This is a story not only for those touched by cancer but also for those looking for inspiration to follow their dreams. Karine Tobin's emotional and candid memoir We Only Live Once traces how the young mother's life was turned upside down by a diagnosis of terminal cancer. The book conveys a tumultuous journey, buoyed by hope but wrapped in fear. Above all, it envelops a time-honored lesson of never taking life for granted. Tobin begins her story in September 2015, when she is thirty weeks pregnant and optimistically expecting a full-term delivery. Now, the discovery of a painful lump in her armpit brings about newfound concerns. The stark diagnosis of stage four melanoma suddenly forces Tobin to prepare for the likelihood of a fatal outcome. Like similar health-related memoirs, both the book's story and dialogue play into the author's emotional whirlwind. Devastation, powerlessness, fear, pain, and sadness all rise to the surface. This book is a bucket list accomplishment for Tobin. It is a story not only for those touched by cancer but also for those looking for inspiration to follow their dreams. Above all, We Only Live Once showcases a strong woman and the value of her carpe diem mentality. Every reader can read this book with a different perspective based on their own story or life experience. Some will read it through the eyes of the traveller and expat, some might take the love journey as their main source of inspiration, while others might see the book through the illness or mental health aspect, and there are many more facets to the story. That's the beauty of We Only Live Once: it inspires many areas and stages of life. The reader can read it again and discover a new insight for their own life based on which facet of the story they identify the most with at the time they read this inspirational story.
