Daphne Bell believes the universe has a plan for her. Every time she meets a new man, she receives a slip of paper with his name and a number on it—the exact amount of time they will be together. The papers told her she’d spend three days with Martin in Paris; five weeks with Noah in San Francisco; and three months with Hugo, her ex-boyfriend turned best friend. Daphne has been receiving the numbered papers for over twenty years, always wondering when there might be one without an expiration. Finally, the night of a blind date at her favorite Los Angeles restaurant, there’s only a name: Jake.
But as Jake and Daphne’s story unfolds, Daphne finds herself doubting the paper’s prediction, and wrestling with what it means to be both committed and truthful. Because Daphne knows things Jake doesn’t, information that—if he found out—would break his heart.
So now for the review: I picked this book because I saw it advertise in People magazine. It’s my dream to one day be advertised there, so I wanted to see what it took to make it. I’ve read IN FIVE YEARS by Serle so I was familiar with her cadence. In both books, I found her not to be a traditional storyteller. As in a neat, contemporary story. She writes with a bit of unrealism. Expiration dates is about a girl who, like the summary states, receives notes with names of guys and how long she will be with them. So after you accept the fact that this could happen, you try to move along with the story. That is actually written out of order with important things intentionally not told until midway through. I loved that the chapters were short. It kept me reading. Although each chapter tended to deal with another guy and note, so it was easy to put down and come back. The out of order guys she dated sometimes took my attention off course, however. After it was over and I survived the ride, I found the sequence to be clever. Halfway through I began routing for one guy in particular, and it drove me to continue the journey. By the end, I stayed up to finish to find out if my dream guy would win. He did. 🙂 A+ for that fact. And the ‘how’ was nothing short of wonderful.
The setting is California, and although I’ve never been, I felt like I was in the car, in the restaurant, ordering the food, and feeling the warm breezes. Serle takes you to the place, serves you up the storyline, does a great introduction to her characters, and sends you on the journey to where she finally ends it with a five star conclusion. I didn’t like some aspects of the book, but the ending left me forgetting all about them. A-
