All Dylan Mint has ever wanted is to keep his Tourette's in check and live life as a "normal" teenager. The swearing, the tics, the howling "dog" that escapes when things are at their worst--nothing about Tourette's makes it easy to meet cute girls or have normal friends (or many friends at all). But a routine hospital visit changes everything--Dylan overhears that he's going to die. In an attempt to claim the life he's always wanted, he decides to grant himself parting wishes, or "Cool Things To Do Before I Cack It". In an intimate portrayal of life with Tourette's, Dylan's journey to come to terms with the disorder that has defined his life and his preconceptions about the world around him is hilarious, painful and, ultimately, utterly masterful.
Brian Conaghan lives and works in the Scottish town of Coatbridge. He has a Master of Letters in Creative Writing from the University of Glasgow, and worked as a teacher for many years. His novel When Mr Dog Bites was shortlisted for the 2015 CILIP Carnegie Medal. The Bombs That Brought Us Together won the 2016 Costa Children's Book Award, The Weight of a Thousand Feathers won the 2018 Irish Book Award for Teen/YA Book of the Year, and We Come Apart, a verse novel co-authored with Carnegie Medal-winner Sarah Crossan, won the 2018 UKLA Book Award. Cardboard Cowboys, Brian's first middle-grade novel, published in 2021 and is full of his trademark heart, humour and crackling dialogue. Swimming on the Moon is his second middle-grade novel.
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