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jenkepesh 's review for:
In Five Years
by Rebecca Serle
This is a book that seems to be about well-to-do, successful twenty-somethings crossing things off their life lists written on high-cotton-content paper with a good fountain pen. The great job, the cushion-cut engagement ring, the Gramercy Park apartment and the key to the park itself, the August beach vacation with best of friends—all of it appreciated, though not quite as much as it should’ve, as most of us treat this one wild and wonderful life.
The characters are not as insufferable as the summary might suggest. Dannie, the first-person protagonist, worked very hard to become the hot-shot lawyer she is. She has overcome the worst of the tragedy of her older brother’s death as a teen in the wrong car. Maybe, her just-wonderful fiancé is the universe giving back a little-a man who fits oerfectly, who never pushes her to step off the track she loves.
This Lawyers in Love life would, perhaps, be a little dull, but for the chaos of the lifelong best poor-little-rich-girl best friend, an artist and poet who falls in love and out,who jets off to Paris and back, who needed Dannie because she was never deeply loved by her family. She is Bella, and they are soul mate sisters.
But then a weirdness happens: Dannie has a weird dream that she can’t brush off, and then she realizes that parts of the dream are true. To follow through with the other parts would be impossible, and yet some part of her thinks it must be inevitable. Hard as she fights against her premonition, it will not leave her, and subtly affects her choices.
If it weren’t for the premonition, what would this story have been? I wish I knew. I think that this is the book’s great flaw, because this one aspect of magical realism works against the core of tragedy. It is like a meet cute in Othello. It robs the book of a better emotional payoff.
This aside, it is a surprisingly affecting story of the bonds of friendship. While there are three romantic love relationships in the book, the core of the love is between Bella and Dannie, who hold each other’s souls so tightly. I was surprised at how well this friendship, and the grief of losing one’s dearest person, was.
The characters are not as insufferable as the summary might suggest. Dannie, the first-person protagonist, worked very hard to become the hot-shot lawyer she is. She has overcome the worst of the tragedy of her older brother’s death as a teen in the wrong car. Maybe, her just-wonderful fiancé is the universe giving back a little-a man who fits oerfectly, who never pushes her to step off the track she loves.
This Lawyers in Love life would, perhaps, be a little dull, but for the chaos of the lifelong best poor-little-rich-girl best friend, an artist and poet who falls in love and out,who jets off to Paris and back, who needed Dannie because she was never deeply loved by her family. She is Bella, and they are soul mate sisters.
But then a weirdness happens: Dannie has a weird dream that she can’t brush off, and then she realizes that parts of the dream are true. To follow through with the other parts would be impossible, and yet some part of her thinks it must be inevitable. Hard as she fights against her premonition, it will not leave her, and subtly affects her choices.
If it weren’t for the premonition, what would this story have been? I wish I knew. I think that this is the book’s great flaw, because this one aspect of magical realism works against the core of tragedy. It is like a meet cute in Othello. It robs the book of a better emotional payoff.
This aside, it is a surprisingly affecting story of the bonds of friendship. While there are three romantic love relationships in the book, the core of the love is between Bella and Dannie, who hold each other’s souls so tightly. I was surprised at how well this friendship, and the grief of losing one’s dearest person, was.