In Five Years by Rebecca Serle
In Five Years by Rebecca Serle
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“I used to think that the present determined the future. That if I worked hard, and long, I'd get the things I wanted. The job, the apartment, the life. That the future was simply a mound of clay waiting to be told by the present, what form to take. But that isn't true. It can't be.”
I am not really sure how I should start this review, and that says a lot about how this book affected me. But I have decided to start it by saying that many laughs and tears later, this book makes me want a friendship like the relationship that Bella and Dannie had more than anything. I guess as a fourteen year old, it is hard to see and watch other people become happy in stories, after finding their soulmates, as I am stuck being a freshman in highschool with no kisses or loves to tell about. Bella and Dannie were inseparable from babies to snuggling together watching rom coms at thirty years old: so it was so much harder to watch that bright and free woman named Bella struggle with cancer until her flame died out. I don’t think I have cried as much as I have when relating to a book, then I have this one. I mean sure I have shed tears from books this past month, but this book actually hurt me in a way that made me slightly smile.
I think the pace of this book made it so much more for me. Some authors seem to rush points in a book, and it takes away from the simple things, or conversations that pull or break apart the characters, but Rebecca slowed this story down, and didn’t try to add some perfectly charming ending, rather she created a peaceful, timeless ending that kept me wondering what fate was going to bring Dannie after this book. I am not going to lie, after everything that went down before the last two pages I kind of suspect that Dr. Shaw was going to play part later, and he did.
This book was nothing how I pictured it after reading the summary on the back of the book: but after hearing some reviews about how different the ending was I was rather more intrigued than ever. And let me tell you, the ending was not what one might expect after reading chapter three. I loved how Rebecca repeated the same chapter twice in the beginning of the story and at the end, because when reading for the first time I was waiting and anticipating how much I wanted these characters to get together. Though as I got halfway through the book I was wondering how it was even possible for the fate of those two characters to play out. After I finally got to that re-told chapter, I got to see the thoughts of Dannie, and how what she thought she had with Aaron was not love, but rather grief.
One of the main reasons I loved this book was because of how detailed Bella was described through the eyes of Dannie. She seems to be this ray of sunshine, and was really sad watching her pass. Despite the tears I left on the pages of this book, I really saw myself in Dannie and Bella. Dannie worked so hard, and made sure everything was orderly, which is me on any given day. While on the other hand Bella was impulsive and down to earth, and that is how I feel when I am happy and I live in the moment. This book shows how meaningful friendship can be, and that when you love a person you will leave them when they push you away as long as you know they will thrive from that loss.
I can just tell that I will be thinking about this book for the next week while I lay in bed at midnight and stare at my ceiling. It probably was not a good idea to write this review while listening to the Wisp Song and Ludovico Einaudi’s, Experience, because jeez those two together make me want to crawl out of my skin. Anyways, this is one of my favorite books of the year, and I don’t want to stress that lots of people need to read this now.
