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!

Based on the description and the first few chapters, I thought this book might being some sort of time travel book, though that did not end up being the case. Instead it is a both heartwarming and heartwrenching look at love and friendship, and how time impacts both.

While I didn’t grow terribly attached to any of the characters, I did grow attached to their stories. How life can turn quickly in so many ways.

Dannie has followed a plan her whole life. She lays out her goals, she accomplishes them, and then she makes new ones. When she finally gets engaged, she is excited to check off that "husband" task and start thinking about the future. However, the night of her engagement, she has a dream or a vision, that puts her five years in the future (accomplishing very different things than she thought she would) and when she wakes up, everything stable in her life is now unknown. Can she change her future? Or is her vision inevitable?

This book was so much more than what it first seemed. I thought I was going into a love story...little did I know that it WAS a love story, just of a different kind.

Books with friendship themes at the forefront of the plot and as driving forces need to be written and praised more. There is so much more to love than just a significant other. This book encompasses many, many different forms and types of care and affection and how it plays out in crisis.


Get the Kleenex ready, because this one will surely make you shed a tear or two. Loved it!

Wow!! What do I say about this amazing story. It moved me so deeply, I cried. That doesn’t happen often for me in books. It’s not often that I find myself so deeply invested in a book and relating to the characters.
I think we all have a tendency to plan the way we want life to go, but the universe or God has other plans for you. It’s sometimes very hard to accept but you learn there are better things down the road.... once you get there.
This is a must read and re-read. I will treasure this book and be buying a hard copy to keep on my shelf.

⭐⭐⭐⭐ 4 stars | In Five Years is one of those rare instances where the story and concept of the book itself moved me far more than the characters did, which it why I still rated highly. From start to finish, it was really difficult for me to empathize with Dannie Cohan, Type-A Manhattan lawyer who has her five-year plan nailed down to the last detail. That means the perfect job, apartment and getting engaged to her boyfriend. Then she has a dream set exactly five years in the future and she finds herself in a very different apartment, in bed with a very different man. It feels so real that she's shaken when she wakes up but she refuses to place any real weight on it except deep down, you know she kind of does. Then exactly four-and-a-half years later, Dannie meets the man from her vision in real life and it has her questioning everything. Like I said, I really enjoyed this premise but it was hard to connect to someone so regimented in life and who ultimately seemed to believe she had no autonomy. I'm someone who strongly believes that you always have a choice and that more often than not you have to adapt to the curveballs life throws you. So you can see why me and Dannie did not see eye-to-eye and I had genuinely hoped the author would take her character on a very different path instead of being so predictable. That said, friendship plays a big role too and we meet her lifelong best friend, Bella, early on in the book. The ups and downs plus the back and forth between them (they're complete opposites) was portrayed in a way that I found relatable and often-times moving.

Do I recommend? I do! Despite my frustrations with Dannie's personal journey and the ending quite frankly, I do think it's a thought-provoking book that will get readers thinking about destiny and choice.

In Five Years by Rebecca Serle is one of those books my heart will never forget. Definitely one of my top reads. A gorgeous and unique story about relationships, epic love and fate.

This isn’t your typical love story, it’s unique. The characters…their relationships…their journeys…I was sure I had this story all figured out but it was nothing like I imagined. In Five Years is one of those stories that immediately grabbed me and didn’t let go, I didn’t want to put it down. I will warn you, if you are a crier-as I am, you will need a box of tissues. I was lucky I was in my car when the sobbing, ugly tears started. I can’t remember the last time a book made me full-on ugly cry…But I promise, it is worth every single tear.

For those of you looking for something “more” from the stories you read, In Five Years by Rebecca Serle is definitely a book you need to read. I wasn’t ready to let these characters go.

This was such a bizarre reading experience for me. I was completely hooked to this from start to finish and I did VERY much enjoy this book, but I have some complicated feelings. I really liked all of the characters and I truly believed in all of their bonds and the messiness of their relationships/actions, but there were some things about this book that just made me feel a bit weird and I'm not really sure how I feel about it. I'm going with a 4 star rating for now because I really enjoyed the writing and I absolutely flew through this one, but that rating is definitely subject to change (in either direction!) the more that I mull this one over.