By: Rebecca Serle
My Goodreads Review: 3.5/5 stars
“It is not love, this feeling. It is grief.”
My Summary:
In Five Years by Rebecca Serle follows the life of a woman named Dannie. She has perfectly planned out her life; she has a career she loves, the perfect boyfriend, and lives in the perfect place. Then on one of the most important days of her life, she has an unimaginable dream showing her where her life will be in 5 years, in a new place with a new man. When she wakes up, she is shaken by what she saw. The book then continues through the next five years of her life as she tries to block out her dream and focus on the life she is living until the man from her dreams is right in front of her.
“It feels impossible how much space there can be in this intimacy, how much privacy. And I think that maybe that is what love is. Not the absence of space but the acknowledgement of it, the thing that lives between the parts, the things that makes it possible not to be one, but to be different, to be two.”
My Review:
I think it is important first to point out that this book is not a romance, it is advertised that way, but it is not a romance. There is much more to this story than the love life of Dannie, In Five Years is a story of friendship and loss.
I really liked the main character, Dannie. Many people could relate to her story; changing your life is very difficult when you find yourself comfortable and content. I also felt for Dannie; losing her brother as a kid and taking on the responsibility of keeping her parents happy would be difficult. As the reader, you understand why she felt like her parent’s happiness is her sole responsibility but, that type of pressure would be difficult on anyone. Dannie’s story is well constructed and provides important messages for people caught in the same situation.
I also really enjoyed the simplicity of reading the entire book only from the perspective of Dannie. I have been reading many books with multiple perspectives lately, so it was a nice break.
Although I liked the main character, I found that the story was pretty predictable most of the time. For this reason, I never found myself fully getting attached to the story or the characters. Even in heavily emotional parts that would usually bring me to tears, I found I wasn’t too emotionally connected. The story, unfortunately, didn’t captivate me.
The only part of the story that wasn’t predictable was the ending. I definitely didn’t expect the book to end the way it did. It isn’t until the conclusion that the reader realizes this is indeed “not the love story you were expecting,” as Serle says on the cover of her book.
Overall, this was a nice and easy read with a pretty predictable storyline but a very good ending. If you are looking for an easy, quick, summer read, I would recommend this book.
“I think sacrifice is in direct opposition to manifestation. If you want your dreams you should look for abundance, not scarcity.”
Other Books by Rebecca Serle:
The Dinner List (3.5/5 stars on Goodreads)
Famous in Love (3.5/5 stars on Goodreads)
*This has been made into a TV series.
“I used to think that the present determined the future. That if I worked hard, and long, I’d get the things I wanted. The job, the apartment, the life. That the future was simply a mound of clay waiting to be told by the present, what form to take. But that isn’t true. It can’t be.”
Have you read anything from Rebecca Serle?
Turning Pages with Trish 