You Only Live Once by Jess Valance

Synopsis (from Goodreads) 

Pages: 400

Publisher: Hot Key Books 

Released: 23rd of August 2018 

Gracie Dart has always worked hard and she's got a wall covered with revision timetables and French verbs to prove it. But now GCSEs are behind her and she suddenly starts to think: what was the POINT of it all?

When Gracie thinks she's dying of a disgusting tropical illness, she starts to worry she's been wasting her best years being sensible. It's like people say: you only live once - so isn't it about time she started LIVING?

(OK, so the tropical illness turned out to be a fake-tan miscalculation. Anyone could make the same mistake.) 

When Gracie decides to do something, she does it properly. Gracie Dart is about to live out her dreams. However embarrassing.

What I Have to Say 

This is cringe done right! I've talked before about secondhand embarrassment and just feeling uncomfortable when characters have embarrassing moments and how I just don't like it, but this is a book that I really enjoyed because the character was pretty much a complete failure at so many things. I think it was written really well. The things that happened were genuinely funny and the whole book was filled with humour of all kinds. It felt like I was being encouraged to laugh with the character rather than at her. And she often laughed at herself. 

Gracie was so great in general. She was funny, smart and she tried hard, even if she did get carried away sometimes. She was easy to like and root for, I think. I took to her voice straight away. The other characters were really great as well. The granma was amazing and the little brother was great if a bit gross sometimes. Alsom Sarah was so cool and I want to see more of her! I want to see her and Gracie get together in the next book, they're so perfect together. 

I did feel a bit put out by the way Til's mum was discussed and the way her mental health was treated throughout the book. I hope that this changes for the next one. It made me really uncomfortable to have her dismissed as nuts when she obviously has really bad difficulties. 

All in all though, I loved the book and can't wait for the next one! 

My thanks go to Hot Key Books for providing me with this copy for review.