In Five Years

 

You know the way they ask you the question at job interviews. I always wonder what they expect to hear: "In five years, if all goes well, I'll have your job, dude"? 

Anyways, I thought the book would be like that. We'd see her now, and we'd see her then. She will have grown, she will have changed, something will have happened to her... Why did I think that? you ask, simple. The book title promised it: In-5-Years!

Of course, I read the blurb on Scribd before downloading the book, and got a bit of what I expected. Here is what it said, taken from Rebecca Serle's website:

Perfect for fans of Me Before You and One Day—a striking, powerful, and moving love story following an ambitious lawyer who experiences an astonishing vision that could change her life forever.

I have not read or watched Me Before You or One Day but I know what is a  striking, powerful, and moving love story and that was not it. And the misleading an astonishing vision that could change her life forever is probably the reason why I got this book in the first place. I wanted a vision, I wanted a life being changed.

Let me tell you this right now: it is NOT a love story and there is no life-changing vision. It's a book about friendship, where Dannie's best friend, Bella, is slowly dying of cancer, about spending the last months with a dear one dying prematurely. 

It's got a weird premonitory dream stuff that has no rhyme nor reason and could have easily been cut off and why was it not? It leads nowhere, it's absolutely unrelated to the plot. So why is it even there? 

What I would have found acceptable:

• It could have been a book about friendship, full stop. I probably would not have liked it either. I found the characters too common. Dannie is super-lawyer, cold and purpose-guided, with her entire life planned ahead of her without any room for fun or excitment. Bella is just her antithesis, creative, no goals, no agenda, bla-blah-blah. 

• It could have been a book about cancer and dying, suffering. It could have had loads of details of the treatment and what not. Yet, it did show us how Dannie dealt with it and how Bella dealt with it. How Bella's parents dealt with it. How her boyfriend dealt with it. But, come to think of it, why did it show us all this, as this is all unrelated to the story too, with it being a love story and all.
  

• It could have been a book about magical premonition and Dannie following it and deciding to throw it all away, to live "da life", comparing her dull routine to Bella's more exciting life and deciding to seize the day, you know... Captain-oh-my-captain style! 

• It could have been a book about lust. She could have been madly in love with Aaron, torn between her attraction for him and her affection for Bella. They could have decided if his name was Greg or Aaron once and for all and put us out of our confusion.
  

• And finally, it could have been a book about love. I could have become more invested in the two main characters of the love story, Dannie and... what's his name? See, I don't even remember, as he's like a vase on a table, a painting on the wall. He's nowhere, we see him in between doors, and waiting at diner tables, he has minty-fresh morning breath and makes coffee in 25 seconds. Apart from that, he is spineless, existing only by his lack of interest. 

What I liked

The title. This is a cool one! It let me imagine what the book should have been about. It was appealing.  
Easy read and I liked that Rebecca took us to a lot of coffee places around NY. Oh, and I had no idea there was such a thing as a White fish bagel.

What I did not like

The storyline with unecessary parts and characters.
The predictability of the two female characters' interactions. I could not care for them as I would have liked to. They appeared to me like magazine covers, glossy, made up and artificial.
The transparent male characters, who ended up not being useful, if you ask me.

Finally, here is what I would have changed:

• Greg/Aaron: give up the name duality. Who cares? 
  
• The wet dream: completely scratchable.
  
• Bella's parents' drama: is the book about Dannie or about Bella? Why is this struggle important?
  
• Give the "perfect" boyfriend something to say, give him a voice, for crying out loud!
  
• Why did she have to have sex with Aaron at the end? 
• Why did I have the vision of the doctor as an old man?
  

At last, people, don't take my word for it, and read the book. I am an audiobook fan, so run on over to Scribd and happy reading!