I picked up "The Kicking The Bucket List" at the wrong time and for the wrong reasons.
I read the publisher's summary that said:
"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 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’."
I was expecting something quirky and redemptive, maybe even feel-good. "The Kicking The Bucket List" isn't that kind of book. It's a book about grief and what it does to us, about being disappointed in ourselves and others, about not being able to talk to the people that we should be closest to and it's about a mother trying to rescue the relationships between her three daughters.
If I were in another mood, I might have enjoyed this. Right now, I'm trying to hold depression at bay, not invite it into my imagination.
What finally convinced me to stop, at the twenty per cent point, was the first "counselling" session the three sisters sit through. I'm ashamed to say, I once ran sessions like that. I was young but I should still have known better. I'm not young any more and these techniques, even when applied to other people, have me grinding my teeth.
So, if you're feeling strong and you want a serious book with three believable sisters in their late forties to early fifties trying to reconcile with one another while grieving for their mother, this is the book for you.
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