Guest Post: Purpose of a Bucket List by Mia Kerick

A bucket list is a list of things you want to do before you die. And if you think that A YA novel about teenagers consumed with the notion that they need to undergo certain significant lifetime experiences before they “kick the bucket” to be rather morbid, maybe you’re looking at bucket lists in the wrong way. Maybe you’re thinking about a bucket list the way Edward Cole (Jack Nicholson) and Carter Chambers (Morgan Freeman) did in the movie The Bucket List; their age was advancing and their health was failing—time was running out! And so they decided, maybe there’s still time to squeeze in a few long-procrastinated “bucket list items”!” This isn’t exactly what is happening in my book.

The purpose of creating a bucket list is to get something done that you have put off for way too long. Brainstorming the list helps you understand what your priorities are—and to better know yourself. It’s an eye-opening activity. The act of writing these goals down—or otherwise recording them—makes this list more than a bunch of far-fetched wishes, but real possibilities.

THE GOLDEN RULE OF ALL BUCKET LISTS: YOU MUST WRITE IT ALL DOWN.

Now, in The Weekend Bucket List, Cady and Cooper did not create a list of items they want to accomplish before they die. And this leads to the next area of discussion: there are many different kinds of bucket lists. There are bucket lists of things a person wants to accomplish before turning fifty or before getting married. A bucket list can be of vacation spots you want to visit with your children. The possibilities are endless. In The Weekend Bucket List, model children and students, Cady LaBrie and Cooper Murphy, come up with a bucket list of all of the rebellious things that the other kids in their grade have done, and they have missed out on because they were too busy studying. And they give themselves the forty-eight hours before graduation to cross each item off the list.

I don’t want to spoil the book by filling you in on all the dirty details, but I will say that Cady and Cooper’s list is not at all parent-approved. It includes the consumption of a few bottles of beer, the presence of a piercing gun, and the requirement for first kisses in the dark. But what Cooper, Cady, and the third wheel they pick up along the way, high school drop-out Eli Stanley, don’t realize is that the bucket list they create is not as much about checking off items as gaining self-knowledge. And they will be further surprised to discover that some of this self-knowledge comes with a hefty price tag.

The Weekend Bucket List will definitely make you laugh, and where it may not make you cry, it will make you think. And when you’re finished reading you’ll want to create a bucket list all your own!

Mia Kerick is the mother of four exceptional children—all named after saints—and five nonpedigreed cats—all named after the next best thing to saints, Boston Red Sox players. Her husband of twenty years has been told by many that he has the patience of Job, but don’t ask Mia about that, as it is a sensitive subject.

Mia focuses her stories on the emotional growth of troubled men and their relationships, and she believes that sex has a place in a love story, but not until it is firmly established as a love story. As a teen, Mia filled spiral-bound notebooks with romantic tales of tortured heroes (most of whom happened to strongly resemble lead vocalists of 1980s big-hair bands) and stuffed them under her mattress for safekeeping. She is thankful to Dreamspinner Press for providing her with an alternate place to stash her stories.

Mia is proud of her involvement with the Human Rights Campaign and cheers for each and every victory made in the name of marital equality. Her only major regret: never having taken typing or computer class in school, destining her to a life consumed with two-fingered pecking and constant prayer to the Gods of Technology.