Future Glimpses
The future glimpses premise is characterized by a character becoming aware of what the future will be a particular time point and then living the between now and then.
This premise can be characterized across a number of vectors:
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Who had the future glimpse: one character or many
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Subject: was the future glimpse about the main character or about others
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Free will: whether the future can be changed or not
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Veracity: whether the future glimpse was real or the result of a dream/head trauma/etc
Thoughts
As I was exploring the alternate timeline books, another category emerged-- future glimpses.
I think my first encounter with the future glimpses premise was the television series Flash Forward. There was only one season, but I found the idea fascinating. I remember in particular the man who had a vision of himself with a girl in a restaurant he had never been in and had no idea who she was or where the restaurant was. But, it all came together, piece-by-piece, like a little mystery unraveling.
I think it's a compelling framework in part because of the salient gap in what we know. We know the current situation, we know the future situation-- but what is the way there? And what does it mean? That gap creates a curiosity that pulls you in.
I hope you enjoy the future glimpse premise!
Books with a Future Glimpse Premise
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The books are presented in no particular order.
The main character (Dannie) gets a glimpse of her life five years from the present. That glimpse shows a life that's completely different from her current life. The vision (while she was asleep) felt very real, but for several reasons, she has a difficult time believing what she saw could actually happen. Then something happens that she recognizes from the vision, and that changes everything. This is a fun and interesting read, it kept my attention all the way through.
A woman on a plane has what appears to be a breakdown and starts predicting people's deaths. It just seems like a breakdown until the first person actually dies. The story basically rotates between the characters from the plane, so that's a chapter from this person's perspective, then the next person, etc. I found that I had favorite characters, I rushed to get to their next chapters. When I was reading the other chapters, I sometimes felt a little bogged down, but not enough to stop reading. Overall, I enjoyed the storyline, the subplots, and I thought the ending was satisfying.
Daphne always knows how a long a relationship will last because she gets a little slip of paper at the start with the man's name and an amount of time. That all changes when she gets a slip of paper with just a name. The beginning of the story focuses on flipping back and forth between previous relationships and the current (no date) one. It's interesting to explore her different experiences in the different contexts. About midway through the book, there are two twists that I did not see coming, and both the tone of the book and the interpretations of some of the earlier events changed. I was surprised at first, but I still enjoyed it, and the ending was satisfying.
I loved this book. There are a lot of twists, so I'll keep this intentionally vague so as not to give anything away. At the beginning, the main character (Margot) gives Eleanor Oliphant vibes, and I was only kind of into the men and red flags storyline. There was a future glimpse, and the first bit of the book works toward that. But then it gets really good. Margot becomes very likable and more complex, and we learn more about how she got to the state she was in at the beginning of the book. The use of the future glimpses (there are so many more than just the first one) is so enjoyable and intriguing. I couldn't wait to read more and find out what was happening. I was invested in every single subplot. I did not expect this at the start of the book, but as the story developed, it became one of the most Midnight Library-esque books I've read. Not in the sense of living different lives or alternate timelines, but in the sense of having experiences that set the reader up for personal revelations. I just absolutely loved the experience of reading this book and was satisfied with the ending. After page 102, the magic really starts, but you need the first part for that later magic to be meaningful.
This is a different take on the future glimpse. Basically Alice has an accident at the very beginning book, and when she wakes up, she's 10 years older than she recalls being (the accident causes her to lose the last 10 years of memories). Without her last 10 years of memories, Alice explores how her life got the current state. It's a reminder that we think we know what we want and how things will turn out, but until we have lived it, we don't truly know. It made me think about what my younger self would think about my current life- would she be happy, surprised, disappointed, proud, sad? Probably all of the above. Overall, I really enjoyed the concept and story.
Oona lives her life in a random order, not strictly in order of chronological years. So, one year, she might be 16, the next 87, then 34. Why I think this fits the current category is that it elicits many of the same feelings of regret, wishing things were different, and experiencing life with those wished for features. I thought this was an excellent book. I really enjoyed reading it, and I couldn't wait to see what the next year would be each time.
The Day Tripper (2024)
By James Goodhand
Excellent book. Alex has an accident and starts living his life out of order, one day at a time. The beginning of the book is super gritty, and the book includes alcoholism and a lot of trauma throughout. I was plodding through it, not really identifying with any of the characters or the storyline... and then I got to the end of the chapter where his mom visits him in jail. The story lit up for me at that point. It got better and better from that point on, and I could not wait to continue reading. My favorite quotation from the book is, "You live a life you're not happy with for long enough, and it's possible to forget that things could be different". This book packs the type of emotional rearranging that you get from Matt Haig books, but definitely in a much grittier package. So glad I read this.