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Culture

The Best Book to Snuggle With This Weekend: In Five Years

Maya Gengozian
This article is written by a student writer from the Her Campus at NYU chapter.

In Five Years by Rebecca Serle has been on my mind since I finished reading it. It is a story of love, dreams, friendship, and taking life’s changes as they come. It’s as eye-opening as it is tear-jerking, with a love story so deep and surprising that you will have no idea where it will end up.

In Five Years tells the story of Dannie, a 28-year-old lawyer living her dream life in New York. She is about to get her dream job, get engaged to her boyfriend of two years, and get her dream apartment – she’s on track to fulfilling her 5-year plan. But one night, she falls asleep and wakes up in a completely different apartment with a very different man — exactly five years later. She wakes up again about an hour later, back in the present day, where everything is normal. Though it would be easy to write it off as a dream, she can’t shake the very real feeling that it was her future, and she can’t stop thinking about the man who was with her. 

For the next four-and-a-half years, Dannie continues on with her dream life with her best friend Bella and her perfect fiancé, but she can’t let go of that dream. She tries to go to therapy to understand it, persuades her fiancé to postpone the wedding more times than either of them can count, until she finally gives up on the notion that the dream was predicting her future. If it were showing her her future, she was now six months away – the “man” from her dream would’ve come into her life by now, right?

But, when Bella invites Dannie and her fiancé to dinner with her and her new boyfriend, Dannie is put face-to-face with the man from her “dream” over four years ago – A.K.A. Bella’s new boyfriend. For the next 6 months, until the day she dreamt about, Dannie’s life flips completely upside down.

As a newly avid reader, I’ve been taking recommendations from Pinterest and BookTok. It was the “Book Club Pick” on Good Morning America in February 2020, which is why I grabbed it at Target. 

In Five Years is the perfect novel to snuggle with this weekend. It is an inspiring read. Dannie’s life is flipped upside down with the dream that she has. Halfway through the book, the plot completely changes. Without spoiling, all I will say is that the romance aspect of the story becomes the least of Dannie’s worries. Watching her navigate her impending wedding, being there for her best friend, and having the man she literally dreamt of, is inspiring, to say the least. 

I re-read the last few chapters three times just to fully grasp all that happened. Trust me, once you start reading, you won’t be able to put it down.

Maya Gengozian is the editor-in-chief and co-campus correspondent at Her Campus NYU. She top-edits and fact-checks all chapter content and is the primary source for all writing and publishing. She is responsible for managing the editorial calendar and ensuring the writing team has everything they need to write Gen Z's favorite content. She also oversees all chapter social media. Professionally, Maya works as a staff writer for BroadwayWorld Cabaret. She previously worked as an editorial intern for The Story Exchange, an award-winning nonprofit media organization dedicated to elevating women’s voices. She has also written for College Magazine and Cooper Squared. At NYU, Maya is the president of West 4th Stage Company, NYU Steinhardt's primary performance club, and is on the communications committee for Women in Music NYU. She is a senior studying journalism and vocal performance: musical theater, with a minor in producing. When she's not writing or working on one of the many projects she has at a time, Maya consumes entertainment. She enjoys watching TV and movies (she’s probably re-watching “The Bold Type” or “The Good Wife” as you read this), going to live theater, and spending time with friends. She is an avid listener of “Brooke and Connor Make a Podcast,” “Crime Junkie,” and “Pop Culture Happy Hour.”