The Breakup Bucket List by Cassie Cross

My rating: 4 of 5 stars


Thanks for the memories, Cassie Cross. The Breakup Bucket List is a celebration. Lindsay closes one heartbreaking chapter of her life, only to find a connection of the heart, she hadn't known she was looking for. Evan is on a man on a mission. Success is the name of the game, but his heart could have other plans. In a world where actions speak louder than words, it's nice to step away from the harshness of reality and into the beauty that is love. My one pet peeve is that it ended far too soon.

Imagine you had an unlimited budget and unobstructed access to any golf course in the USA, where would you go? Do you choose the ultimately exclusive clubs like Augusta where ordinary mortals can only view from their TV or do you choose a less exclusive but enormously rewarding round at Whistling Straits?  Every avid golfer; the purist, the snob and the beginner, has their own bucket list and reasons for choosing one over another.

Here is the list of 10 Bucket List Golf Courses to Play in the USA

1. The Ocean Course, Kiawah Island Golf Resort, SC

The Ocean Course by Pete Dye is consistently ranked as one of the top courses in the world. It has stunning panoramic views and unrivaled golf history that make playing this legendary course an unforgettable experience. Located on the easternmost end of Kiawah Island, just 45 minutes from Charleston, The Ocean Course has more seaside holes than any other course in the Northern Hemisphere — 10 right along the Atlantic, with the other eight running parallel to those. The Ocean Course also has the distinction of being one of only four courses in the U.S. to have hosted every PGA of American major event, including The Ryder Cup and the 2012 PGA Championship. Kiawah Island is a golfer's seaside paradise that also features courses designed by Gary Player, Jack Nicklaus, Tom Fazio, and Clyde Johnston.

2. Pine Valley Golf Club, Clementon, NJ

Everyone learns to take failure in stride at Pine Valley. Abysmal scores are a way of life. That's because the underlying principle of founder George Crump's design for the course is the island. The tee is an island. The fairway, despite being 50-55 yards wide, is also an island. And so, of course, is the green. Each of these isolated plots is tightly defended by sand, scrub, rough, dense woods, sometimes water, sometimes steep falloffs -- a no-man's land of potentially unplayable lies. Players must tack unerringly from one island to the next, or pay a heavy price. Nonetheless, golfers dearly love the place. Though only 15 miles from Philadelphia, this 620-acre tract in the New Jersey pines occupies a world all its own -- simple, serene, the clubhouse an old L-shaped pebbledash structure short on style and grace but long on welcoming warmth. And the caddies are among the best anywhere.

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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.