YA Bound Book Tours: Blog Tour Kick-Off: The Weekend Bucket List by Mia Kerick!

YA Bound Book Tours is organizing a Blog Tour for: The Weekend Bucket List by Mia Kerick. This tour will run from April 19th to 27th. Check out the tour schedule below.

The Weekend Bucket List
by Mia Kerick
Genre: YA Contemporary Fiction/Coming of Age (LGBTQ)
Release Date: April 19th 2018
Duet Books, YA imprint of Interlude

Summary:

High school seniors Cady LaBrie and Cooper Murphy have yet to set one toe out of line—they’ve never stayed out all night or snuck into a movie, never gotten drunk or gone skinny-dipping. But they have each other, forty-eight hours before graduation, and a Weekend Bucket List.

There’s a lot riding on this one weekend, especially since Cady and Cooper have yet to admit, much less resolve, their confounding feelings for one another—feelings that prove even more difficult to discern when genial high school dropout Eli Stanley joins their epic adventure. But as the trio ticks through their bucket list, the questions they face shift toward something new: Must friendship play second fiddle to romance? Or can it be the ultimate prize?

A Note from the Author

I wrote The Weekend Bucket List because, although friendship is an exquisitely fine art, in our society it is undervalued. Much of the popular culture geared toward teens—books, movies, music, and more—grooms them to feel incomplete without a boyfriend or girlfriend—their mandatory “other half.” Romantic love is supposed to be what all teens should want—the end-all and be-all of relationships—but a committed bond of friendship is no consolation prize. Friendship is compelling in a different way than romantic love—it is precious and rare and is earned through patience, understanding, forgiveness, laughter, and love.

In fact, there are times when friendship can be a more meaningful and worthwhile vessel for deep feeling. Best friends Cady, Cooper, and Eli need one another and can no more live apart than could Romeo and Juliet! The three teens struggle to understand their individual sexualities and to discover the roles they will play in each other’s lives, but they find a way to be together. As they grapple with their feelings, they learn to be honest. They decide to forgive each other’s mistakes when walking away would be easier. They become a family of choice. And they complete each other.

If this isn’t a love story, I don’t know what is. But it isn’t a romance.

If you choose to read and review The Weekend Bucket List, please be aware that it strays from my usual path of touching YA romance, but not from the direction of a poignant love story. Friendship is just a different kind of love.

Bonus: I’m pretty sure you’ll laugh, and it’s possible you’ll cry.

About the Author

Mia Kerick is the mother of four exceptional children—all named after saints—and five nonpedigreed cats—all named after the next best thing to saints, Boston Red Sox players. Her husband of twenty years has been told by many that he has the patience of Job, but don’t ask Mia about that, as it is a sensitive subject.

Mia focuses her stories on the emotional growth of troubled men and their relationships, and she believes that sex has a place in a love story, but not until it is firmly established as a love story. As a teen, Mia filled spiral-bound notebooks with romantic tales of tortured heroes (most of whom happened to strongly resemble lead vocalists of 1980s big-hair bands) and stuffed them under her mattress for safekeeping. She is thankful to Dreamspinner Press for providing her with an alternate place to stash her stories.

Mia is proud of her involvement with the Human Rights Campaign and cheers for each and every victory made in the name of marital equality. Her only major regret: never having taken typing or computer class in school, destining her to a life consumed with two-fingered pecking and constant prayer to the Gods of Technology.

Contact Mia at miakerick@gmail.com.