In Five Years

In Five Years

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In Five Years

Estimated reading time: 1 minute, 16 seconds

In Five Years by Rebecca Serle is a good, quick read. It is an “unforgettable love story that reminds us of the power of loyalty, friendship, and the unpredictable nature of destiny.”

The protagonist Dannie Kohan is a Type A lawyer who has her life planned out by the numbers. Everything she believes will happen according to her plan. But life sometimes throws us a curveball.

She applies for the job she has always wanted, and her boyfriend proposes to her. Everything is going according to her plan. She returns home believing that life is going as planned and falls asleep.

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 make out the scrolling date. It’s the same night—December 15—but 2025, five years in the future.

There are twists and turns, including her best friend introducing her new boyfriend, who happens to be the man she was with briefly in 2025. Her friends’ struggle with and eventual death from Ovarian cancer forces Dannie to confront life as is. Her friend reminds her that she has never truly experienced love and needs to stop controlling her life and those around her.

In five years is a question I am asking myself. Where will I be five years after Jan’s death?

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Grief Is the Thing with Feathers

Read: May 2026

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Grief Is the Thing with Feathers

Max Porter‘s extraordinary debut, “Grief Is the Thing with Feathers,” is a unique blend of novella, polyphonic fable, and essay about grief. Combining compassion with a bold writing style, it delivers a powerful impact. Filled with sharp humor and deep insights, this haunting and original work introduces an important new talent. The book will be released as a major motion picture titled “The Thing with Feathers,” starring Benedict Cumberbatch.

Here he is, husband and father, scruffy romantic, a shambolic scholar–a man adrift in the wake of his wife’s sudden, accidental death. And there are his two sons, who, like him, struggle in their London apartment to face the unbearable sadness that has engulfed them. The father imagines a future of well-meaning visitors and emptiness, while the boys wander, savage and unsupervised.

In this moment of violent despair, they are visited by Crow–antagonist, trickster, goad, protector, therapist, and babysitter. This self-described “sentimental bird,” at once wild and tender, who “finds humans dull except in grief,” threatens to stay with the wounded family until they no longer need him. As weeks turn to months and the pain of loss lessens with the balm of memories, Crow’s efforts are rewarded, and the little unit of three begins to recover: Dad resumes his book about the poet Ted Hughes; the boys get on with it, grow up.

Max Porter is a publishing professional who lives in South London with his wife and children. “Grief Is the Thing with Feathers” is his debut book.

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When She Woke

Read: August 2022

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When She Woke

by Hillary Jordan

When She Woke, a fable about a stigmatized woman struggling to navigate an America of a not-too-distant future by Hillary Jordan, Bellwether Prize Winner. Hannah Payne, the protagonist, embarks on a path of self-discovery that forces her to question the values she once held and the righteousness of a country that politicizes faith. The premise of When She Woke seems to be happening as I read the novel. It is also the one hundred books I have read since the beginning of 2019 and the forty-fifth this year.

Hannah Payne, like Hester Prynne, is attacked for her actions by extreme religious beliefs. Instead of wearing a scarlet letter, Hannah’s chroming (i.e., having her skin altered) makes her skin red from head to toe. The chroming might have been a good theme for a science fiction novel. Still, Ms. Jordan has written a captivating book in which Hannah confronts who she is and, after questioning the values she once had, discovers that Hannah is more vital than she believed she could be.

I highly recommend this novel.

As Ms. Jordan describes the book,

Hannah Payne’s life has been devoted to church and family. But after she’s convicted of murder, she awakens to a nightmare: she finds herself lying on a table in a solitary confinement cell, her skin turned bright red. Cameras are broadcasting her every move to millions at home, for whom observing newly made “Chromes”—criminals whose skin color has been genetically altered to reflect their crime—is a sinister form of entertainment. Hannah is a Red, a murderess. The victim, says the state of Texas, was her unborn child, and she’s determined to protect the identity of the father, a public figure with whom she shared a fierce and forbidden love.

A powerful reimagining of The Scarlet Letter, When She Woke is a timely fable about a stigmatized woman struggling to navigate a dystopian America. In this not-too-distant future, the line between church and state has been eradicated and convicted felons are no longer imprisoned, but “chromed” and released back into the population to survive as best they can.

As she seeks a path to safety in an alien and hostile world, Hannah unknowingly embarks on a journey of self-discovery that forces her to question the values she once held true and the righteousness of a country that politicizes faith and love.

The Jan Lilien Education Fund sponsors ongoing sustainability and environmental awareness programs. All donations are tax-deductible.

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My Brilliant Friend

Read: July 2024

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My Brilliant Friend

by Elena Ferrante

Today, I delved into Elena Ferrante‘s captivating novel My Brilliant Friend. This acclaimed book hailed as the #1 Book of the 21st Century by the New York Times, weaves a timeless tale of the enduring bond between two women from Naples. With its rich character development and evocative historical setting, it stands alongside other character-driven works of literary fiction.

Beginning in the 1950s in a poor but vibrant neighborhood on the outskirts of Naples, Elena Ferrante’s four-volume story spans almost sixty years. The main characters, the fiery and unforgettable Lila and the bookish narrator, Elena, are bound by an enduring friendship that withstands the test of time and life’s challenges. This first novel in the series follows Lila and Elena from their fateful meeting as ten-year-olds through their school years and adolescence, evoking a sense of enduring connection and emotional resonance.

Through the lives of these two women, Ferrante weaves a compelling narrative of a neighborhood, a city, and a country undergoing profound transformation. These societal changes, in turn, also reshape the relationship between the two women, adding a rich layer of historical and cultural context to the story. This context will enrich your reading experience and provide a deeper understanding of the characters and their journey.

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The Secret Hours

Read: January 2024

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The Secret Hours

by Mick Herron

Today, I started reading “The Secret Hours” by Mick Herron, a gripping spy thriller about a disastrous MI5 mission in Cold War Berlin. This book is a must-read for fans of “Slow Horses.” “The Secret Hours” is a standalone spy thriller that is both unnerving and poignant yet also has laugh-out-loud moments. It is the breathtaking secret history that Slough House fans have been waiting for.

Two years ago, a hostile prime minister launched the Monochrome inquiry, which aimed to investigate “historical over-reaching” by the British Secret Service. Griselda Fleet and Malcolm Kyle, two civil servants seconded to the project, were given unfettered access to all confidential information in the Service archives to ferret any hint of misconduct by any MI5 officer.

However, MI5’s formidable First Desk did not become Britain’s top spy by accident, and she has successfully thwarted the inquiry at every turn. The administration that created Monochrome has been ousted, and the investigation is a total bust. Griselda and Malcolm are stuck watching as the pounding London rain washes away their career prospects.

On the eve of Monochrome’s shuttering, an MI5 case file appears without explanation. It is the buried history of a classified operation in 1994 Berlin, which ended in tragedy and scandal, whose cover-up has rewritten thirty years of Service history.

The Jan Lilien Education Fund sponsors ongoing sustainability and environmental awareness programs. Regarding gifts made this month, I will match dollar for dollar. All donations are tax-deductible.

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Vanishing World

Read: April 2025

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Vanishing World

by Sayaka Murata

Today, I began reading Sayaka Murata‘s Vanishing World, translated by Ginny Tapley Takemori. This novel, from the author of the bestselling literary sensations Convenience Store Woman and Earthlings, presents a surprising and highly imaginative story set in an alternate version of Japan where sexual relations between married couples have disappeared, and all children are conceived through artificial insemination.

Sayaka Murata has established herself as a remarkable observer of society’s peculiarities, delving into our contemporary world with bizarre and unsettling insights. Her portrayals of a contentedly unmarried retail worker in Convenience Store Woman and a young woman who believes she is an alien in Earthlings have resonated with millions of readers globally. In Vanishing World, Murata takes her vision to a bold new level, envisioning an alternative Japan where attitudes toward sex and procreation diverge significantly from our own.

As a girl, Amane is horrified to learn that her parents “copulated” to conceive her rather than using artificial insemination, which became the norm in the mid-twentieth century. She seeks to escape what she perceives as her mother’s indoctrination into this peculiar “system.” Despite her efforts, Amane’s attractions to both anime characters and real people carry an undeniable sexual weight.

As an adult in a suitably sexless marriage—where sex between married couples is regarded as taboo, akin to incest—Amane and her husband, Saku, decide to relocate to a mysterious new town called Experiment City, or Paradise-Eden. In this community, all children are raised collectively, and every person is considered a mother to all children. Men are beginning to experience pregnancy through artificial wombs that exist outside their bodies, resembling balloons, and children are nameless, referred to simply as “Kodomo-chan.” Will this new world finally cleanse Amane of her strangeness?

Sayaka Murata is the author of several books, including Convenience Store Woman, which won the Akutagawa Prize, Earthlings, and Life Ceremony. Freeman has recognized her as a “Future of New Writing” author, and Vogue Japan has honored her as a Woman of the Year.

Ginny Tapley Takemori has translated works from more than a dozen Japanese writers, including Ryu Murakami. She resides at the foot of a mountain in Eastern Japan.

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Lucy by the Sea: A Novel

Read: November 2022

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Lucy by the Sea: A Novel

by Elizabeth Strout

Lucy by the Sea: A Novel by Elizabeth Strout is a poignant, pitch-perfect novel about a divorced couple stuck together during lockdown–and the love, loss, despair, and hope that animate us even as the world seems to be falling apart. Having lost Jan during Covid, I was apprehensive about reading this book. However, it was not only a page-turner but also a novel that gave me a new perspective on loss which helped me manage my grief.

With her trademark spare, crystalline prose, Elizabeth Strout turns her exquisitely tuned eye to the inner workings of the human heart, following the indomitable heroine of My Name Is Lucy Barton through the early days of the pandemic.

I highlighted several passages that specifically spoke to me.

We all live with people—and places—and things—that we have given great weight to. But we are weightless, in the end.

Who knows why people are different? We are born with a certain nature, I think. And then the world takes its swings at us.

It has been said that the second year of widowhood is worse than the first—the idea being, I think, that the shock has worn off and now one has to live with the loss, and I had been finding that to be true, even before I came to Maine with William. But now there were times I felt that I was just learning of David’s death again for the first time. And I would be privately staggered by grief. And to be in this place where David had never been (!)—I was really dislocated is what I mean.

And I also understood: Grief is a private thing. God, is it a private thing.

We are all in lockdown, all the time. We just don’t know it, that’s all. But we do the best we can. Most of us are just trying to get through.

The Goodreads summary provides an overview,

As a panicked world goes into lockdown, Lucy Barton is uprooted from her life in Manhattan and bundled away to a small town in Maine by her ex-husband and on-again, off-again friend, William. For the next several months, it’s just Lucy, William, and their complex past together in a little house nestled against the moody, swirling sea.

Rich with empathy and emotion, Lucy by the Sea vividly captures the fear and struggles that come with isolation, as well as the hope, peace, and possibilities that those long, quiet days can inspire. At the heart of this story are the deep human connections that unite us even when we’re apart–the pain of a beloved daughter’s suffering, the emptiness that comes from the death of a loved one, the promise of a new friendship, and the comfort of an old, enduring love.

The Jan Lilien Education Fund sponsors ongoing sustainability and environmental awareness programs. Gifts made this month; I will match dollar-for-dollar. All donations are tax-deductible.

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I receive a commission when you buy a book or product using a link on this page. Thank you for supporting Sharing Jan’s Love blog.

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