Just Once More

Just Once More

by Izzibella Beau

4 out of 5

Synopsis
Everyone falls in love at least once in their lives, sometimes many times over. Young love, aging love, forever love, forbidden love.. and then there is the One Love. It consumes your life and makes every minute of every day worth living...the one love that leaves you breathless.

Emery Warden was an average eighteen-year-old girl--as average as one can be for having a terminal illness. She wanted to keep life simple and get through what time was left unscathed. No hurt, no pain, no heartache, so being a loner was her remedy for life. Emery just wanted to get through school and reach all the goals she had set for herself.

None of that included meeting and falling in love with Austin.
Austin Murray never got into trouble. As part of the elite at school--the football team--he never had to own up to any trouble. That all changed when trouble caught up with him. The last thing he expected when he began his mandatory volunteer work at the hospital was a girl who had no interest in him at all. He couldn't say the same: the more he got to know Emery, the more he fell in love with her. She was different from every other girl he’d ever been involved with, and had no idea how that would change when he uncovered her secret...

Young love is a sweet love that will always be remembered, one that makes us who we are, and one that will leave us feeling alive...and breathless.



Review
Austin Murray, the school's star quarterback, gets caught drinking underage. To stop it from ruining his football career, he signs up to volunteer at the hospital; only to meet nerdy-girl Emery and to start to discover what he actually wants from this life.

I won a copy of this book in an Advent giveaway on Echo Fox's blog, and this is the first book I have read from this author.

What the hell happened?

I thought I had this book pegged. Upon starting it, my initial reaction was "Subtle as a Sledgehammer".
You can see where it's going within the first few pages. You have the usual stereotypes of unpopular girl meets the hottest guy in school, who coincidentally is sensitive and hates all the popular kid crap.
You can guess what is going to happen between them; and why Emery is acting the way she is.
It goes through the same old routine, of setting them up, then knocking them back because Austin was a manwhore and Emery is jealous of his ex-girlfriend.
Ex-girlfriend Apryl just happens to be a bitchy cheerleader, who riles Emery up with the most obvious and outrageous lies. I felt like screaming at Emery to open her bloody eyes.
Austin is supposed to be a one-night-stand kinda guy with low respect, and stereotypical jock; but (except in one fleeting drunken moment in the second half) you don't see any of the bad character pre-Emery. He's just an angel, open and considerate and devoted etc.
They jump into relationship-mode really early on.
Even though it's not suitable for young readers (graphic sex); its tone feels immature. The first few chapters read like wish fulfilment from a 14 year old girl's diary.

Subtle as a Sledgehammer.

And then about half-way through... I can't pinpoint when I actually started to care. There was no sudden shift in the writing, or tone of the book, but suddenly I was emotionally invested.  Me. The cold-hearted bitch. I'm still in shock.

This story turns into something very gentle, sweet and full of hope. Everything that happened was so nice to read about; and I liked how it highlighted scenes at college and their choices.
I loved how it finished. It was perfect, and so unusual to finish at that point. With hope and one more day.

I would recommend checking it out.

Goodreads link
Amazon.co.uk