In Five Years by Rebecca Serle
Goodreads blurb: When Type-A Manhattan lawyer Dannie Cohan is asked this question at the most important interview of her career, she has a meticulously crafted answer at the ready. Later, after nailing her interview and accepting her boyfriend’s marriage proposal, Dannie goes to sleep knowing she is right on track to achieve her five-year plan.
But when she wakes up, she’s suddenly in a different apartment, with a different ring on her finger, and beside a very different man. The television news is on in the background, and she can just make out the scrolling date. It’s the same night—December 15—but 2025, five years in the future.
After a very intense, shocking hour, Dannie wakes again, at the brink of midnight, back in 2020. She can’t shake what has happened. It certainly felt much more than merely a dream, but she isn’t the kind of person who believes in visions. That nonsense is only charming coming from free-spirited types, like her lifelong best friend, Bella. Determined to ignore the odd experience, she files it away in the back of her mind.
That is, until four-and-a-half years later, when by chance Dannie meets the very same man from her long-ago vision.
Brimming with joy and heartbreak, In Five Years is an unforgettable love story that reminds us of the power of loyalty, friendship, and the unpredictable nature of destiny.
My take: 4.25 out of 5. I loved this book. A beautiful one night read a with a perfect blend of fate and love. I though the characters were so well developed and deep, and nowhere in the book did you forsee what the ending was, what was going to happen. The twists were genuine and so where the characters. Its sad but feel good all at the same time and i think you all will enjoy it very much. It’s also a hopeful book, especially given these times, that things kind of work out in the end. It’s a non traditional love story and those are always the best.
Largo Petalo del Mar (A long Petal of the Sea) by Isabel Allende
Good reads blurb: From the New York Times bestselling author of The House of the Spirits comes an epic novel spanning decades and crossing continents, following two young people as they flee the aftermath of the Spanish Civil War in search of a new place to call home.
In the late 1930s, civil war gripped Spain. When General Franco and his Fascists succeed in overthrowing the government, hundreds of thousands are forced to flee in a treacherous journey over the mountains to the French border. Among them is Roser, a pregnant young widow, who finds her life irreversibly intertwined with that of Victor Dalmau, an army doctor and the brother of her deceased love. In order to survive, the two must unite in a marriage neither of them wants, and together are sponsored by poet Pablo Neruda to embark on the SS Winnipeg along with 2,200 other refugees in search of a new life. As unlikely partners, they embrace exile and emigrate to Chile as the rest of Europe erupts in World War.
Starting over on a new continent, their trials are just beginning. Over the course of their lives, they will face test after test. But they will also find joy as they wait patiently for a day when they are exiles no more, and will find friends in the most unlikely of places. Through it all, it is that hope of being reunited with their home that keeps them going. And in the end, they will find that home might have been closer than they thought all along.
My Take: 3.5 out of 5. It is a good book I just think it tries to bite off more that it can chew. When you are trying to do a four generation epic story, it means that unless it is expertly done, or it is a thousand page book, some things fall on the wayside and some things just feel rushed. I think there was too much political discourse (clearly very isabel allende) and not enough family drama and character development. I would have prefer more drama less politics. It is a good book, its just i think it tried to acomplish more than it needed to and with that left some things lacking and the ending a bit rushed, but the story is solid and quite entertaining.
Perfect Tunesby Emily Gould,
Goodreads Blurb:Have you ever wondered what your mother was like before she became your mother, and what she gave up in order to have you?
It’s the early days of the new millennium, and Laura has arrived in New York City’s East Village in the hopes of recording her first album. A songwriter with a one-of-a-kind talent, she’s just beginning to book gigs with her beautiful best friend when she falls hard for a troubled but magnetic musician whose star is on the rise. Their time together is stormy and short-lived—but will reverberate for the rest of Laura’s life.
Fifteen years later, Laura’s teenage daughter, Marie, is asking questions about her father, questions that Laura does not want to answer. Laura has built a stable life in Brooklyn that bears little resemblance to the one she envisioned when she left Ohio all those years ago, and she’s taken pains to close the door on what was and what might have been. But neither her best friend, now a famous musician who relies on Laura’s songwriting skills, nor her depressed and searching daughter will let her give up on her dreams.
Funny, wise, and tenderhearted, Perfect Tunes explores the fault lines in our most important relationships, and asks whether dreams deferred can ever be reclaimed. It is a delightful and poignant tale of music and motherhood, ambition and compromise—of life, in all its dissonance and harmony.
My take: 2 out of 5. Not my cup of tea. It was disjointed and and a bit shallow. It really felt like three disconected parts. The beggining just made all the characters unlikeable, which made the remaining parts not as engaging. I was really starting to get into the mother daughter relationship and then it just ends too abruptly. That relationship could have been milked more. The musical aspect, which should have been the soul of it, feels not properly developed and not properly described. I really didnt feel the musicality at all. There are so many more wonderful books to read, i would go there before going to this one.
Tati's Tidbits 