I’m thrilled to be bringing you this book group guide for In Five Years. I was personally blown away by Rebecca Serle’s novel and finished the book up in a matter of days. I just could not stop reading and wondered about this special story when I didn’t have it in front of me.
In this book group guide for In Five Years, I’ll briefly explain the ending, include 11 discussion questions, recommend five books like In Five Years, and send you off with some resources.
Ready? Let’s dig in!
First, we’ll go over the ending of In Five Years.
Warning! Spoilers ahead!
Book Group Guide for In Five Years Part 1: Book Ending Explained
The final pages of In Five Years are whimsical, bittersweet, and thought-provoking. Fortunately in this free book guide to In Five Years, we’ll dig deep into the conclusion. Now let’s turn to… In Five Years book ending explained.
In Five Years Ending: Plot Summary of the Final Pages
In the final chapter of In Five Years, it is December 2025 and Dannie is living through the events of her vision from 2020. She’s now living in the apartment that felt so foreign to wake up into. She’s with the mysterious man, who turns out to be Aaron. And she’s in the Dumbo neighborhood of Brooklyn, far from where she lives when the novel’s story begins.
When the chapter opens, Dannie and Aaron have just slept together in the apartment Bella bought for Dannie. It’s the night of the memorial they organized to celebrate Bella’s life. In each other’s arms, Dannie and Aaron kid around about what Bella would think to see them now. Dannie asks Aaron if he wants to stay, but he says he can’t. He begins to dress, and the two make tentative plans for lunch, potentially as a regular thing, which Dannie suspects is Aaron’s way of setting boundaries around whatever their friendship/relationship turns into. Dannie gives Aaron back the engagement ring he bought for Bella, which Dannie had been wearing. After an awkward exchange, Aaron agrees to take it back. He suggests they drink some wine, if Dannie doesn’t want to be alone, but Dannie, feeling contemplative, turns him down: “‘I’m okay,’ I say. I have no idea if it’s true” (p. 249). Aaron hugs her and then leaves.
Alone in her apartment, Dannie realizes how Bella knew her so well. With her artist’s eye, Bella included colors in the apartment’s decorations, whereas before Dannie preferred stark whites. Looking at a framed picture of the two of them, Dannie says out loud: “You were right,” then collapses in laughing sobs as she recognizes “The woven tapestry of our friendship continuing to reveal itself even now, even in her absence” (p. 250).
Dannie decides to head outside and explore her new neighborhood. It’s snowing, the first snow storm of the year. She finds the deli she visited the first time she came to Dumbo to try to find the mystery apartment in her vision. Inside the cozy, warm deli, she envisions what she might order in the morning, not being hungry now. Then the door bell jangles behind her, and Dannie hears someone call her name. It’s Dr. Shaw, the doctor who Bella saw, and he asks Dannie: “What are you doing here?” (p. 251) Dannie sees him as if for the first time, out of scrubs and in a more relaxed, attractive stance. She greets him, saying, “Dr. Shaw,” but he says, “Please… Call me Mark” (p. 251) He extends his hand to Dannie, and she takes it.
Dannie then talks of how they’ll stay in the deli until it closes, drinking coffee, until an hour from now. He walks her home and asks if he could see her again at the deli when she is ready. Dannie says that “yes, perhaps. Perhaps” (p. 251).
The novel closes with these final lines:
“But all of that is an hour from now. Now, on the other side of midnight, we do not yet know what is coming.
So be it. So let it be.”
In Five Years by Rebecca Serle, p. 251
And that, my friends, is the conclusion to a beautiful novel.
In Five Years Ending: Analysis
In the final pages, Dannie is living in the vision she had in the third chapter of the book, five years ago. Then, Dannie was alarmed by her surroundings, which, like the man named Aaron in the apartment with her, were completely alien to her. What’s changed for Dannie is the context of the situation. When she first has the vision, she had no clue who Aaron was or why she was living where she was living. Now everything has fallen into place. Everything makes sense. There are no puzzles or mysteries remaining.
In other words, Dannie’s future has lived up to a kind of fate or destiny in accordance with her vision. No matter what she tried to do, she could not alter the course that sent her here. Yet it seems like in the final passages, she does regain some free will. Remember that she doesn’t promise Dr. Shaw that she’ll see him again, just responds with a noncommittal: “Yes, perhaps.”
There’s also a part of Dannie that wants to let the universe take its course when she says: “So be it. So let it be” (p. 251). Dannie suggests she will do nothing to influence the future, unlike how she acted after receiving her vision. Instead, Dannie will let the future be and let it proceed without interference. Dannie is, in effect, surrendering her free will by allowing anything to happen.
There’s something else worth noting here about the ending.
In the final paragraphs of the novel, Serle changes the prose in a subtle but important way. Starting with the paragraph “He extends his hand. I take it,” Dannie switches over to the future tense to describe what events are set to happen an hour from now: she and Dr. Shaw (Mark) will enjoy coffee together in the deli, he’ll walk her home, remark on not knowing she lived in this neighborhood, and he will ask to see her again, when she’s ready, to which Dannie will answer: “Yes, perhaps.”
Then Dannie pulls us back to present tense: “But all of that is an hour from now. Now, on the other side of midnight, we do not yet know what is coming.”
This shift in tense makes a powerful narrative point. By slipping into the future tense earlier, Dannie suggests that the story she is telling is not, in fact, happening in present tense. In other words, she’s narrating her story as if everything is happening while the reader reads it.
Compare these two passages for effect:
- “She starts to lose her hair. My wedding dress arrives. It fits. It even looks good. The saleslady was right, the neckline isn’t as bad as I thought it was.” (p. 216)
- “We will stay in that deli until they close, sipping on coffee that turns cold, which is an hour from now. He will walk me home. He will say he is very sorry for my loss. That he never knew I lived in Dumbo. I will tell him I didn’t. Not until now. He will ask if perhaps he can see me again, perhaps at that deli, when I am ready. I will tell him yes, perhaps. Perhaps.” (p. 251)
See the difference? In the first passage, Dannie narrates the story as if it’s happening to us right now. That totally fits the theme of the story: like we’re hurtling towards an unknown future and can’t and don’t know what will happen next, and that makes for a suspenseful, engrossing read.
Bella’s decline, in particular, hits you with a visceral experience…you don’t know if the treatments will work, you don’t know how bad it will get, etc. Dannie slips this in there, saying: “She starts to lose her hair.” She starts, but we don’t know if it stops. We don’t know what to expect, because Bella’s illness is unpredictable.
By narrating in present tense, Dannie is pulling us alongside her in the heart and soul of a very emotionally charged story. Reading the book, we don’t feel like we don’t know what’s going to happen next because Dannie doesn’t tell us she does… except in that final passage.
So what’s it all mean?
In switching up the tense, Dannie suggests that is future-focused and ready to move on. She can see beyond the events of the here and now and actually envision another reality for herself. If the events of the last five years have come to their conclusion, now she can start picturing her life in a future that “will” happen. One chapter of her life has closed, and another is beginning. What’s more, she’s open to it.
However, you might want to consider another perspective. Although it’s not explicitly stated in the text, one might argue that Dannie knowing what’ll happen in an hour is her reaching into the future again. After all, how does she know all these specific details? How does she even know it will be an hour into the future? We don’t see her have a vision like she does in the beginning of the novel, but that doesn’t mean she isn’t getting another premonition.
Book Group Guide for In Five Years Part 2: 11 Book Club Questions
Looking to spark a great book talk? Check out these discussion questions guaranteed to get your club members chatting.
1. How do you interpret the vision Dannie experiences? Can it be explained in a rational way? Have you ever had a similar premonition?
2. How does Dannie change before and after her vision? In particular, how does understanding of what she wants out of life shift?
3. Compare and contrast Dannie and Bella, who are opposites in many ways. What do you think is the core of their unshakable bond?
4. Throughout the novel, Dannie looks back on the tragic death of her brother. According to Dannie, how did his loss affect her family and the person she becomes?
5. No matter how hard Dannie tries to make sure the vision doesn’t come true, it still ends up exactly how she pictured it. Does the book argue that destiny exists and cannot be changed? Or do we have some say in our fate through free will?
6. In Five Years opens with two quotes:
“The future is the one thing you can count on not abandoning you, kid, he’d said. The future always finds you. Stand still, and it will find you. The way the land just has to run to sea.”
Marianne Wiggins, Evidence of Things Unseen
And:
“Coming over the bridge to Manhattan.
Pie.”
Nora Ephron
Choose one of these quotes and relate it to the themes in the novel.
7. There are a couple times in the novel when Dannie runs… she goes for a jog, but she also runs home in heels. Why do you think she is compelled to run? How do those moments heighten the emotion of the story?
8. Talk about the types of love in the novel. Through various characters, we see loving romances, friendships, and family relationships. Compare and contrast these connections of love.
9. How did Serle use the premonition for suspense? How did it feel to read the scene in which Dannie’s vision comes true? Did it live up to the anticipation? Did it feel anticlimactic?
10. Why do you think Serle chose to have Dannie on track to end up with Dr. Shaw and not Aaron? Looking back on Dannie’s conversations with the doctor, does Serle foreshadow their connection?
11. What do you think Dannie means when she closes the novel with this last line: “So be it. So let it be” (p. 251).
Book Group Guide for In Five Years Part 3: 5 Books Like In Five Years by Rebecca Serle
Loved Rebecca Serle’s In Five Years? Check out these five books with similar feels and themes. These books like In Five Years should get you through your book hangover.
Conversations with Friends by Sally Rooney
This sharp debut novel from Irish novelist and rising literary star Sally Rooney tells the story of the frank friendship between two young women who could not be more different…kind of like Bella and Dannie! In Conversations with Friends, Bobbi and Frances get drawn into the circle of an influential and charismatic couple. Similar to In Five Years, this novel is also set in the art world.
How to read it: Purchase Conversations with Friends on Amazon and add it on Goodreads
Miss You by Kate Eberlen
This bittersweet novel blends romance, fate, and tragedy. Tess and Gus keep orbiting each other while they vacation separately in Florence, Italy. But destiny knows they’re meant to meet again, and so they go on just nearly meeting until something pulls them apart again over and over. What I loved about this novel was the way Eberlen develops completely realized lives for both Tess and Gus. The novel isn’t only about star-crossed soulmate kind of love. It’s also about how we come of age and come into our own as emerging adults. Warning: This novel also contains terminal illness as a theme.
How to read it: Purchase Miss You on Amazon and add it on Goodreads
Patience by Daniel Clowes
This time travel graphic novel from master artist Daniel Clowes is a trip… and a powerful testament to love, obsession, and fate. Whereas In Five Years is concerned with the future, Patience entertains tough questions about the past, but both ask similar questions about free will, fate, and extreme love. Our hero, Jack, discovers that his beautiful young wife, Patience, has been murdered in the opening pages of this graphic novel. Determined to find a way back in time to save her, Jack embarks on a quest to alter the course of events so Patience can be saved. And, as you’d expect, all hell breaks loose…
How to read it: Purchase Patience on Amazon and add it on Goodreads
Three Amazing Things About You by Jill Mansell
Jill Mansell is a powerhouse writer of women’s fiction that feels relatable, fun, and just as emotionally visceral as In Five Years. Start with Three Amazing Things About You, which I actually reviewed here on this blog a few years ago. In this book, a group of people’s lives are fatefully intertwined. We start out knowing there’s a connection and, like In Five Years, we then work to find out the connections.
How to read it: Purchase Three Amazing Things About You on Amazon and add it on Goodreads
The Time Traveler’s Wife by Audrey Niffenegger
A modern classic of romance literary fiction, The Time Traveler’s Wife has a lot of attractive qualities for In Five Years Readers. This epic love story tells the tale of Henry, a time-traveling librarian, and Clare, the little girl he meets who one day, when they meet as adults, become lovers. Like In Five Years, the plot of this novel also has to do with knowing something that will happen in the future, but you just don’t know when or know the consequences.
How to read it: Purchase The Time Traveler’s Wife on Amazon and add it on Goodreads
Book Group Guide for In Five Years Part 4: Further Reading about In Five Years
Learn more about Rebecca Serle’s In Five Years with these resources:
Read the first pages on Bustle.
Next, dive deeper into the book and its author, Rebecca Serle:
Watch an interview with Serle via Bookreporter:
Read an interview with Serle and Amazon’s Book Review.
Read another interview with Serle, this time with Goodreads.
You can also download a Book Club guide on Rebecca Serle’s author website.
Wondering how the book critics are receiving In Five Years?
See how the book is being reviewed on Publishers Weekly and Kirkus Reviews. Find multiple reviews of In Five Years collected on Book Marks.
And that’s a wrap!
