Level: Young Adult
Recommended Age: 18+
Genres: Drama
Tags: sisters, romance
Mature Content:

  - - Mature sexuality: kissing and mildly detailed sexual encounters - Moderate language: swearing and F bombs

Rebecca Serle takes the classic question “Where do you see yourself in five years” and elevates that. She writes about Dannie, a super controlling and ambitious Manhattan lawyer who follows a strict timeline. She has a serious five year plan, but the night after nailing a job interview for her dream job and accepting her boyfriend’s perfectly timed proposal, she dreams of being in a different apartment with a different man exactly five years from that night.

Dannie spends the next five years reflecting on that dream and pondering her control over her own fate. As she balances her career, planning a wedding with her fiancé, and taking care of her best friend, Dannie has to decide what she truly wants for herself.

Review:

This author is known for her romantic plots, but this book’s most important relationship is between best friends Dannie and Bella. In an interview at the end of the book, Rebecca Serle explains how strong female friendships are always a priority in her books because there’s nothing like the love between women. This definitely shows in Dannie and Bella’s lifelong friendship and the way they take care of each other. Sometimes the purest love in your life comes from a best friend, who becomes your chosen family, and while both women explore romantic relationships in this book the most important person in their life is still each other.

It’s a heart wrenching story of friendship and finding love in unexpected places, as well as learning to face what you want in life and not waste a single moment. Dannie is wonderfully unapologetic in her need to control and organize and succeed. She’s extremely ambitious and never views that as negative or unwanted. Bella has so much heart and takes care of her friend, even when the spreadsheet obsessive lawyer seemingly needs no help from anyone. They’re both capable and loving, in very different ways, and show that people can always find a connection no matter how different they are.

The plot is really interesting and explores the idea of how we make choices and how much we control our lives, or whether some things are just fate. Coming of age stories are usually centered around teenagers, but people can learn life lessons and make big decisions at all ages, and though these characters are in their 20s and 30s, they’re still learning. Even when Dannie thinks she has everything perfectly planned, sometimes the unexpected happens that does not fit into the five year plan.

This heart warming story is perfect if you’re missing your best friend, or just want to celebrate how friendships can get us through the worst of times.