With New Year’s day comes New Year’s resolutions. Everyone has unique goals, but some themes remain popular. Travelers resolve to visit as many new places as possible. Those with a curious mind seek to learn a new skill. Book lovers take on new reading challenges (looking for a unique challenge? Try the Novel Tourist’s Read and Go Challenge.) Sometimes, the resolution is very specific, like checking off one or more bucket list items. A bucket list is essentially a set of resolutions or goals to be achieved, not in one year, but within your lifetime. Your bucket list can be simple or grandiose, realistic or wildly imaginative. The sky’s the limit!
If you haven’t yet made your own bucket list, get inspired by these fictional, mad cap adventurers on a quest to fulfill their bucket list goals:
Bucket List Novels
1. Women’s Fiction Bucket List Books
“The Bucket List” by Georgia Clark
Twenty-five-old Lacey Whitman is blindsided when she’s diagnosed with the BRCA1 gene mutation: the “breast cancer” gene. Her high hereditary risk forces a decision: increased surveillance or the more radical step of a preventative double mastectomy. Lacey doesn’t want to lose her breasts. For one, she’s juggling two career paths; her work with the prestigious New York trend forecaster Hoffman House, and her role on the founding team of a sustainable fashion app with friend/mentor, Vivian Chang. Secondly, small-town Lacey’s not so in touch with her sexuality: she doesn’t want to sacrifice her breasts before she’s had the chance to give them their hey-day. To help her make her choice, she (and her friends) creates a “boob bucket list”: everything she wants do with and for her boobs before a possible surgery.
“The Bucket List to Mend a Broken Heart”by Anna Bell
Abi’s barely left her bed since Joseph, the love of her life, dumped her, saying they were incompatible. When Joseph leaves a box of her possessions on her doorstep, she finds a bucket list of 10 things she never knew he wanted to do. What better way to win him back than by completing the list, and proving they’re a perfect match? But there’s just one problem—or rather, 10. Abi’s not exactly the outdoorsy type, and she’s absolutely terrified of heights3not ideal for a list that includes climbing a mountain, cycling around the Isle of Wight and, last but not least, abseiling down the tallest building in town. Completing the list is going to need all Abi’s courage—and a lot of help from her friends. But as she heals her broken heart one task at a time, the newly confident Abi might just have a surprise in store.
2. Juvenile Fiction Bucket List books
“Weekend Bucket List: A Blossoming Friendship Between Unlikely People”
High school seniors Cady LaBrie and Cooper Murphy have yet to set one toe out of line they’ve never stayed out all night or snuck into a movie, never gotten drunk or gone skinny-dipping. But they have each other, forty-eight hours before graduation, and a Weekend Bucket List.
Meet Blake Walker, her best friend and her partner-in-crime. Saner of the two, however, together they can turn a rather normal, boring day to a momentously crazy one. But one day changes the course of their lives which leads Summer to make a ‘bucket list’ and complete it before her whole life takes a 180 degree. Whereas, Blake is determined to keep her as long as he can. And he is perfect for the job. After all, he does know her more than anyone else. And they have no room for regrets. As Summer Wallace says, “There shouldn’t be any space for regrets in our beautiful lives.”
“A Bucket Full of Awesome” by Zainab T. Khan
Summer Wallace is a wild, crazy girl who simply couldn’t care less about her appearance. She strongly believes in the saying, “You Only Live Once”, in teenage subculture also known as YOLO. She plays basketball like her life depends on it. Well, it sort of does, she loses one game and there’s a dent in her ego, not a small one either.
There’s a lot riding on this one weekend, especially since Cady and Cooper have yet to admit, much less resolve, their confounding feelings for one another feelings that prove even more difficult to discern when genial high school dropout Eli Stanley joins their epic adventure. But as the trio ticks through their bucket list, the questions they face shift toward something new: Must friendship play second fiddle to romance? Or can it be the ultimate prize?
3. Family Centered Bucket List Books
“The Kicking the Bucket List”by Cathy Hopkins
Meet the daughters of Iris Parker. Dee, sensitive and big-hearted; Rose, uptight and controlled; and Fleur, the reckless free spirit. At the reading of their mother’s will, the three estranged women are aghast to discover that their inheritance comes with very tricky strings attached. If they are to inherit her wealth, they must spend a series of weekends together over the course of a year and carry out their mother’s bucket list. But one year doesn’t seem like nearly enough time for them to move past the decades-old layers of squabbles and misunderstandings. Can they grow up for once and see that Iris’ bucket list was about so much more than money?
“The Life List” by Lori Nelson Spielman
Brett Bohlinger seems to have it all: a plum job, a spacious loft, an irresistibly handsome boyfriend. All in all, a charmed life. That is, until her beloved mother passes away, leaving behind a will with one big stipulation: In order to receive her inheritance, Brett must first complete the life list of goals she’d written when she was a naïve girl of fourteen. Grief-stricken, Brett can barely make sense of her mother’s decision—her childhood dreams don’t resemble her ambitions at age thirty-four in the slightest. Some seem impossible. How can she possibly have a relationship with a father who died seven years ago? Other goals (Be an awesome teacher!) would require her to reinvent her entire future. As Brett reluctantly embarks on a perplexing journey in search of her adolescent dreams, one thing becomes clear. Sometimes life’s sweetest gifts can be found in the most unexpected places.
4. Pet Lover’s Bucket List Book
“Boomer’s Bucket List” by Sue Pethick
When her cuddly canine companion Boomer is diagnosed with a rare heart condition, Jennifer Westbrook decides to take a leave of absence from her busy PR job—and take Boomer on the greatest road trip of his life.
Charting a course from Chicago to California, Jennifer plans some pet-friendly pit stops for her four-legged friend, including a dog show, a fire hydrant museum, and a factory full of squeaky toys. But when she tries to sneak Boomer into a NASCAR press box—disguised as her seeing-eye dog—Jennifer’s cover is blown by a curious, but very cute reporter named Nathan Koslow.
Boomer takes an instant shine to Nathan, unlike the other men in Jennifer’s life. When the charming journalist asks to join them on their journey, she can’t say no. But when she learns that someone has created a website called “Boomer’s Bucket List”—and it’s gone totally viral—the trip takes a wildly unexpected turn for Jennifer, Nathan, and the dog who brought them together.
Happy New Year! May all your bucket list aspirations become reality!
Disclaimer: If you decide you want to buy any of the books featured above, I appreciate you using the links in the post. Purchasing through the links costs no extra to you, but I receive a small commission that helps keep The Novel Tourist going. Thanks for your support!
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