The Next Thing on My List
Jill Smolinski, 2007
Crown Publishers
204 pp.
ISBN-13: 9780307351296
Summary
Meet June Parker. She works for L.A. Rideshare, adores her rent-stabilized apartment in Santa Monica, and struggles with losing a few pesky pounds.
But June’s life is about to change.
After a dark turn of events involving Weight Watchers, a chili recipe, and a car accident in which her passenger, Marissa, dies, June finds herself in possession of a list Marissa has written, “20 Things to Do By My 25th Birthday.” Even though they barely knew each other, June is compelled by both guilt and a desire to set things right and finish the list for Marissa.
The tasks before her range from inspiring (Run a 5K), to daring (Go braless), to near-impossible (Change someone’s life), and as June races to achieve each goal before the deadline, she learns more about her own life than she ever bargained for.
Funny, engaging, and heartwarming, The Next Thing on My List features a loveable, relatable heroine and a story with plenty of humor and heart. (From the publisher.)
Author Bio
• Birth—N/A
• Raised—in Troy, Michigan, USA
• Education—B.A., Central Michigan University
• Currently—lives in Los Angeles, California, area
Jill Smolinski is the author of the novels The Next Thing on My List and Flip-Flopped, as well as nine non-fiction titles on subjects including origami, travel games and supermodels. Her work has appeared in major women's magazines, as well as in an anthology of short stories, American Girls About Town. A transplanted midwesterner, she now lives in Los Angeles with her son (From the publishers.)
Extras
• At six years of age, Jill was invited to participate in a young authors conference because of a short story she wrote. From then on, she wanted to be a writer.
• She actually works, as June does, for a non-profit group that promotes carpooling or bus-riding. "Over the years, I've become somewhat of a rideshare expert—I can rattle off statistics and facts about carpooling in California so extensively...that I'm rarely invited to dinner parties anymore." (From the author's website.)
Book Reviews
Fresh and fun to read.... The details of [June’s] life are set out with a deft, light touch.
Boston Globe
Smolinski follows up her debut, Flip-Flopped, with an airy, hit and mostly-miss novel about one rudderless woman's accidental journey of self-discovery. After a Weight Watchers meeting, narrator June Parker offers a ride home to newly svelte Marissa Jones, and the two hit it off until Marissa dies in a nasty one-car accident. When June runs into Marissa's hot brother at the cemetery six months after the crash, she makes a rash promise to carry out the dead girl's list of 20 things to do before she turned 25 (even though June is 34). The challenges that follow—running a 5K, kissing a stranger, "dare to go braless"—serve less to improve June's life than to highlight how unfortunate it is that she's taken up a stranger's goals instead of her own. Smolinski's Los Angeles is a well-executed set—June tilts at windmills as a writer for a ride-sharing nonprofit—but the most human characters in it are June's tyrannical and calculating boss and her secretly sensitive, underused brother. Though completing the list is a transformative experience for June, the leadup fizzles.
Publishers Weekly
After June Parker offers a ride to Marissa, a virtual stranger, her passenger dies in a freak accident. Filled with guilt, June compares her own lackluster life as a mid-level L.A. Rideshare employee to the promise of Marissa, who had just lost 100 pounds and bought her first pair of sexy shoes. June knows this because she salvaged Marissa's list of "20 Things To Do by My 25th Birthday" from the crash, and those were the only two items crossed off. When June runs into Marissa's very attractive brother, she panics, telling him that she is finishing the list herself in Marissa's honor. At this point, of course, she must give up her procrastinating ways. She has six month to complete the tasks, and the challenge teaches her to embrace life and brings her closer to her friends, family, and coworkers. While the plot may sound like a recipe for unbridled sentimentality, in Smolinski's (Flip-Flopped) talented hands, June's odyssey is funny, charming, and moving. This well-paced novel with carefully crafted characters may appeal to readers of Merrill Markoe and Laura Zigman. Highly recommended.
Library Journal
June Parker's life is meandering along until a freak car accident leaves Marissa, her 24-year-old passenger, dead and June wracked with guilt. June discovers a list Marissa had been keeping.... Clever and winning, Smolinski's novel will have readers rooting for June as they eagerly turn the pages to keep up with her progress on the list. —Kristine Huntley
Booklist
Smolinski's follow-up to Flip-Flopped (2002) offers a surprisingly un-morbid account of an underachieving young woman who decides to live out another's unrealized dreams after a tragic car accident. Technically, a piece of furniture toppling off a truck caused the crash that killed 24-year-old Marissa Jones. But June Parker can't help but feel responsible, since she had given Marissa a lift home from a Weight Watchers meeting. The guilt amplifies when June discovers a list in Marissa's purse detailing the 20 things she wanted to do before her 25th birthday. Throwing herself with gusto into completing tasks that range from silly ("go braless") to heartbreaking ("change someone's life"), June finds that they give her lackluster life a focus it has been missing. She mentors an inner city "little sister," trains for and finishes a 5K race, even finds a way for her childless brother and his wife to adopt a baby. Along the way, she grows closer to Marissa's older brother Troy, a helicopter traffic reporter with surfer-boy good looks. He not only helps June check off certain items, such as taking Marissa's mom and grandmother to Las Vegas to see Wayne Newton, but his high-flying job inspires her to do something that just might revolutionize her stalled career. As she powers through Marissa's list, June realizes that her own dreams need tending and tries to break some patterns that have held her back for far too long. Smolinski crafts a believable heroine, and her chipper carpe-diem message may have readers devising their own Top 20s. Sweet, though not particularly memorable.
Kirkus Reviews
Discussion Questions
1. Marissa died soon after she lost 100 pounds. Was the timing of this was significant to the story, and if so, in what way?
2. Why do you think the author had June complete someone else’s life list and not write it as a woman completing her own?
3. Which items on the list were most challenging to June? Which would you have the hardest time completing? Did any appeal to you?
4. Have you ever written a “life list?” If so, what sort of items were on it, and have you completed any of them? If you haven’t, why not?
5. Life lists aim to help people live more dynamically by doing things—how does fit in with your philosophy of what makes a person’s life important?
6. After the accident, June says that there are two types of horrible events: the type that make you grab life by the throat and never take it for granted, and the type that make you watch a lot of reality TV. Was her reaction realistic? How would you feel if a passenger died when you were driving?
7. What did you think about the relationship between June and Deedee? How would June’s experience have been different if she’d been given the type of “Little Sister” she’d been
expecting?
8. At Sebastian’s party, guests who learn about the list assume that Marissa must have been unhappy if she was fat. Were they being, as one woman put it, “size-ist?” or it is impossible to be overweight and happy in this society?
9. What characteristics attracted June to Troy? Do you think she would have been drawn to him if he wasn’t a traffic reporter? If he wasn’t Marissa’s brother?
10. Several of the items on the list were open to interpretation—do you think June did it in a way Marissa would have liked? What other ways might she have completed some of the tasks on the list?
11. If someone you loved died (or has died), what dream of his or hers would you most want to see fulfilled? What dream of yours do you fear might never happen if you died suddenly?
12. By the end of the book, June feels that she’s changed. What do you think had the biggest impact on her transformation?
(Questions from the author's website.)