User Reviews
Rating: really liked it
I’m so ugly right now! My face is blotchy, my eyes are bloody red, my nails, oh no I have no nails left. I’m a great candidate for any horror movie monster casting call.
Even the husband dearest who is normally coolest, mimic-less Scorpio man worried about me and cover my face with trash bag so he stopped screaming when he was looking at me!
After I finished this book, I cried so much! I couldn’t help myself. Honestly my friends shaped my life and made me who I am more than my own family. They saw my ups and downs and I seriously did too many mistakes to ruin my life because I’m so reckless and hot tempered, crazy redhead Aries woman and they always saved my ass, punched me, shook me and gave me the ugliest true messages I needed.
So when I read a book about testing your relationship with your childhood friend, it was impossible for me gather all those broken pieces of my heart. This book shook me to the core and thought me again instead of earning money, being slaves of material things, we have to collect friends who make us lives better and who help us to be a better person. Bella and Dannie’s heartbreaking, emotional friendship affected me deeply.
Before starting to read this book let me tell you the facts about it:
This book started so similar with Kristin Harmel’s “Life Intended”, when a woman dreams she can meet with her deceased husband at another universe and when she wakes up she resumes her relationship with her actual boyfriend. But don’t worry! At this story our heroine dreams only one time. Is it premonition? A fantasy about a man she never knows? Beginning of love triangle? You have to read and see by yourself. But one thing for sure, this story is more complex than Kristin Harmel’s because Dannie dreams her best friend’s new boyfriend!!!
Don’t wait to read a romcom about time traveling or parallel universes kind of fiction. This book is not a romance story. This is about a woman’s self discovery, life choices and love. And of course there is another heavy stuffs hurt your heart deeply. I don’t want to discuss them because I don’t want to be mean person who love to give spoilers (normally I’m mean and told the movie endings to everyone but when it comes to the books, I’m more tight lipped.) but my emotions were everywhere after I closed the book and story occupied my mind, haunted my dreams.
There is no bad guy of the story: The characters are not flawless. All of them have their own antics and irritated attitudes but you can understand each of them’s motives and connect with them easily.
It’s an amazing memory trip for me at the sightseeings of NYC including Dumbo, Central Park and of course those delicious deli places( when I move to LA, I protest to eat bagel and pizza because they don’t taste like New York’s famous pastries)
Overall: I don’t care lack of romance or resemblances with other books including”One Day in December”! I loved the creative, outstanding, smart and realistic writing, heart wrenching ending even the ending really tore my heart out!
Rebecca Serle, you’re amazing but I’m not gonna forgive you to sledgehammer my heart. My head is still spinning and I’m so shaky because of the powerful writing.
Special thanks to NetGalley and Atria Books for sharing this meaningful ARC COPY and help me to discover a new
writer by sharing this book in exchange my honest review.
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Rating: really liked it
Hated It! Of course I have to be the person who didn’t love this!
In Five Years is the story of a woman who has it all: the perfect fiancé, the perfect apartment, and the perfect job. But having it all doesn’t mean that she’s truly happy, and a tragedy is about to test the boundaries of all that she believed to be perfect. The night Dannie, a corporate lawyer, gets engaged she has a wild dream that takes place 5 years in the future. This dream is about to alter her life in ways she could have never predicted.
On a positive note, Dannie's dream and the way that is framed is the one element I really liked about this book.My biggest issues with this book concern the narrative and Dannie’s character. Dannie's character never felt real to me. I actually forgot her name until another character would speak it. Constantly discussing her food choices and commenting on the weather seemed like tropes the author used to make Dannie's character feel real, but these elements didn’t add any depth. Serle also uses food to show how Dannie transforms, i.e. she is going to change by ordering something different from her norm. It also didn’t feel natural the way she was talking about NYC; it was almost like reading a tourist’s perspective of the city.
Onto the narrative: There was way too much of Dannie discussing her issues with her fiancé (I already forgot his name and finished this yesterday) and with Bella (her best friend) without the reader getting to see what was truly going on in their relationship. All of the characters felt one-dimensional and clichéd. They didn't elicit any emotion, rather they checked off the boxes to complete Dannie's story.
I know a lot of people loved this book and I apologize if I said anything that diminishes one’s reading experience. My personal experience was not a good one. For some reason, this book angered me to no end. I don’t know what exactly triggered my anger, but it might have been because I found this book predictable, one-dimensional, and frustrating to read. I felt like I should have been sobbing in the end, but it left me feeling cold.I received an ARC of this book from NetGalley and the publisher in exchange for an honest review.
Rating: really liked it
let it be known that i hated every single second of this
and it should be retitled, or captioned as follows
in five years: your life will suck, bad things will happen, there will be no purpose for any of it
Rating: really liked it
huh. i kind of feel like the rug has been pulled out from underneath my feet and im left in a daze.
i went into this expecting the story to go in a certain direction (think
‘one day in december’) and i was 100% sure of it right until the last 10 pages, when all of a sudden the story doesnt end like i thought it would. and its not like it comes out of nowhere. it makes sense and im not angry about it at all. i was just so sure it would end in a certain way, i was completely blind to clues throughout that showed me i was 100% wrong. i feel so disoriented right now and i blame the misleading synopsis entirely!
but the more i think about it, the more i like this ending. it fits the tone of the book, makes sense with the characters, and leaves me feeling content. im definitely going to have to reread this now that i know what to expect. i think i will only appreciate how wholesome this story is that much more, because its a great story about the different types of love we have in our life - love for family, love for friends, and even love for work.
thank you so much to atria books/simon & shuster for the ARC!! <3↠ 3.5 stars
Rating: really liked it
What if you had a glimpse into your future? Would what you see change how you acted today?
Dannie is living the life she's always wanted: a great career as a corporate lawyer, about to be engaged to her boyfriend of two years, and everything is going exactly as she's planned. On the night of her engagement, she falls asleep and seemingly catches a glimpse of her life five years in the future. That glimpse, in which she's with a different man, throws her entire world into turmoil.
The premise of
In Five Years immediately caught my attention. There's something fascinating about the concept of knowing one's own future. Do you let it dictate your actions? Is there any way you can avoid your destiny if you don't like it? Those are tough questions, and the scenario facing Dannie is especially hard because this peek into her future self plants the seeds of doubt about the direction of her life and the person she's with.
And yet, this book is also so much more than that. It sets forth Dannie's personal journey of growth and discovery. It explores friendships and relationships and dealing with loss. The characters in here are fascinating, as are the choices they are forced to make. It all combines into the best possible mix, leaving me riveted throughout.
However, the ending threw me a bit. Without giving anything away, I'll say that the story led the reader in a specific direction, a seemingly profound one. It would've made the whole story come together at an insightful destination. But it didn't go that way. It went somewhere else, and that direction took a bit away from the story that the author was trying to craft.
Still, I ended up loving most of it. I found the characters interesting, their choices difficult and nuanced, and the plot line compelling. Even though the ending wasn't as stellar as I hoped, I still very much enjoyed the journey. Reflecting on it, I think this is one of those memorable stories that will stick with me for a long time.
~~~~~~~~~~~~
See also, my thoughts on:One Italian Summer
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Rating: really liked it
2.5 Stars.
I went through so many different emotions reading this book, however, that is not necessarily a good thing.
The first few pages of In Five Years were actually enthralling. I was instantly hooked by Rebecca Serle's skilled and mellow writing.
I remember thinking when I was 15% in that I could already tell that this had the potential to be a five-star book. Unfortunately, not long after, everything came crashing down.
Dannie is the type-A-personality-person that has her life together. She is methodical and mechanic. She has clear plans for life. She wants to work on one of New York's most successful law firms and she goes to the interview with a suit she picked out for the occasion three years prior. She lives with her longtime boyfriend and knows exactly when he's going to propose. They have the same ambitions and dreams. Everything is clockwork-perfect, until... something weird happens.
Dannie falls asleep and wakes up five years in the future. The year is 2025 and she is now living in a completely different apartment in Brooklyn, she's using a different engagement ring and living with another man who is not her fiancee. Dannie spends 1 hour in this future-time/alternate reality and then goes back to her scheduled life in 2020. Of course, she cannot understand what happened but is at the same time haunted by this vision. She even goes to a therapist and tries to make sense of what this could represent in her life.
Then we jump forward 4 years, and the events from the vision are getting very close to the present timeline Dannie is on, and here is where my rant will start, so beware of spoilers. I loved the premise of this book, until around 30/40% I was completely captivated by Dannie's tale and I saw this vision being a catalyst for her to understand so many things about herself. So, my 2.5 stars rating are exclusively for this first part of the book.
(view spoiler)
[Because the way the story unravels from then on makes absolutely no sense. We learn that the stranger living in Dannie's future apartment is actually her best friend's boyfriend and future fiancee. Let me tell you about Bella. The book tells us they are the best of friends, they grew up together and mean everything to one another. But, this is what we are told because the actions and descriptions actually lead you to believe there's a ton of competition and resentment between them. To every sweet moment between them, there is an opposite and toxic little scene.
To resolve the conflict of the mysterious man divided by the two friends the book introduces a plot that I really dislike out of left-field: terminal cancer. You see, what was supposed to be a contemplative romantic fiction became an overdramatic mess. Yeah, let's get rid of the friend to clear the path for Dannie, right? Yikes.
What about Dannie's current and lovely fiancee that does everything for her? Apparently, they have no chemistry and he was only a prop to bring more angst into the story, so of course, Dannie can just cut him from her life after almost six years together.
After Bella dies, literally the same day as the funeral, that's when Dannie has the one night stand with her ex-fiancee (yeah, that happened and it came from absolutely nowhere), but it was out of grief?!
Just take a moment to let it sink in that the blurb for this book actually describes: "an unforgettable love story that reminds us of the power of loyalty, friendship"
But in the end, after all of this absurdness, it's implied that Dannie ends up with Bella's oncologist?! WHAT A MESS.
Also, the amazing future scene from the beginning doesn't fit in this new context anymore. The dialogue (jumping forward five years) gets disconnected. Basically, that's not the way humans communicate with each other. It's weird, and it doesn't work
This was such a letdown because I was so intrigued about the true meaning of that conversation, and I was robbed of the emotional payoff it was supposed to give.
Honestly, I didn't know it was possible to mess up a beautiful premise so much... (hide spoiler)]So, anyway... In a nutshell, the first half of this book is intriguing. The second part is chaotic, frustrating, and 100% illogical.
Thank you Netgalley and Quercus Books for sending me an ARC in exchange for an honest review.
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Rating: really liked it
Do you ever just finish a book, sit back and think to yourself 'what on earth did I just read?'
I went into this book expecting a sweeping love story for the ages, one with a love triangle that would really feel heart wrenching and give me all those conflicted feels.
But no...
What I got was a love rhombus?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!
A very weird and very strange love rhombus.
Because for so much of this book we knew the ending...
We knew the MC would end up in flagrante delicto with this guy who wasn't her fiancé because at the start of the book we were given a flash forward sequence, a premonition of sorts, to our MC Dannie getting hot and heavy with a guy named Aaron who gave her all the feels...
So when Dannie met Aaron in real time and we discovered who he was... low key spoiler alert but also hella obvs.... her bestie Bella's new man sooooo HELLO LOVE RHOMBUS!!!!!
And therefore I couldn't root for Dannie and Aaron to be together... BECAUSE THEY MADE NO SENSE as Aaron was shown to be entirely in love with Bella; he and Dannie had zero chemistry plus the thoughts of Dannie and Aaron together brought a whole duplicitous vibe to the book. Sisters before misters, hoes over bros and all that.
And so we had Dannie denying her feels for Aaron... which was good!! Showed she cared about Bella's happiness and didn't want to be a wench of a friend... But I KNEW THAT ENDING WHERE DANNIE AND AARON HOOKED UP WAS ALWAYS GONNA HAPPEN...
So it made it difficult to really empathise with Dannie because she was pretty much lying to herself about her true feelings.
She was also lying to her fiancé David (even if he was a wet wipe!)
And lying to her bestie Bella (even if she was the manic dream pixie of bestie girlfriends who I found quite irksome for the majority of the book)...
But then the book threw me for a loop and went another way...
So I'm sort of shook.
I appreciate that this book took a plot twist I wasn't expecting but because I was expecting a traditional romance I feel somewhat shortchanged...
BUT THEN AGAIN THERE WAS A TRUE LOVE STORY BECAUSE IT WAS ABOUT THE LOVE BETWEEN BESTIES AND YAY FOR RAISING UP FEMALE FRIENDSHIPS!!!!
Honestly I don't know what to say about this book. This review is a lol!
What the book has in its favour is that it's a quick and easy read. I read it in a day and was happily distracted by it. However it's also one that will had me going wtf from time to time but because I was low key dreading the inevitable hanky-panky between Danni and her bestie's boy and it made me feel too annoyed with the characters and therefore unable to empathise with them as I should.
Ultimately I think my mixed feelings leave me rating this at three stars.
*An e-copy of this book was kindly provided to me by the publisher via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review*
For more reviews and book related chat check out my blog
Rating: really liked it
EDIT 06/11/20: So, I just saw this is nominated in the romance category for the Goodreads Choice Awards and I’m
beyond baffled. This book does not have a romantic storyline. This book is not about people finding love and living happy ever after blah blah. This book should not be on that list. This is a book about
friendship! The romantic relationships that the two female leads have in this book do feature quite a bit, but they are not the focus. It is a tragic story about friendship that does not have an HEA in the traditional sense cause
spoiler alert - someone dies.
It’s so frustrating to see this kind of book there. It just goes to show that those awards are a joke and that mostly, the already established and traditionally published authors and books make it in there, regardless if they are right for the genre or not. At least half of the books on that list are either not romance or they are simply not awards material. I repeat, it’s such a joke!
3 Stars This is one of those books where you can just tell
it tried to be so much more than it actually was. You can notice that in the philosophical nuggets a character will throw out of nowhere which do not fit with the person or moment in the book.
The writing was basic and the descriptions were so .. clinical, I just couldn’t like it.
The only thing that was good - was the twist (towards the end) But it wasn’t good because I saw it as some sort of deep life lesson and I felt all emotional (cause I didn’t) maybe I’m being too cynical but I just feel like this book really tried to make you cry.
You know when someone tries too hard and it becomes awkward because being pushed into something will never feel the same as naturally reacting to it. Anyway, so about that ending, it was good because I didn’t see it coming (maybe at about - 65% I started to suspect).
My final thoughts on this.. hmm, it’s not a bad book but throughout the story I just didn’t feel any connection to any of the characters, and also, not much happened, and I have a feeling this was intentional.. We’re supposed to be moved by these small, inconsequential day to day interactions and feel a certain way about the characters. I didn’t. They weren’t special. They weren’t new.
And without an interesting plot to fill that void .. all we were left with were the “sad” scenes where I’m told I’m supposed to cry.. I didn’t.PS: This is not a love story! At all! I kept waiting until 80% for the love to happen. It didn’t. It’s about friendship.Also, the book would have been so much better imo, if it had followed the path we were led to believe it would( the whole, you’ll find your soulmate and he won’t be anything like you thought he’d be or need - instead we got something totallyyy different and it could have been good but it wasn’t, it felt too ... convenient?!)
Rating: really liked it
Galentine's Day is right around the corner...so why not curl up with a good book? Check out my latest
BooktTube Video - all about five fabulous books on female friendship!
The Written Review 
This book was amazing.
It made me ugly cry. I honestly don't want to write a review for this one cause wow. I went in there nearly blind and I was just so blown away. I want other people to have that experience.
But in brief - this is a story about love and loss and friendship and finding yourself in the darkest of places.
Truly one of my favorite stories of the year.YouTube | Blog | Instagram | Twitter | Facebook | Snapchat @miranda_reads
Rating: really liked it
I loved this book. A real gem. Wonderful voice, wonderful prose. A strong female protagonist who easily carries the story. The three-dimensional characters are so well drawn they could walk right off the page and have a cup of coffee with you. The writing craft here is amazing and will spoil me for the next book I pick up. The prose is economic and yet dense and lush, a unique juxtaposition difficult to pull off.
I read mostly Thrillers and mysteries which have acute plot points in the four C’s of writing, Conflict, Complication, Crisis, and Conclusion. In stories like this one the prose and voice in the four C’s are mere blimps. I was swept along in the enchanting Fictive Dream.
At first, I believed the motivation was set too firmly, (MAR, Motivations, Action, Reaction) and that the Conclusion would be overt. The premise also made this problematic. But again, the prose and engaging voice had me by the throat pulling me along. So, I didn’t care if the ending was a foregone conclusion. This story is loaded with emotions and takes those emotions right to the edge of melodrama without crossing over. You come out the other end of this book shaky and weak, wrung out from the emotional roller coaster. It’s that kind of book. I highly recommend this book.
I might not have spotted this little gem if not for my friends on Goodreads.
David Putnam author of The Bruno Johnson series.
Rating: really liked it
Be sure to visit Bantering Books to read all my latest reviews.Rebecca Serle’s newest novel, In Five Years, caught me by surprise. In a couple of different ways.
First off, it’s not the story I believed it to be. I expected a romance -- it’s not. Not really. It is, but it isn’t.
Secondly, I had no clue I would love it. I thought I would
like it, at best. But love it? Nope. I never saw it coming.
“Where do you see yourself in five years?”We all have had this asked of us at some point in our lives. With
In Five Years, Serle seizes the age-old proverbial question and thematically runs with it.
Dannie Kohan lives strictly by the rules. Her five-year plan is meticulously outlined; every personal and professional goal is listed. To her, words such as “spontaneity” and “flexibility” do not even exist. They belong more in the world of her carefree best friend, Bella – not in Dannie’s.
Life is great. Perfect, even. And just when Dannie thinks life cannot be any better, she has the best day of her life. She nails her interview for her dream job
and becomes engaged to her boyfriend, David.
That night, Dannie falls asleep contentedly on the couch, knowing her life is on track, heading in the right direction. But when she awakens, she is no longer in her apartment. She is wearing a different dress and a different ring. And there is a very different man next to her, who is most definitely
not David.
Within a matter of minutes, Dannie quickly realizes she has somehow been forwarded five years into the future. But after only one hour, she awakens once again in her own home, beside David, back where she belongs.
Shaken and haunted by her remembrance of that fateful dream, Dannie is determined to forget the entire experience. She focuses instead on her five-year plan and her engagement, pushing aside all lingering memories of her potential future. That is, until the night Dannie crosses paths with the man she met in her dream, and she finds herself being uncontrollably propelled closer and closer to that one inescapable hour.
And that’s it. That’s all I’m going to give you. Because
In Five Years works best if you know nothing further of the plot. The narrative takes a very unexpected turn, and if you see it coming, the profound impact of the story will be greatly lessened.
But what I
will share with you is this –
The novel is utterly captivating. It is emotional and heartfelt. It is elegantly written by Serle, with prose that is beautifully sparse. Its size is slim, making for swift consumption, possibly in one sitting.
And how you will ultimately feel about the novel will likely mirror your emotional reaction to Dannie. Because none of the secondary characters are fleshed out. Not fully. At least, not enough to genuinely feel much of anything towards them. She is the anchor of the story. The foundation. She is the only one we come to truly know.
The problem is that even though we may know Dannie, it is difficult to like her. She is the Type A-est of Type As. She is selfish. Controlling. She is extremely possessive. To be honest, I didn’t care for her at all in the beginning – and I still don’t know whether I fully like her.
But by the end, I understood her. I felt empathy and compassion for her. And it proved to be enough. Albeit feeble, this appreciation of her character allowed me to be entirely immersed in the novel, my whole heart and all. As well as be emotionally wrecked by it.
All of us know that every reader experiences a novel differently. Not every person connects with every character. That said, I suspect that if you do not form a similar bond as I did with Dannie, or at the very minimum, accept her, then the novel will not be a read you will remember. It may be tedious. It will not be enjoyable.
Consider yourself lucky, however, if you do find some sort of solid footing with Dannie. Or share enough common ground with her to care. For
In Five Years will move you. It will break your heart and renew it. It will bring emotion to the surface and leave rawness in its place.
And the experience will be unforgettable.
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Rating: really liked it
"What are the odds?"
"In a city of nine million? Less than zero."
On occasion - but not often - I read a book and I
really don't know how I feel about it. Not in that way where I say I don't know how I feel to soften the blow before I explain why I didn't really like it... but a way where I liked certain aspects of it, really disliked others, and couldn't ever balance out my thoughts into anything resembling a star rating. This book was one of those. I'm going to leave the rating blank.
Firstly, I picked up this book because I was genuinely looking for a sweet romance. I was hoping for something light and fluffy, and I can say now that this book is most definitely not that. I would not categorize this as a romance - in fact, I removed it from my 'romance' shelf - but either chick-lit or women's fiction (with a dash of magical realism), and I would also say this is on the more sentimental, weepier end of those genres.
I actually quite liked that this book was not what I was expecting. Even when it became clear that the genre wasn't what I thought it was, there were still surprises to come. I became really annoyed with the book around the halfway point, in large part because I thought I knew how it would end. But I got at least part of that wrong, too.
The plot revolves around that common interview question: "Where do you see yourself in five years?" On the exact same day that Dannie Cohan nails an important interview and gets engaged to her boyfriend, she falls asleep and wakes up in a strange apartment with a man she has never seen before. The date on the TV says December 15, 2025. Exactly five years later. Then when she wakes up again, Dannie is back in 2020. But she can never quite forget that bizarre and intense hour she spent in a different life. Then, of course, the mystery guy comes into her life in a way she could never have predicted.
I say I really don't know how to rate this because I think of how it surprised me at the end and some of the themes that touched me and I feel positive thoughts toward it, and then my mind goes to what I hated (view spoiler)
[cancer as a plot device, for one (hide spoiler)] and I think
ugh. I am at least thankful that predictions one and two on my part were wrong. If you're curious about them... (view spoiler)
[ Prediction 1: Cheating. Prediction 2: Bella's death would be used as an excuse for Dannie to be with Aaron. (hide spoiler)]Arc kindly provided by Atria Books in exchange for an honest review.Facebook | Instagram
Rating: really liked it
Good god, I loved this book even if it left me crying on the plane!
"You mistake love. Do 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 be come at all. It matters only insofar as it exists. Here. Now. Love doesn’t require a future."
Dannie is a planner. Everything in her life is meticulously mapped out—the job she wants at the law firm she wants, her dream apartment in NYC, when she and her boyfriend will get engaged and married. That’s the way she’s always been.
She and her boyfriend David get engaged the night she interviews for her dream job at a highly prestigious law firm. Everything seems right. She and David have the same vision for their future, they like the same things, they're comfortable in their routines as a couple.
When Dannie and David get home from dinner she falls asleep and awakens to a dream in which she’s in another NYC apartment, wearing a different engagement ring, and she’s with another man. She finds out the dream is taking place five years in the future. And then she wakes up.
Dannie is utterly shaken by this dream. Who was this man? What happened to the future she planned? As time hurtles toward that date five years later she learns a lot about things she can and cannot control, and how those things shape her life. She doesn't know whether to accept the dream as an inevitable reflection of her fate or if she should fight the things that lead to its realization.
In Five Years was an amazing, emotional story full of twists and turns. It was a story about love in its many forms, friendship, ambition, and destiny. Truly an unforgettable book, and one I read in about two hours while waiting at the airport and on my plane.
Rebecca Serle is an amazing writer. Her last book,
The Dinner List , also blew me away and left me an emotional mess. She's definitely an author worth reading.
My thanks to Atria Books for providing an advance copy of this book via a Bookstagram giveaway. The book will publish on March 3, 2020.
See all of my reviews at itseithersadnessoreuphoria.blogspot.com.
You can follow me on Instagram at https://www.instagram.com/the.bookishworld.of.yrralh/.
Rating: really liked it
The book has an
open ending and I hate it when it is like that.
From the very beginning I had a bad feeling about this book so I couldn't read it properly, I just skimmed and scanned it to see where it goes. And in the end, I was happy that I didn't spend 5 or 6 hours on this book because the ending would frustrate the hell out of me.
Here is the result of my skim-scan and quick reading. It has all the spoilers so make sure you don't uncover it if you really want to read this book.
(view spoiler)
[Dannie is engaged. She sees a premonition about her life in 5 years. She is in a different house with a different man with a different ring on her finger. This vision feels like real and it devastates her. She keeps cancelling her wedding and after 4,5 years, she sees the man in her vision in real life. His name is Aaron. Her best friend Bella introduces him as her new boyfriend. Later, they get engaged. Aaron loves Bella.
Bella soon gets ill. She has cancer. She dies. After her funeral, the fiancé, Aaron, gives her ring to Dannie. And they are in their house. Dannie suddenly realizes that the vision she saw 5 years earlier was that day. The ring on her finger is her dead best friend Bella's ring. The man she saw herself with is Aaron, her dead best friend's fiancé. The house is theirs. That was the vision!
Maybe out of grief or whatever other reason beyond my comprehension, they have sex after the funeral. Then, Aaron leaves, saying maybe they will have coffee sometime next week. They will maybe stay as friends or become lovers, we don't know.
Dannie comes across her dead friend's handsome doctor, Dr. Shaw, at a café she goes after Aaron leaves. There is a hint that maybe she will be with this handsome doctor... but again, we don't know for sure. We know nothing about the future. (hide spoiler)]Did I say I hate open endings?
*********************************************
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Rating: really liked it
❥ 2 / 5 stars[ e-ARC received from NetGalley ]Here’s some advice from me : Before reading this book, read others’ reviews first because the story is not what you think. It’s not the same as the synopsis said.
[This review might contain some spoilers so make sure you don’t continue reading this if you don’t want to know beforehand about some major events in the story.]
I started having bad feelings about it when Dannie fell asleep and dreamed about her new life in the next five years with an unknown guy named Aaron. I found it pretty weird that even though she didn’t know him, she still had sex with him anyway after a little talk. I was like WTF. In real life, you just got engaged with your two-year boyfriend and then, in your dream, you fucked another guy? 😅
But it became worse when she met him again four years later as her bestie’s boyfriend. As soon as I read that part, I immediately thought of One Day in December and I was so afraid because I didn’t want to read that kind of story again. Once is enough.
And thank god, it’s not the same. In this book, Aaron really loved her friend, Bella. So, it was out of the question that he would cheat on her and had sex with Dannie while he was still with Bella.
Thus, to make the impossible happen, the author then decided to kill this Bella character off by giving her a cancer. (Again, WTF!)
And the story after that, I would say that it was a complete mess. Nonsense came one after another and the worst thing about it was the ending. It came out of nowhere (completely out of nowhere) that I was shocked and speechless. I usually like plot twists but no, not like this. I felt like the whole story I’d been reading for hours was worthless in the blink of an eye.
Nonetheless, there is still a great thing about the story: the friendship between Dannie and Bella. Without that, I might give it only one star.
Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for providing this e-ARC to me in exchange for an honest review.
