The Weekend Bucket List

April 1, 2018

Gr 9 Up-It's the last weekend before high school graduation, and best friends and perennial "good kids," Cady and Cooper, have a bucket list of teenage rebellions, from getting tattoos to skinny-dipping. Underlying their weekend plan is the unspoken desire to figure out their feelings for each other, as Cooper, who previously identified as gay, explores his bisexuality. Along the way they run into Eli, a homeless teen who quits his job at a traveling carnival to join their adventure. An improbable chain of events leads to all three characters kissing one another one night and then dealing with the complicated emotional aftermath. Although Kerick poses interesting questions about teenage relationships, sexuality, and the importance of friendship, the characters are undeveloped and their motivations implausible. The chapters' narration alternates among the three characters, but their voices are indistinguishable and the constant back-and-forth makes for a slow and repetitive reading experience. VERDICT While this romantic comedy clearly tries to break down the "teen movie" formulas that inspired its premise, it is ultimately just as predictable and poorly developed. Not recommended for purchase.-Molly Saunders, Homewood Public Library, AL

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March 15, 2018
Best friends Cady (a girl) and Cooper (a boy) have a list of activities to complete the weekend before graduation, but it doesn't include forming a lifelong friendship with a stranger.The list entails skinny-dipping, getting drunk, having a first kiss, and other activities the duo believes their high school peers have already accomplished. When they drag gorgeous high school dropout/carny Eli into their weekend as an unwitting first-kiss object, they expect him to vanish from their lives as quickly as he appeared. Instead, Eli wants real friendship. The true goals behind the bucket list are for Cooper to define his sexual orientation and, subsequently, for him and Cady to clarify their relationship--and the fallout from the resulting complications involves Eli. While the trio's alternating first-person narration is peppered with entertaining one-liners, their reactions and choices become less believable as the story progresses. Also unfortunate is Eli's lack of agency and the way tomboyish Cady is pitted against girly girls. Although Cady and Cooper do confront how they've used Eli, they don't truly come to terms with how they've objectified him, a human being chosen as a kissing subject solely for the good looks on which the other two hyperfocus. Eli is brown-skinned while Cady and Cooper are white.A story about platonic love that doesn't quite satisfy. (Fiction. 13-17)

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