Review: In Five Years by Rebecca Serle

☆☆➹⁀☆ 4.5 stars ☆➹⁀☆☆

 

About the Book:

Where do you see yourself in five years?

When Type-A Manhattan lawyer Dannie Cohan is asked this question at the most important interview of her career, she has a meticulously crafted answer at the ready. Later, after nailing her interview and accepting her boyfriend’s marriage proposal, Dannie goes to sleep knowing she is right on track to achieve her five-year plan.

But when she wakes up, she’s suddenly in a different apartment, with a different ring on her finger, and beside a very different man. The television news is on in the background, and she can just make out the scrolling date. It’s the same night—December 15—but 2025, five years in the future.

After a very intense, shocking hour, Dannie wakes again, at the brink of midnight, back in 2020. She can’t shake what has happened. It certainly felt much more than merely a dream, but she isn’t the kind of person who believes in visions. That nonsense is only charming coming from free-spirited types, like her lifelong best friend, Bella. Determined to ignore the odd experience, she files it away in the back of her mind.

That is, until four-and-a-half years later, when by chance Dannie meets the very same man from her long-ago vision.

Brimming with joy and heartbreak, In Five Years is an unforgettable love story that reminds us of the power of loyalty, friendship, and the unpredictable nature of destiny.

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Guest Reviewer Tom’s Thoughts:

In Five Years by Rebecca Serle is a very well written and moving novel.  It is story of a young and resourceful workaholic corporate lawyer, Dannie Cohan, who eventually finds her true self by virtue of her relationship with her best and most trusted friend.  An endearing aspect of Serle’s writing is that these friends are polar opposites, and the author exquisitely reveals how loyalty and their troubled childhoods kept them together.

Now as adults, it seems that Dannie has everything under control compared to her whimsical friend Bella or does she?  Bella, on the other hand, seems ready to settle down and be more like Dannie.  Tragedy then hits their world and they realize it takes both their personalities and their strong bond to cope.  The result is Serle’s poignant depiction of the boundless love between friends.   Character development of each heroine through each other’s eyes is both refreshing and humorous.  Serle also completely nails Manhattan, the intensity of corporate law and deal making, and the difficulty of achieving work/life balance in that environment.

The bond between Dannie and Bella as written by Serle deftly reminds us what is important in life.  While I didn’t like the “hook” of the five-year premonition and its (unbelievable) resolution, I have to admit that the anticipation caused will keep some readers turning pages.  For me, the quality of Serle’s writing was all I needed.

 

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