The Bucket List

by Rachel Hanna

I NEVER wanted to be a daredevil. Even as the 49-year old adult that I am, I still don’t want to ride a roller coaster or jump out of a perfectly good airplane. And I don’t understand people who want to do those things - even my lifelong best friend.

And yet, here I am, holding a list of daredevil-ish things in my hand at my best friend’s will reading.

I am SO going to get her back for this in the afterlife.

So, my outgoing, adventurous best friend decided to leave me her estate but only if I completed her bucket list. HERS, not mine. And I have to do it before I turn 50 because she didn’t make it to 50.

I don’t know if it’s appropriate to want to kill someone who’s already dead, but I can’t help how I feel.

Still, I want to honor her wishes. And I kind of want that beach house she left me, too.

The next few months will either change my life, or I might join her in heaven if one goes terribly wrong.

Order The Bucket List for a funny women’s fiction saga that will make you smile, cry, and maybe make you want to go on an adventure yourself!

Genres: Book Club, Fiction, Romance, Audiobook, Chick Lit, Friendship, Contemporary

286 pages, Kindle Edition

First published May 31, 2023

About the author

Rachel Hanna is a USA Today and Wall Street Journal bestselling author of clean Southern women's fiction. She has published over 54 books and sold more than 2.5 million copies worldwide.

Her stories are set on the coasts of South Carolina and Georgia and in the Blue Ridge Mountains of North Georgia. Her heroines are often starting over in midlife, and they find new friends and sometimes new love along the way. The romance is just kisses. Readers say her books feel like coming home.

New readers usually start with The Beach House, book 1 of her South Carolina Sunsets series.

Rachel lives in North Georgia with her husband of almost 30 years and two spoiled rescue dogs. When she isn't writing, she's out in the garden or hunting for blue and white pottery in an antique shop.

Reviews

[Jessica]

You know that quote, “a good book can change your life”? Well, this book is that book for me. This book is changing my life. I have such horrible anxiety and I’m a hermit. I stay inside my house 99.9 percent of the time. I avoid going out at all costs. This book made me realize, I’m only 32, not 50. It made me realize I need to hurry up and go live life before I am 50 like the woman in this book. It made me realize I might want to go do some of the things on the bucket list in this book. I’ve already done a few of them back when I was young and wild. I have my own actual bucket list I’ve been making for over a decade now. It’s time to get up and go do the things on that list. The things that are affordable, anyway. I need to live while I’m alive. Thank you thank you thank you to the author Rachel Hannah for writing this amazingly life changing story! I’ll be forever grateful that I got to read this book. Also thank you to my book club, wavelength book club, for choosing this book for the club. I wouldn’t have ever heard of it otherwise. Sometimes the right book just slips into my life unexpectedly. I give this book a million billion gazillion stars!

[patt]

I’ve read many books by Rachel Hanna and enjoyed them all. However The Bucket List might just be her best one yet. While dealing with some serious subjects such as the loss of a spouse, the more recent death of a best friend and a fairly severe case of anxiety this story is a heartwarming account of how the main character, Jill, deals with all of this. There are many humorous moments where Jill forces herself to do things she never thought she would or even could due to her anxiety. That’s something I think we can all relate to having experienced at one time or another and at different levels. But we can also learn from her experiences as well. I highly recommend The Bucket List for everyone.

[Amanda B]

This was a cute easy read. I’m all about plausibility and this one just wasn’t. I’m not sure how Jill and her friend were even besties to begin with if they had nothing in common. And of course Jill kept running into Levi at every turn. A little too much emphasis on Jill’s extra weight. Like yes we all want hope for second love when we are frumpy and a little overweight (as put by the author) but the extra emphasis on these things seemed forced. Jill was a little too self deprecating for me. Overall this was a nice break from my usual reads.

[Adrienne Cleminson]

2 1/2 Stars
This is a feel good positive ending book. I really liked the premise. There is so much potential in it. When reading this book I could help but think that this was a first book for her. IT ISN'T! I was truly shocked at the amount of books she had written before this one. This one seemed to be missing so much. It felt like it was a first draft that she turned into her publisher. It felt like there was so much room for more.
There were a few scenes where the storyline just didn't match up. I disliked the last envelope that Monica gave Jill. How would she know that she was going to be able to complete it? And if she hadn't she would have lost everything. Yeah ok...just didn't seem plausible.
It is a good quick read, but it needs so much in order to take it up a notch.

[Carmela Woolley]

Wow, what an amazing book! Rachel Hanna has truly outdone herself with The Bucket List. From the prolong to the final word I was completely captivated. I could not put this book down! Jill’s an amazing woman with so much to offer. After heartbreak, it’s so wonderful so see her blossom. Monica was an amazing best friend who knew Jill better than she knew herself. Make sure to read this book as soon as you possibly can! You won’t be disappointed. The only thing disappointing is that it’s over. Would love to see more of all these characters.

[Marran]

This was a DNF

Adore the cover but I'm sorry I just can not like this one.. It feels juvenile and booring at the same time

[Terri Flood]

Cute story, but another author making the 49 year old female lead "an old lady". Too many references about being old and having to get up in the middle of the night to pee because "I'm old". What are these people going to do 20 years from now when they are "old". A bit far fetched with running into Levi constantly.

[Kimberly A. Green]

This book was not great. I was in a stressful place so it gave me background noise even though I couldn’t stand the narrator on the audio book! Very robotic! Monica dies and leaves her BFF Jill a list to complete and then Jill can have her beach house etc. 🙄

[Rebecca]

lord have mercy that was awful. I listened to the audio book and the reader’s voice did not help the situation. But the staccato basic sentences were just draining. My third grade students could have written this book

[Lynelle]

Nope, DNF after 3 boring chapters with the overly annoying Jilly. An interesting potential storyline but poorly executed.

[Gina *loves sunshine*]

This is such a sweet, cute book!!!! Definitely needs to be a hallmark movie!!!!! Even though the subject seems heavy, it really is fun and light! Jill's best friend dies and leaves instructions for her to complete a bucket list and it was so enjoyable to ride along on her adventures, slowly breaking her out of her anxious, scared comfort zone. a great little summer read!!! Narration is great too, available on hoopla!!

[Mary Ellen Barringer]

This is my first Rachel Hanna book. After reading several intense, Long novels, I was looking for a quick romantic story.

I found the main character to be totally annoying, a that is reflected in the rating.

[Suzanne]

What’s on your bucket list and when are you going to get to it? This one goes quick! A little repetitive, but overall an enjoyable read.

[Jessica Lage]

I liked this book! Made me cry, made me laugh. Very easy and quick read- pretty predictable throughout and lacks substance. I’d call this a palate cleanser

[Mary Jackson _TheMaryReader]

By far my favorite book by Hanna. The story was everything and all the feels.

[Megann Brunsvold]

love this book!!!

[Diane]

One of the author’s earlier books written under another name. Standalone. Contemporary clean romance.
A widowed woman (Jill) who has a very high anxiety level, inherits a beach house and enough money to be financially independent when her best friend dies. However there is a condition to the inheritance. Her friend has left a bucket list for Jill to complete first. The plot premise is interesting but I felt that the author could have developed it further. But this short novel was a quick, light read and I enjoyed it.

[Anne]

This was required reading for a bookclub and it is one of the worst books I’ve ever read. It reads like it was written by a middle schooler with short staccato sentences. It was implausible and very predictable. The only saving grace was that it was a quick read so the drudgery was short-lived. Ugh.

[Ann Folino]

I loved this book.

[January]

The Bucket List by Rachel Hanna (2023)
281-page Paperback

Genre: Women's Fiction

Featuring: Single Mother with Adult Child, College Student, Empty Nesters, Widow, Atlanta, Georgia; Long Best Friends, Pawleys Island, South Carolina; Helicopter Parenting, Quadragenarians Soon-to-be Quinquagenarian, Real Estate Agent, Restaurant Worker, Grief, Terminal Illness - Cancer, Death; Anxiety, Inheritance Trope - Challenge, Attorney Lawyer, Beach House, Hermit - Almost Agoraphobic, Insecurities, Birthday Goal, Personal Growth Trope, New Year's Day, Guilt, Activities Out of Comfort Zone, Myrtle Beach, South Carolina; Romance, Friendship, Thought Nuggets, Fated Encounter Trope, Blue Ridge Mountains, Author's Link

Rating as a movie: PG

Books and Authors mentioned: Macbeth by William Shakespeare

Memorable Quotes: My hand grips my phone, as it does around this time each day, while I stare at the GPS app. Watching my technically adult daughter make the one hour drive from her workplace to her apartment always puts me on edge. It’s not that I don’t trust her. I do. I just don’t trust every single other idiotic individual on the road next to her.

Why is it, when someone you love dies, they suddenly have no faults? I can’t think of one fault that man had, but I know he had some because we were in marriage counseling when he died. Those bad memories have been wiped out of my brain. I only remember positive things. I guess that’s a good thing, but it sure has made the last fifteen years lonely.

Anxiety is a thief. It steals your focus. It steals your fun. It steals your peace. It steals large chunks of your life as you zero in on your symptoms and your thoughts instead of paying attention to everybody around you. For the first time in my life, I'm determined to defeat it. I'm determined to tell it to sit in the back seat while I take us on the rides. Instead of letting anxiety drive, my new goal is to put it in the trunk. It will always be with me, but I need to take back control.

Anxiety does that to a person. When you're having a panic attack, your only focus is the fear. That's what takes center stage. Everything else around you is just a blur, just a side-note to the main event.

I remember how she was sitting her chair for hours, lost in a good book. She read over one hundred books a year, maybe more.

"Hey, God made sugar for a reason. Who am I to question Him?"

My rating: ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️½⚱️💃🏼😟🏕💐

My thoughts: 📖 Page 188 of 281 Chapter 11 - I love this story!

This was a perfect palate cleanser, perfect for Hallmark despite the serious topics. I could read this again, although it was kinda predictable.

Recommend to others: Yes. This is probably the best story I've read from this author, even better than The Beach House.

[Libby]

Quick and easy romance book. The storyline had a lot of potential but it was too cliche, predictable, and repetitive. I found the writing style to be juvenile. I listened to the audiobook and the narrator was so monotone. I thought it was AI at first.

My main issue was Jill’s anxiety was not realistic. She just happened to overcome her anxiety by completing tasks on the bucket list?? The author didn’t do a good job showing Jill’s anxiety affecting her life or how debilitating anxiety can be. She didn’t really have any real setbacks or conflicts. Everything just happened to work out and fall into place. Levi just happened to be everywhere.

[Holley Cuppia]

When her best friend dies and leaves her as the only beneficiary Jill is full of emotion beyond just sad. She’s shocked when she finds out Mon has left everything to her and her daughter, but with a catch. Jill has to complete her friend’s unfinished bucket list.
This was my first Rachel Hanna book and although it was a bit more “sweet” than I usually read, it really made me examine my own life.

Don’t let life pass you by! Get busy LIVING it!

[Wendy Heffer]

Bleech. A 2 is generous. I kept waiting for something surprising to happen. Nope. Boring, predicable and lame.

[Sadie Adams]

Not a book I would of picked up on my own, but it was a really cute palette cleanser 🙂

[Kara Puszko]

Read like a Hallmark movie, sometimes funny and sarcastic, but a little corny for me

[Leslie Spooner]

I do NOT recommend the audio version of this book, but the premise of the book was enough to keep me listening.

[liz k]

DNF. Was bored and uninterested in the plot. Not a fan of Jilly 🙄

[Sherell Bernard]

3.5⭐️

Jill and Monica have been best friends since elementary school. Monica has always been the outgoing, adventurous type whilst Jill is more reserved. Now they're both approaching 50 when Monica dies from cancer—her illness being a secret she kept from Jill until the last couple months before her death.

Wanting her friend Jill to start living again, having been widowed for 15 years and never really having fun, Monica leaves behind a bucket list for Jill to complete before the day Monica would have turned 50. If Jill completes the list, she will inherit Monica's sizable bank account and house by the beach. But more than that, Jill will be honoring the memory and last wishes of her best friend.

The list contains crazy things like crashing a high school reunion, taking salsa lessons and performing stand up comedy. Will the quiet, non-risk taker, reserved Jill, who spends most of her time worrying about her daughter at college, be able to carry out Monica's adventurous bucket list? How will she cope and do it all without her best friend? Will she learn to love and live again?

This sweet little story, full of wit and dry humor and a dash of romance, will make smile inwardly, laugh hilariously, cringe at times but leave you with that light hearted feeling of reading a story that's cute and fun!

[Autumn Ridenour]

This was a quick, easy read. A clean, contemporary romance with a feel-good ending. Has all the ingredients for a Hallmark movie: sweet moments, a little conflict, and everything wrapped up nicely by the end. I liked it well enough while I was reading it, but overall it felt pretty average. Not bad by any means, just not one that’s going to stick with me now that it’s over. A nice way to pass a few hours.

[Mary]

This was a really sweet book. I was expecting it to be a typical “Hallmark” story, which other than the argument 3/4 of the way though then they make up, it was. It’s easy to get stuck in a certain way of living. This book was a good reminder that life is short, we need to learn to try new things along the way and just enjoy the time we have. Something I need to work on🙂…3.5 stars for this book.