In Five Years by Rebecca Serle

 

Everything about this book hinges on the end. If it's done right, the story will be an intense, emotional read. If done wrong, it will feel overly-contrived and cliche.

At the end, I cried.

Putting a unique spin on fate, In Five Years starts with Dannie. She's a corporate lawyer who's young and hungry. She flourishes in knowing the details, in always having a plan. She knows things, like where to live in NYC, what firm she should work for, when exactly her boyfriend will propose. It's all figured out, until one night she falls asleep for an hour and lives a life five years in the future.

In this premonition nothing is as it should be, and Dannie wakes up in fear of what five years from now will do to her master plan. She can't tell anyone close to her about this vision, not her boyfriend or her absolute best friend, Bella. It's her secret, one she wants to try and prevent so her perfect life can unfold.

Flash forward to almost five years into the future, and Dannie feels like she's dodged the bullet. She's got the job, the fiance, the apartment, but then it all changes. And then it changes again. Each hiccup in her master plan brings her closer to that night she saw in her sleep, but not in the way she expected. At the end of the book, the night plays out exactly as it does in her dream (this isn't a spoiler) with incredibly different circumstances surrounding it. What she dreaded happening for five years might possibly be the night she'd been waiting for.

This is a story about great love and extreme grief. It's about letting yourself to feel big emotions whether or not they allow you to maintain control. Dannie is given a gift to see a moment of her future, and even though she misinterprets it, having the knowledge gives her solace when she needs it most.

This book surprised me in all the best ways. It is beautiful and sad, but powerful. The devotion of the characters was something special to read. You might need a tissue, but this is a good one.

The Female Persuasion: A Novel by Meg Wolitzer

I'm not really sure what this book is about.Initially, the impression was it would be a feminist journey of a shy, slightly withdrawn girl coming into her own while surrounded by inspirational women. It's kind of that, but then also not. The trajectory Greer -- our lead -- starts on really becomes where she ends up. The "major" event that might have sent her on a tangent really just helps her get to where you expect her to be all along. It's strange. She does learn how to speak up and speak out, but it's not cliche in that she's suddenly empowered. Also, I think she would have gotten to where she ended up regardless of what happened in the story.

The book revolves around six characters, three men and three women. The women have a much more dominant role in the book, but the men are present in one way or another. The females have a common thread of purpose, the males are a bit more listless,. Even the most successful man, Emmett, has a significant inability to listen. Cory, Greer's boyfriend, suffers a great family tragedy and withdraws from the world. His own grief becomes the central need he must attend to, leaving Greer out in the cold. The third guy, Darren simply serves as a catalyst to get Greer angry about how men get away with improper behavior. The guys get to tell a little of their stories, but only one is really "good." They're all flawed at varying degrees.

The women include Greer, her friend Zee, and Faith. Zee encourages Greer to think and act like an activist. Faith, much older than the other two, has already created a successful career around speaking out for women. She gives Greer her first job out of college, working for a foundation that puts on events and does special projects to aid those in need. The foundation is funded by Emmett's company. Emmett is in love with Faith. He's doing this to be close to her. Allowing the men to also exhibit the stereotypical gender roles often found in literature is a subtle piece to this book. It's not a full role reversal though. 

I didn't love this book, but the more I think about it, the more I appreciate how the author decided to flaw her characters. It's not a hyper-realized version of men and women, it's not a declaration of one being better than the other. It's the mediocre reality that we all mess up to varying degrees. Sometimes we overcome those mess ups, sometimes we hide them and hope they stay hidden, and sometimes we never acknowledge we did wrong. It's telling who people are by how they handle their flaws, regardless of whether they're a man or woman. I like that the author is willing to admit that sometimes your flaws tarnish all the good you're putting out into the world.

I picked up this book because The Interestings is a favorite of mine. This isn't as good. It's not bad though. Maybe you'd like it.

The Starless Sea by Erin Morgenstern

This book is a lot. A lot of characters with dual purposes. A lot of movement and action in a place that's hard to visualize. A lot of narrative changes which reveal information so far apart, it's hard to pull it together. I still don't totally understand the ending, but I get it enough to feel a little, "meh," about it.

A secret world exists right beneath our feet. It's a world that holds story -- all of it. People find this world because they're meant to, by going through the right door. While it seems that most people who make the discovery just go down and enjoy being surrounded by caverns upon caverns of books, a few enter with a purpose to fulfill. Zachary and Dorian are two of those people. Lured down by the discovery of two curious books, and aided by two locals of this underground world, the men must complete a journey full of fear, pain, heartache, and ultimately love. One that concludes rocking along the waves of the starless sea, which seems to be a living thing itself, on its own mission.

This synopsis leaves out a ton of characters and a lot of action. It's all difficult to explain and harder to summarize. Whether that's a good or bad thing is up to you. Suffice it to say, this is a book about love and creating the right situation for the love you're meant to have to grow. It also drives home how complicated it is to find happiness.

I almost feel like this is the kind of pseudo-philosophical story a developing writer creates before they really know anything about writing. There's a compulsion to put all your thoughts into the story without self-editing, to use a lot of metaphor, and to blur good concepts with an excessive amount of words. While I like the ideas toyed with in the book -- love, human connection, and the evolution of a person's story -- the setting really overcomplicates things. There's just too much to this book all around. The physical space and layers of time within the story somehow dilute the ending, which I feel should have hit with a more exciting punch.

This book is tough to recommend. I liked it, but I wish the story had pieced itself together better. There's definitely something here worth reading. An adventure is always fun. It just doesn't feel totally right to me.

Generation Chef by Karen Stabiner

It's hard to write a book review when you know the author personally. Even harder when you've known the author your entire life and looked up to her because she had what you envisioned to be the "ideal job." I think I've spent most of my life dreaming about either being an artist or a writer. This book, Generation Chef, was written by my Aunt. I couldn't wait to read it, and now I'm going to try and review it, sort of.

It has been amazing to grow up wanting to be a writer while having a real-life writer to connect with. She never glamorized it, which I feel made a big difference for me. I'm not a professional writer today, probably because of the insight she brought to the profession for me. However, I still write professionally. I never gave up my passion for writing and for developing as a writer, and I think my Aunt deserves some of the credit for that. All that being said, it makes it hard to write a book review about my Aunt's book. My perspective is a little shaded by my emotional attachment here, but...

If you've ever found yourself channel surfing and end up binge watching The Food Network, this book is for you. If you love food - cooking it, eating it, snapping pictures for your Instagram - this book is for you. If you love real stories, about real people, struggling to make their dreams come true, this book is for you. The journey in this book goes from the first steps toward building a restaurant for a young, aspiring chef, to Huertas' second anniversary and all the unknowns for the chef and the staff that still linger. It's a story that is constantly moving and changing because that seems to be the nature of the industry. You can't be complacent with just one accomplishment, it must build toward the next and the next. It's honestly a lifestyle and pace I could never keep up with, but one that I'm so very interested in understanding.

I don't typically recommend books to my friends that my Aunt has written. Mostly because some of the topics she's previously covered don't really apply to the lives of the people I know. There was also this one autobiographical book where I'm mentioned a tiny bit, and it would have felt strange to have my friends read it. But, this book hits the mark for me. I enjoyed reading it so much and have already been talking it up to as many people as I can. I've also had the actual pleasure of eating at Huertas. I went with my Aunt while she was still working on the book. It was fantastic, and worth a stop in if you're ever in (or currently live in) NYC.

Regardless of who the author is in relation to me, Generation Chef, is a great read, and I think you (whoever you happen to be) would enjoy it.