Rebecca Serle's EXPIRATION DATES

Thanks to partners NetGalley and Atria Books for the digital ARC of Rebecca Serle’s Expiration Dates. The book will be published on Tuesday!

I haven’t read a book by Rebecca Serle that I haven’t loved, and her new release, Expiration Dates, continues the trend. The novel centers on Daphne Bell who, since she was a child, has received strange messages from an unknown force. When she meets someone she’s going to date, pieces of paper with the person’s name and the duration of their romantic relationship appear.

These strange manifestations have, of course, some consequences. She doesn’t receive a paper? That’s not someone she’s going to date. Something goes wrong right around the relationship’s “expiration date”? Well, that explains it . . . and the relationship is over with no struggle and no fuss from Daphne.

And then, Daphne receives a note about Jake, and there is no expiration date. It’s a blank paper. What does that mean?

Daphne tries to work through the implications with her best friend Hugo—their romance lasted only a few months, but their attachment continued—but they proceed with the assumption that this means an unending relationship. Right?

Discussing further would get into spoiler territory, so I’ll just say (again!) that I absolutely loved this book. Serle excels at these books with slightly magical premises, stories that are nevertheless grounded in reality and in character. Her situations are always intriguing, and watching how Daphne, in Expiration Dates, navigates having her future foretold is so thought provoking in its consideration of free will and choice. Daphne is a compelling protagonist whose life has been shaped by circumstances outside her control, and I so appreciated the complexity of considering the implications of such circumstances for all of us. I tore through this one—pick it up tomorrow!

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