Mae doesn't see the point anymore. Not in summer, not in moving towns, and definitely not in being without her mom. Grief has hollowed her out, and she's fine drifting through the heat in a fog of cynicism and earbuds. But her old friends won't let her disappear so easily. Before she left, they handed her a gift: a beat-up notebook titled Mae's Summer Bucket List—a collection of dares, dreams, and weird little challenges to complete before school starts.

Then she meets Teddy. He's a walking contradiction—part philosopher, part chaos, all strange charm. Teddy doesn't believe life has meaning either, but he thinks that's kind of the fun part. With his help, Mae begins to cross off the absurd, the reckless, and the quietly beautiful entries on the list.

As the summer unspools, Mae finds herself pulled into Teddy's world of offbeat wisdom, nighttime adventures, and emotional loopholes. And somewhere between the absurd and the aching, she starts to wonder: if nothing matters, why does this feel like everything?

A darkly whimsical story about grief, absurdity, and the strange magic of choosing to live anyway, The Existential Bucket List is for anyone who's ever screamed into the universe—and kind of hoped it was listening.