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