Expiration Dates by Rebecca Serle
⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
🌶️: none
Genre: Fiction, Romance(ish)
I can’t decide exactly how I feel about this, immediately after putting it down. I liked it, but how much?
I liked this book enough to clue my partner in at random parts just to have someone understand my reactions as I read, enough to write notes and to never consider putting it down. It made me think, it made me cry, and I feel mostly satisfied with it but not fully appeased. I just wanted MORE from the story.
I went into this blind. It was a “it’s your lucky day” available book on Libby (IYKYK) and the premise seemed interesting — Daphne gets clues from the universe, a paper with a name and the length of time their relationship will last. Until one day, she gets piece of paper with just a name, Jake.
Admittedly this concept distracted me. I couldn’t stop wondering how differently things might’ve gone if I knew the expiration date of my own relationships. I made it about 20% of the way before this rabbit hole of thoughts but the next time I picked it up, I couldn’t put it down.
Through flashbacks, interweaved through the present day as it follows her relationship with Jake, we learn about past relationships like the one with her now best friend, Hugo. It felt like there would be something learned from all of these fragments of her life, so I was onboard.
To avoid spoilers, let’s just say there were twists I couldn’t see coming and some I could, and at times I wasn’t sure who to cheer for.
These twists and emotional moments really caught me off guard. I thought I was in for something light and fluffy and this wasn’t that. I wasn’t personally ready to see that particular POV.
I loved Irina and their friendship. I loved reading Daphne’s thoughts. I loved the way this author described things. Their writing isn’t overly flowery or wordy, this was an extremely quick read, but it was often beautiful or poetic. This book made me think and kept me entertained. Overall, I was really happy with the messaging of living life to the fullest, that Daphne comes into herself and lets herself be free and finds her love. 🫶
Critiques:
I think there could be more character growth
I think they could’ve built up her friendship more to really show their connection.
I know it’s probably done purposefully but I think there needs to be a little more chemistry between Jake and Daphne.
Words I learned:
Mezuzahs
Conjecture
Quotes:
“You think when you get to a certain age you figure it out, but life is much more like a continuum than a three-act structure.”
“I often wonder what our responsibility is to other people, how much we owe them. Whose job is it to look out for our own happiness. Us, or the people who love us? It’s both, of course. We owe ourselves and each other. But in what order?”
“A wink. A smile. I’m watching you, or Everything is going to be all right. Love is a net. It can catch you long after the person is no longer there.”
Notes (may contain spoilers):
Loving how they set the scene and get right into the action when talking about someone from her past
I thought I knew what/who I was rooting for, but now I’ve changed my mind. I hope she realizes Hugo is the one.
The transition of the main character asking herself a question and her friend answering it in the next scene, chefs kiss.
A book about romance but isn’t your typical romance. It has a little more of a message to it, or at least it’s trying to.
Roughly midway but not saying where exactly: Whoooaaa was not expecting that
The pieces of paper being a promise of time?! Wow
I’m mad at this book. Mostly reading to avoid reality and my own emotions and then it dares to be emotional?! I don’t want to think of things from the POV of a patient that is worried about hurting their parents with their illness.
I want it to be him SO bad.
73%: Why do I feel like they’re going to say it’s all a dream or something tragic is going to happen? I have a bad feeling in my gut.
I LOVE Irina. Highlighting everything she says I swear
This author writes beautifully. Poetically?
Chapter 32 SHEESH
SHEEEEEEESH CHAPTER 33 my god
Okay 34 is intense too
The moment with her father. Sheesh.
