This book was amazing. It will break you down and rebuild you. It is sweet and so sad. Hopefully and heart in the basement also.

Someone Else's Bucket List by Amy T Matthews is a poignant, beautiful story about sisterly love, grief, and ultimately acceptance and personal growth. In turns heart wrenching and heart warming, the story takes you through the main character Jodie's crushing grief on the loss of her sister Bree, her determination to fulfil her sister's final wishes by completing her bucket list, and her personal epiphany regarding how she sees herself versus how others see her.
Someone Else's Bucket List is ultimately a story of love - love between sisters, both of the blood and the chosen type, love between children and parents, romantic love, love between friends, and even the simulated love found through the internet's like buttons. It is a story of personal growth, of overcoming both physical and emotional challenges, and of how hard one ailing sister went to ensure that the other sister would be able to work through her grief and thrive.
I absolutely loved this novel, even the emotionally difficult to read parts. It brought tears to my eyes more than once, and made me laugh as often. Reading this should be on everyone's bucket list!
Thank you to #NetGalley and #KensingtonBooks for the ARC of #SomeoneElsesBucketList.

[arc review]
Thank you to NetGalley for providing an arc in exchange for an honest review.
Someone Else’s Bucket List releases May 23, 2023
This heartbreakingly beautiful story centers around the relationship of 2 sisters and how Jodie finds herself again after losing her beloved sister Bree to leukemia.
Bree had a huge following on social media and centered her whole life around being an influencer, with special focus on finishing her bucketlist. Due to her unexpected illness she never got the chance to cross off all her goals and left her family with a huge amount of medical dept.However Bree has a back up plan and unexpected events ensue a year after her passing……..

This was such a unique story. Following Bree’s last days was so raw,emotional and gripping that I just couldn’t get away from the story. I expected a serious and deep sister relationship drama but the course of the story changed abruptly and turned into a second chance romance trope which made me detach from the story.

All in all, a very original novel, with witty banter that will put a smile on your face.

3 stars! ⭐️⭐️⭐️
Format: ebook
#Bookstagram #Books #BooksBooksBooks #Contemporary #FastReads #NetGalley #ARC

TW: cancer, death of a loved one, grief

“Someone else’s bucket list”, as the title indicates, brings us the story of a character that has to fulfill another character’s bucket list. Jodie’s sister, Bree, dies of leukemia at the young age of 26, failing to fulfill her childhood 100 itens bucket list, leaving to her sister the remaining 6 itens.

This book is an amazing journey of grief and love, showing that life is never black and white. We can be extremely sad, grieving a loved one, while at the same time experiencing moments of joy. The two feelings are not mutually exclusive!

For starters, I felt the author tackled really well the disease and grieving part, with the first 30% of the book being extremely heavy on these issues, so be aware of TWs for this one. I didn’t feel it to be too romanticized, which I must admit I haven’t expect, but quiet like in the sense that brought more realism to the narrative. Additionally, the extremely high costs of cancer treatment in the US are present throughout the book, which I felt that, once again, brought realism to the story and awareness of the families’ difficulties in paying, especially if after everything their loved ones don’t make it.

There were parts of the book I had issues with. Bree was an influencer, so the whole fulfilling of the list is shown on her instagram and sometimes Jodie was too discomforted with some decisions being made, felt they were more for marketing purposes than to honor her sister. I had issues with the whole marketing thing, I came to understand where it was coming from, but maybe it should have been explained earlier on, as some attitudes of certain characters are not right. I don’t want to give too much of the book away, so I leave it like this.

Jodie has an amazing growth, which was very nice to see and experience. My heart was with her the whole time. A sibling is a bigger part of our lives than people without siblings might consider, specially if he/she is older, as was the case. The grandmother was gold! So ahead of her time in certain issues, really loved her! I’m only sad she was only a side character, I felt she deserved more time.

I thank NetGalley, the author, the publisher and everyone involved in allowing me early access to this book.
This review will also be available on my Goodreads profile and later on, on my Instagram account - @cat.literary.world

My first 5-star read of 2023! I got this as an ARC from NetGalley, and I’m so excited for it to be released in May 🥳

I had a feeling this would be a fun read based on the description because it’s such a unique concept - a girl completing her sister’s final bucket list items after the latter passes away from leukemia. I got what I wanted and so much more. I’m not joking when I say I laughed out loud and cried real sad tears at several points in this book. The female lead was only annoying like once or twice but fully redeemed herself! There were so many underlying make-you-think moments and quite a few twists I didn’t see coming. THIS is what I’ve been waiting for with every review I’ve written about books feeling rushed or like they didn’t go deep enough into the details. I’d recommend it to my friends who like cutesy romance just as much as the ones who like a deeper read. Pre-order this or request your own ARC ASAP - you won’t regret it.

Someone Else's Bucket List turned out to be a lot more of a romance book than I expected. I think it was a second chance trope and it wasn't really my thing.

I love books about sisters and I was expecting something serious and Lenni and Margot-ish. That wasn't at all what this was.

Also, I REALLY didn't like Jodie. Are there actually women in their mid-twenties that spend all night kissing in bed? It felt too unbelievably innocent. I also felt like the author wasn't comfortable writing sex scenes, which made them feel cringey.

If you're looking for a serious women's fiction book, skip this. If you're looking for a superficial, uncomfortable romance, this is for you. 🙄

2.5⭐ rounded up for Goodreads and NetGalley.

I received an ARC from Kensington Books via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

This book was beautiful!
I first came across Amy Matthews writing when she was my lecturer in University. Since then, I've always jumped at the chance to read her work, and this was no exception. Her style of writing always leaves the reader engaged and wanting to know more. She also always finds the best ways to end her work, leaving the reader satisfied and fulfilled.

It is an emotional book which tugs at the heartstrings and leaves you wanting to know more about the characters. Not only has Amy captured the real feeling of grief and loss, she has also captured the essence of love, family, strength, growth and stepping out of your comfort zone.
I dove right into the story and felt as though I was there with the characters, experiencing the scenes with them.

Although it was a great read and I loved it very much, I did struggle with the first couple of chapters, but once I made my way through, I was enthralled.

I would highly recommend!

Cancer was expensive..Bree dont want to being aburden even after she died. So, with her one million followers, she set a plan to make sponsor to fulfill the last six of her bucket list. Each bucket list completed, her sponsor willing to paid her medical debt. Who gonna finish this list? Jodie, her sister.

Jodie journey to finish the list was fun and challenging. It is not easy being famous, people want to know what she up to, zero privasi. And there are Kelly Wong, her old flame. The boy she got crush but miscomunication happend, their reconcile make Jodie happier than ever. Ofcourse there are another drama lol. Salute for Bree to prepare and plan everything!!

Thank you to NetGalley for provide this book, it is pleasure to review this book.

#SomeoneElsesBucketList #AmyTMatthews #KensingtonPublishing #NetGalley #ARC

I received an advanced copy of this book, courtesy of NetGalley and Kensington Books. Opinions expressed in this review are completely my own.

Jodie Boyd's sister, Bree, a hugely successful influencer, dies of leukemia at 26. Their family is left grieving and with crippling medical debt until scheduled videos of Bree pop up on her instagram, and she posthumously reveals that, if Jodie completes her bucket list, a corporate sponsor will pay off the debt, and if Jodie manages to keep Bree's followers and grow the number, more benefits are to come.

For what it's worth, I thought the start was alright. The sisterly love, jealousy and grief in general were handled well and I loved how Jodie and Claudia's relationship without Bree was starting out.

Then, the bucket list came. It had been some time between me reading the description and actually starting this book, and I must have glossed over the premise, because it was the most bleak, harrowing, ghoulish thing that I couldn't figure out if it was genius commentary on late stage capitalism and the commodification of human life or simply a symptom of it. It's hard enough to believe that Bree didn't have some form of health insurance and that, as a 26 year old influencer with over a million followers, she didn't have enough money to pay enough towards the debt so that her family wouldn't be on the brink of ruin. It's even harder to believe that there was absolutely no outrage when Bree's very public video revealed that the overwhelming debt will be paid bit by bit for every item Jodie, very publically, completes from her bucket list, all while keeping up her dead sister's social media so that the billionaire owned airline company can profit from it. I kept waiting for this to be addressed somehow, for some boundaries to be set, for someone to question if dragging a dead woman's sister into a marketing campaign so that the corporation can keep the dead woman's followers maybe isn't a good look.

Well, it was addressed. At 70%. Some sort of boundaries were set at 85% and from there it turned into a convoluted mess in which the billionaire somehow seemed to be the most rational person.

I wish I DNF-ed.

“Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for allowing me to read the ARC version of this novel”

When Bree is diagnosed with cancer; she knows that her adventures around the world are over. She no longer can travel to the highest of peaks or entertain her millions of followers on her social media page.

Bree is left with the idea to have her younger sister, Jodie complete her bucket list with her sponsors.

In this sweet novel, we see Jodie struggle with the rise of fame her older sister has gotten all while trying to honor her late sister’s life and pay back her debt.

If you love sweet little romances, adventure and love sisterly bonds; this novel is perfect for you.

The premise of this book sounded great - adventurous world traveler Instagram influencer Bree Boyd finds out she is dying of leukemia before she gets to finish the last few items on her bucket list. After her death, a video pops up on her IG feed asking her sister Jodie to complete her list for her. This sad-but-sweet story is easy to read and fast to get through and Jodie is a beautifully flawed, really likeable protagonist, but there was a big issue with the storyline that I couldn’t get past. This isn’t a spoiler because it’s in the description of the book - Bree left behind a huge amount of debt from her medical bills and part of her reason for wanting Jodie to complete her bucket list was to unburden her family from the debt. Jodie’s completion of the bucket list would be sponsored. I don’t know a lot about the influencer world, but I do know that influencers like Bree who have a million followers are significantly monetized, so it seemed totally implausible that Bree didn’t have health insurance because she definitely would have been able to afford it and she didn’t seem like the type of person who wouldn’t realize that she needed it. Bree says to her family, “I know the medical bills are insane. And that’s my fault, because I never got a proper job and I never had any insurance.” Sorry, that just made no sense to me at all and my rating for the book would have been higher if there was a believable reason for why a very successful 26 year-old influencer never got health insurance. Thanks to #netgalley and #kensingtonbooks for this ARC in exchange for an honest review.

This book was fine but not particularly engaging. I wanted to see what happened enough to finish it, but it was seemingly extreme and unrealistic.

This one was so incredibly good. Will not be surprised to see this for book clubs in May! I think everyone will love this story.

Bree had her life all figured out. She had prepared a bucket list of 100 things she wanted to do before she died. Climb Mount Everest, run with the bulls, learn martial arts in Brazil; yes, it was all planned out. Then, she went into the hospital with a mild case of pneumonia! What did the doctor mean she had leukemia? She still had too much to do on her list!

Jodie is living a predictable life until her sister’s diagnosis. She and both of her parents are working two or three jobs each to pay off the medical bills. Ryan Air steps in and offers to not only pay off the bills but help Jodie complete her sister’s bucket list. Jodie agrees to complete the list and embarks on a planned promotional trip to help rid the family of the massive debt. Jodie is less than thrilled with her commitment.

The author skillfully works through the minefield that is the endeavor to complete Bree’s bucket list. Jodie ruefully approaches each task with cameras and cell phones recording her every move. The entire task becomes morbid at times and the people tasked with recording the saga are relentless. I applaud Ms. Matthews and her rendering of this experience. It is a unique
contemporary tale, gripping and entertaining, easy to become engaged. 4.5 stars – CE Williams

First, thanks to NetGalley for this advanced copy.
Second, this book covers the sensitive topics of anxiety, terminal illness, and grief. Please read it with caution.
And third, here it goes, I am excited and at the same time sad because this book came to open my eyes to a somewhat similar situation, although it is not my own, but it is close.

<spoiler>
It is known that the illness of a loved one removes us in the depths of our being, and leaves us with a feeling of anguish, coming to bring out our true essence in the face of the circumstances and needs that arise.

The story mainly revolves around two characters and their unfortunate scenarios, one is Bree's death from leukemia and the other is the path that her sister, Jodie, must go through to get rid of the family financial burden and get ahead with sadness. that the death of their sister left them.

We read in this story that Bree, far from being selfish, focuses in her final months on developing a plan to help her family with grief and debt. Taking advantage of his social position as a Blogger, he gets the help of several sponsors to achieve it.

The plan is easy: get her sister Jodie to complete the last wishes she had on her list before she died and her problems will be solved.
</spoiler>

Amy T. Matthews tells us a series of adventures, through which Jodie goes through and lets us accompany her through her fears, her grief, her desire to want to help her family and the need to lean on new people who may or may not be what what was needed in his life to keep walking.

This beautiful book guides us through several moments of frustration and also with several notes of wisdom that open your eyes to various scenarios that become more and more a reality before us; and that, if we are willing to do things to want to honor those people we love and who only want our well-being, it is best to try.

In the end, as a reader, or spectator (in other situations)
You realize that all the small details matter, these and the people involved make the process easier, and in the end you will never know how planned everything was from the beginning and maybe you were only the small part that started a revolutionary change that was more far-reaching than you could imagine at the time.

[arc review]
Thank you to NetGalley and Kensington Books for providing an arc in exchange for an honest review.
Someone Else’s Bucket List releases May 23, 2023

2.5

This is a story about how a family navigates grief and the loss of a daughter/sister/friend to leukemia, who are also drowning in medical debt.

Bree was huge on social media with a following of 1 million.
Unbeknownst to her loved ones, she pre-filmed and prescheduled video posts to upload onto her Instagram after she had passed. In addition to that, she planned out every holiday for a year to help them to be able to still celebrate and see the good in life.

Bree also had a bucket list that she started at the age of 16. She managed to cross off 94 of those items, but still had 6 remaining, of which she’s relinquishing to her younger sister, Jodie, to finish. Bree even set up a sponsor to delegate these tasks and to partner with them to help pay off her medical debt each time an item from the list is accomplished.

I love stories that center around grief because there is usually a lot of strong emotion tied to the characters, as well as a lot of rewarding development and growth that we get to see.
While this was somewhat true of this story, I also found that the grief element got lost within the need to perform for social media. In the height of our social media era, this at times came off very forced and a little insincere — like the sponsors were taking advantage and profiting off of a families grief. Everything had to be documented and I felt like Jodie had no time to slow down and process anything. Even the fact that on day one, she was forced to get a makeover, just goes to show how much of a highlight reel that the internet can be. The fact that it took until 85% for any real boundaries to be discussed was too long in my opinion.

The premise and uniqueness of this story is definitely there, but I wasn’t quite expecting to be thrown into starting the bucket list so quickly after just learning about it, with Cheryl dictating every single move. It took away from the vulnerability that I wanted to read with Jodie. It really felt like she had no say in anything.

Going off of the cover, I also thought this might take place during spring/summer months, or that the bucket list adventures would be spaced out for a lengthy time, but most of this book is set during thanksgiving/winter/new years and in 1-2 locations. Not to mention, that one of items was to fly over Antarctica which totaled 52+ hours of flying, just for the sake of it… Climate crisis, who?

This had very strong potential to be a 4 star read for me, but I could not get past the way the plot twist with Kelly angered and blindsided me. If I didn’t want to keep my kindle in pristine condition, I would have fully thrown it at the wall. It just sucks because I really liked the Wong’s and how they were also dealing with their own loss, it was a great way of connection that not many people can fully understand until they experience it themselves. But the fact that literally every single person seemed to know about that twist except for Jodie just felt awful, paired with the fact that the same exact day he was saying “lets spend the day in bed”. UGH. Try harder to communicate. Plus, the fact that Kelly was the only other person Jodie was following on Instagram was just too convenient and obvious of a set up.

For a fairly lengthy feeling book, where the whole point was to comfort and help heal this <i>family</i> (not just Jodie) of grief, I wanted more involvement from them and/or more videos from Bree sprinkled throughout the middle of the book for that depth of emotion.

Definitely read this if you liked that iconic Katz’s Deli scene in When Harry Met Sally, but also keep in mind that this does mention the 60’s version of West Side Story that had blackface.

3.5 stars rounded up to 4

An intriguing premise and an emotional, bitter-sweet story about family, grief and learning how to live again after loss.

Bree Boyd is a young Instagram influencer who has been living life to the fullest and checking items off her bucket list when she becomes ill with cancer. After her death, her family learns by way of a series of videos she had recorded that she has found a way to help them after she's gone. One of the last things that Bree did from her hospital bed was negotiate a sponsorship with an airline company which agreed to pay off the medical debt if her younger sister, Jodie, can complete the remaining 6 items on Bree's bucket list. Jodie is nowhere near as outgoing as Bree had been and she's reluctant to take on this public challenge but she doesn't really have any choice as her family is drowning in debt from Bree's cancer treatments. From their family home in Delaware to New York City to a flight over Antaractica, Jodie is pulled along on Iris Air's publicity campaign as she attempts to complete Bree's bucket list (including #100 Fall in Love).

Someone Else's Bucket List is a touching story - heartbreaking at times as Jodie and her family deal with the overwhelming grief of losing Bree but also hopeful as they begin to move forward from that loss and realize that the bucket list campaign was a final gift from Bree not only to eliminate the debt but also to give them something to focus on as they navigated the difficult months following her death. Completing Bree's bucket list also helps Jodie to find the courage she needs to stop languishing in Delaware and move forward with her own life.

I have to say that the entire premise of the book is heartbreaking as well. The only reason that Jodie is completing her late sister's bucket list is because her middle-class, hardworking family has to pay a medical debt. To think that a family dealing with the devastating loss of a daughter/sister is also left with crushing debt hanging over their heads is just unbearably sad and, for a reader not in the U.S., it's hard to fathom that this is the reality for too many people.

Thank you to NetGalley for the ARC.

Thanks Kensington Books, Amy Matthews and Netgalley for the copy in exchange for an honest review.

OH THIS BOOK.

There are so many interesting things to discuss, to reflect on, to make us emotional that I really wanted it not to end.

Here we find ourselves in front of a young woman whose sister died due to leukemia, this sister left items on a list that she could not yet complete when she knew that her life was about to end. And he asks his sister to complete it.

When I read that I said "I need to know this story" and so it was. It begins slowly, explaining how this situation came to be where a young woman with all the energy and vitality has leukemia and her family ends up totally in debt for the treatment she undergoes. An interesting critique of health (which is not public) and I really liked that.

Through the list, our protagonist Jodie is facing fears and great challenges because... that was not her list, it was her sister's. And on top of that, everything seems to be a circus since Bree, her sister, was an influencer and everyone wants to see how Jodie completes that list.

When the book started to pick up pace, I didn't want to put it down and I read it in less than 24 hours. Not because it's light and shallow, but because it's very enjoyable to read and even though it touches on themes that are super strong (and you may have realized what these themes are from what I said earlier), Amy makes each chapter more intense. and interesting than the previous one.

Without a doubt, a reading that I loved and that I would have liked to have gone a little deeper into certain of Jodie's ties to her family and friends.

It also allows us to observe how networks can harm people, I found that very interesting, although there is no express criticism, I feel that if one thinks a little bit, there it is.

The review will also be published on magui.world (ig)

Oh Jodie and Bree— I love having a sister and I loved this relationship. This isn’t the most cheerful book at times, but it was a creative take on grief with a little added romance and humor.

I liked the premise and thought this sounded intriguing, though I never really warmed to Jodie. It also seemed like the romance came out of nowhere and was a bit contrived. I liked the ending and the last bit with Bree.

Kindly received an ARC from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.