You Only Live Once

Snap Decision #2

by Bridie Clark

You survived your freshman year at Kings Academy, the prestigious prep school in the New Hampshire hills, but hold the slow clap—turns out sophomore year’s the real grinder. You’ll have to deal with the stress of keeping up with the soul-crushing homework. Not to mention your glam classmates are throwing glitzy sweet sixteen parties this year and you’ll need a job if you want to join.

Will you take that babysitting job in town (and pretend not to notice Hot Dad’s flirtatious ways)? Will you bribe your way to a New York Times internship and land a college guy? Filled to the brim with twisting paths and turns, this may end up being the best year of your life . . . or it may send you home to Hope Falls in tears. Whatever snap decisions you make, it’s going to be an unforgettable year.

Genres: Choose Your Own Adventure, Young Adult

224 pages, Paperback

First published April 15, 2014

About the author

Bridie Clark was born on October 7, 1977, and spent a happy childhood in West Hartford, CT. Her parents encouraged her early love of reading and writing.

In 1999, Bridie graduated from Harvard College, where she was an editor of The Harvard Crimson. She has since worked as a book and magazine editor, and written for The New York Times, Vanity Fair, New York, Quest, and Elegant Bride.

Bridie’s debut novel, Because She Can , was published in nineteen countries around the world and was reviewed and featured in dozens of magazines and newspapers, including The New York Times, The Washington Post, The Los Angeles Times, Vanity Fair, Glamour UK, and USA TODAY. Her second novel, The Overnight Socialite , was published by Weinstein Books in December 2009.

In 2006, she co-wrote The Gawker Guide to Conquering All Media (Atria, July 2007) and co-founded Blue State Coffee.

Bridie lives in New York City with her husband and daughter.

Reviews

[Carmen · Rating 1 out of 5]

This book is SO boring. So boring. It lacks even the little bit of spark that infused its predecessor, Maybe Tonight?.

So boring.

And I can't get over how much and how casually all these 15-year-olds drink! Not even in secret, they get served alcohol in restaurants and bars and I'm like, "Hello? Carding? The law? Hello?" I mean, WTF. And it's so, so, so casual like the 15-year-old is saying, "I could use a glass of wine. Or even a whole bottle." And that's not even questioned or commented on.

Actually, as I've said before, this book is EXACTLY like reading about 21/22-year-olds. Clark isn't making an attempt to even WRITE about high school students - she's simply writing characters in their early 20s and putting them in 14 and 15-year-old bodies. It's completely ridiculous. No one has any kind of normal or realistic teenage thoughts, reactions, or problems. It's about 22-year-olds, really.

Skip this. Complete waste of time.

[Holly Letson · Rating 2 out of 5]

1.5*

Not real impressed. So, my so-called "friends", who hated me at the end of Maybe Tonight? for turning them in are suddenly my "besties" again now?!? Yeah, riiiiiiight!

[Azra Zaman · Rating 3 out of 5]

It's an average book to study..it depends on your opinion ..For me, the decisions were quite easy and simple. My story went too much smooth. Soo smooth that there was almost nothing to enjoy. Although there is scope for you to choose rough and tough life. For example, you get options to choose between starting a relation with a handsome and caring married man or losing your well paying job. Everything depends on you here.
Happy reading.

[Shanyi · Rating 3 out of 5]

It’s cool that readers get to choose the paths they prefer but I didn’t end up with a decent ending. It was quite abrupt.

[Avian · Rating 3 out of 5]

I enjoyed it. Nothing special about the story but eh it deserves 3 stars.

[Isabel · Rating 5 out of 5]

You Only Live Once by Brodie Clark portrays a story about a teenagers where you choose your story. At first she starts out in a school environment and you have to choose which people are her friends and where you want to go. Then you choose if you want it the job or not because it you have a lot with all your schoolwork and it would be a lot to take on. Your decisions make up how your story ends. If you choose to kiss the husband, you might end up losing your job. However, if you don't kiss him you still may end up losing your job. All the small decisions end up making something in the bigger picture. Like what not to do and why to make the correct decision. The character was you and you could either make the right decision or choose the fun way, it only affected you, your family, or your friends. You could go to that party in Texas or you could stay home and study. It's your life, your snap decisions.

This book was amazing. What I liked about it was first of all, that you got to choose your story. I thought that was really interesting considering i've never read a book like that and I think it's the j my one. Also I liked that the main character was you but it was also planned to make decisions to change you. This author has amazing taste and knows how to get you to read her stuff. I liked wgeb ever she would make a sarcastic remark because I felt it made the story more interesting. Even though this book was amazing, there was a couple I thought he liked. First, I didn't like the character Rebecca. She and all her friends were stuck up and rude about the decision that you made to work. Also, they always talk about money which your character doesn't have. Other than that, this book was amazing.

I would recommend this book to mostly girls. It talked about getting a job babysitting and keeping your grades up. It also talked about how they had huge crushes on each other brothers. This is mostly girl topics however, if a male wants to read it go ahead because it was an amazing book. I would also recommend this to middle school end up. I had a little bit of harder words and difficult sentence structure that might be difficult for younger girls to understand and comprehend. This book was very good and if you have the chance, you should read it.

[Ms. P · Rating 1 out of 5]

I very rarely abandon books, but I just could not go on with this one. There is really nothing appealing about this book. I hated the choose-your-own-adventure structure. I hated that it was written in second person (so annoying!). I hated the main character and her shallowness: she only cared about boys, clothes, which party she should go to, and hoping against hope that no one at her snobby private school would figure out that she was a middle-class scholarship student. I also hated that all the 15-year-olds acted like they were college students, drinking and traveling around the city alone to this party or that designer store or mall. Ugh ugh ugh.

[Amy Fournier · Rating 2 out of 5]

Review coming soon.

[Birdie · Rating 2 out of 5]

I always get a non-ending on my first read-through, and so does Brayden. It takes a few goes before you actually get a satisfying ending.