there for each other when their world started to fall apart.

More generally speaking, I loved how strong the female characters were in this book. Dannie is a corporate lawyer who is climbing up the ladder, breaking the glass ceiling with every step she takes. Bella is a creative queen who doesn’t let anyone tell her what to do or how to live her life. There’s also a small part in this book that features a tech firm that was created and run by two women.

Even though I loved the three main characters, I’m not sure if I liked the premise of this book. The entire book is leading up to the date in Dannie’s dream, and it just felt kind of weird to me? It felt even more weird knowing who the man in the dream is, and everything that happened leading up to it. The ending also threw me off, especially because it was very open-ended.

I was also thrown off because I went into this book thinking that it was a romance book, but it certainly wasn’t a romance book. There are some romantic elements in the book, but this is more so a book about friendship and moving on, which makes me put it in the contemporary category. The lack of romance didn’t ruin the book or anything like that, it just wasn’t what I was expecting.

Overall, I enjoyed this book, but I didn’t love it. I loved the three main characters, and I thought the story was memorable, even if I found it to be a little weird. If you pick up this book, make sure you have a box of tissues nearby, because you might end up ugly crying.

Dannie has her life planned out for the next five years. Everything is going exactly as planned when she lands her dream job and gets engaged. However, she has a dream that she wakes up in a strange apartment with a strange man exactly five years later. She thinks it must be a dream, until she meets that man. She becomes conflicted between following her trajectory or continuing toward the life she saw in her future.

My feelings toward Dannie’s situation kept changing throughout the book. At first, I was sure that the future Dannie saw wouldn’t happen. She was meant to be with David and live in their dream apartment. However, something happens halfway through that changed my mind about the future. Suddenly, Dannie’s goals didn’t seem as certain as they did at the beginning.

I read a book last year, where the author spoke about the invisible staircase. We think that we can see the direction that our life is heading, but the future is actually an invisible staircase because we can’t see what will happen. When we go through hard times, we think it will stay that way forever, but we can’t predict what will happen in the future. We only realize this when we look back a few years and realize we have changed a lot in that time. I was reminded of this idea throughout this book. Dannie thinks she can see what she’s planned for the next five years, but then she sees that she will be in completely different circumstances in five years. It also brings up the question of fate, and whether we can change things that will happen or if they are planned out, even if we try to take a different route.

I loved this book and I highly recommend it!

Thank you Simon and Schuster Canada for providing a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.

Dannie has always dreamed of being a lawyer, and she becomes one of the best working long hours with a top firm. Mark her boyfriend is in promotions, also working long hours, but the lifestyle seems to suit these two ambitious people. Bella, is Dannie’s very best friend, an artist and writer who owns her own gallery. Best friends since childhood, but so very different, Bella is off travelling, lover after lover, whereas Dannie and Mark lead a steady relationship.

One night Dannie has a vision of being in an apartment with a guy, not Mark who has just asked her to marry him, but a stranger.....they can’t wait to have fast and furious sex. The strange thing is she sees a date on the television that is 5 years from then. Will this vision come true?
The stranger, Aaron, becomes Bella’s boyfriend, much to Dannie’s distress....so what happens next?! Well worth the read to find out! I did find the ending a little strange, but the story was well written and a good read.
I give it 3.5 stars

Thank you Simon & Schuster Canada and Netgalley for a copy of In Five Years by Rebecca Serle for review.

In Five Years was not the book I expected it to be. When Dannie thinks she finally has everything her life plan has laid out, the engagement, the perfect job and is on track for the next five years, she has a dream that shows her what life is really like in five years. She lives in a completely different apartment and wakes up with a completely different man in her life. Is it just a dream? When she runs into the man later on, and her wedding plans never seem to get settled, she starts to wonder just what happens to her five year plan and what she can do about it.

In Five Years was a quick and interesting concept, but Dannie never became a character I grew to like. She rubbed me the wrong way with her plans and dismissal of her boyfriend for her perfect job. She was all work and barely made time for anything else which didn't really make for the most fascinating read I have ever had. It was good and the ending made me sob, but that is just about it.

Thank you to Netgalley and the publisher Simon and Schuster for an advance reader copy of this book.

4 stars ✨

What I liked about this book:
This is a beautiful and unique love story.
I loved the friendship between Dannie and Belle - it was in no way perfect ( as no friendship is ) but so real and precious
It’s actually quite an easy read

What I didn’t like about this book
I cried way too much reading it !

I saw quite a few posts about this book on Instagram which is why I requested and copy and am glad that it did.

I listened to this audiobook in one sitting. The. Entire. Thing.

I smiled, rejoiced, and sobbed.

This was incredibly beautiful and heart breaking. The tough realities presented are not lost in this novel. I loved it. This is a book that needs to be read.

Netgalley did provide me with a free review copy of the ebook prior to release as an ARC.

In Five Years by @rebecca_serle



You need to move it to the top of your TBR pile. It was beautiful. I want to shout it from the rooftops.

Dannie is a type A lawyer who has a five year plan. That plan is about to catapult to fruition when she falls asleep and wakes up in a different apartment, with a different partner, in what appears to be the future. At this point, I thought the story might be going down a path that was a bit too hokey pokey for me. Lordie lord am I glad that I buckled up for the ride and didn’t give up.

After the shock of that experience, Dannie wakes up and it appears it was all nothing but a dream. A dream that she can’t shake. A man that she can’t shake. She goes back to life as she knew it, as she slowly ticks off each box of her five year plan list. But, what she doesn’t have on that list - what no 5 year plan could anticipate - is meeting that man in real life. What happens next is a beautiful story of self-discovery and friendship.

I could gush about this book all night. If you’ve read it, I would love to chat about our mutual adoration. There’s no way someone feels otherwise.

This book was not what I expected. It was a book that was more centred around Danni and her best friend Bella than a romance. The flash forward is not what you are expecting it to be and I think that it was cruel a bit to Daniel and Dannie's relationship. Though I really hope that if the ending is any indication that the person that she is with in the end is her one true love than so be it. The only thing that I would have changed is I would have made the time jump shorter ...... I just feel that with the time jump nothing really changed all that much anyway.

*Thank you to Netgalley for providing me a copy for an honest review,*

I was really thinking this was going to be 5 stars but it ended up at a 3.5 maybe 3.75 rounded up 🤷🏻‍♀️
It started out strong for me I was hooked right away and wanted to know what was going to happen. I thought I knew what was going to happen. But then plot twist!!! The book went a different way then expected which left me feeling confused and let down by the beginning and end. It felt a bit disjointed from the rest of the book. I think what really happened was I was expecting a different kind of love story then what this was and I just didn’t love it

Wow! This was a small book that packed a big punch! I absolutely loved it and flew through it in just a couple of sittings. Even though the book was short, the characters and the story were incredibly deep and I did not feel like anything was missing. There were twists that surprised me and it definitely made me feel all of the things! Also, the writing was absolutely gorgeous!

Thank you to NetGalley for this book in exchange for my honest opinion & review.

I'm not sure I'll be able to properly portray my emotions and opinions of this book through words. It was powerful, emotional and draining, but absolutely beautiful.

We've all been asked the question - where do you see yourself in five years? Normally, we have an idea of what we'd like to see in our life in five years, or sometimes you have a set plan of exactly what you expect to happen. For Dannie, she has her whole life planned out, right down to the apartment she wants to live in with her boyfriend David. Once she lands her dream job, she knows she's on the path to her five year plan, David proposes right on schedule and they buy their dream apartment exactly where she wants to be. But what happens when a dream that takes place 5 years from the day spooks her into thinking her entire future will be thrown off it's well planned track?

This is an unbelievable story on love, friendship, heartache, heartbreak and picking yourself back up when you think you can't go on. I cried through most of this novel, sobbing throughout the last 10% of the book. Dannie was so relatable to my younger self, always thinking one step ahead and doing what was supposed to happen, instead of just letting life happen. I loved every character in this book, each with depth and personalities you connect with and probably know someone like them in your own life.

From the glimpse of her future that Dannie had in her dream, you're clearly interested in needing to know how it all plays out. However, once you begin to get into her story and meet the man from her dreams, so many questions arise and it's hard to put the book down, before finding out what happens. This book was not one set genre of straight up romance, instead it is a contemporary story of a real life woman, going through the motions of what life hands you. It felt raw and real, emotional and overwhelming at times. This book will stick with me for a long time, and I believe it will be a favourite of the year.