In Five Years by Rebecca Serle

"Where do you see yourself in five years?" is the quintessential interview question that most of us are required to BS our way through when getting our first job. Dannie, on the brink of getting her dream job, answers this question as well in an interview at the very beginning of the book. Things are going swell for Dannie: she has the dream boyfriend, a ritzy Manhattan lifestyle, and if she gets her position at this law firm, the perfect job, too.

But when Dannie goes to sleep one night, she wakes up an hour before midnight in the year 2025, and finds out exactly what her life is like in five years. To her shock and horror, she isn't with her fiance, David, but with a different man, a different engagement ring, in a different apartment, with a very different life.

She stays in that new life only an hour before waking up back in her own bed, but the vision haunts her. Especially when she meets the other man in the flesh-- and he's dating her best friend.

I think IN FIVE YEARS is a really good book for what it is. Which is chick-lit. People say that "chick lit" is disparaging but I personally don't think that is the case. Chick lit was my gateway into the romance genre, and in the early 2000s, books about bright-eyed and busy-tailed upper middle class women working the 9-to-5 life in Los Angeles and New York were all the rage, so IN FIVE YEARS is a nice call-back to the popularity of that genre.

The writing is breezy and the author is really good at setting up suspense. The pacing actually gets a little too fast towards the end-- almost rushed-- but I didn't mind because I was really curious to see how the book would end. I saw a blurb somewhere saying that IN FIVE YEARS doesn't end how you expect it to and while I actually agree, I'm not entirely sure that's a good thing. Also, speaking of blurbs, beware the blurb on Goodreads. It has a pretty big spoiler in it (although not in the way you might think). I wish the book had ended differently but I can see why the author did what she did. Subverting the genre, and all that. I get it. Still, I think some people may take issue. It's strange.

Funnily enough, I think it kind of worked, too.

Thanks to the publisher for sending me a copy in exchange for an honest review!    

3.5 to 4 out of 5 stars