James Bailey's The Flip Side is a funny and poignant look at a man who has decided to let fate call the shots in his life.
I really enjoyed this hilarious story about finding yourself with the help of a coin, your best friends, and supportive family. I liked that this was told from a male's perspective. It's heartwarming and filled with humor. It's also quick and easy to read. Josh is a likeable character as were his constant companions, Jessie and Jake.
Definitely recommend this one. You will smile, you will laugh, you will feel all kinds of emotions. Such a cute read that it left a smile on my face in the end.

First let me say that I love that there are more male authors writing romance! Most of my favorite romance books have both POV's and to have a rom-com totally from the male perspective as great. Josh is at the bottom, dumped, jobless, and homeless after his ex-girlfriend dumped him when he proposed, ouch. So now we follow along as he tries to get his life back together using the flip of a coin. This was a fun and engaging story.

Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for an ARC of this book in return for an honest review. All spelling and grammar errors are totally my own.

A very cute premise and a romance told from the male perspective made this a quick read. I found the characters a bit young, but I always find London a great setting for a rom-com so I enjoyed this rather light story. This a debut novel so I hope to see more from this author. We need more romance from the male perspective.

Thank you to Netgalley for gifting me this one!

Josh was too much of a woe is me personality for me to find anything in him worth to offer in a relationship. He gets dumped by his girlfriend, loses his job, moves back in with his parents and then begins to mope. He lets the toss of a coin make decisions for him instead of seizing life himself and making much needed changes.

“So, you have no job, nowhere to stay, and have come to Germany to find a mysterious girl you don’t know...”

A good indicator of what type of character our hero is. I don’t find that premise romantic in the slightest but I thought the idea of a character flipping a coin to make decisions was interesting so I gave it a shot.

Unfortunately I found the hero somewhat unlikable and, while that could be forgiven, I couldn’t find any reason to root for him. The first 1/3rd of the book is filled with the hero mostly talking negatively about himself and the people around him. I’m not even sure why he feels he’s in a position to be in a relationship when he can hardly take care of himself. His growth through the story is slow and minimal and his thought process, coin aside, is often irrational. I found it difficult to root for him when he showed such little personal growth.

One scene that irked me in particular was the Hero basically negging his date internally while desperately trying to make a voucher work because he couldn’t afford dinner. How he described her teeth and how she’s no “Miss England” as if he’s a catch only to reveal he couldn’t even afford for her to eat the dish she wanted on their date? Awful. Then for us to be taken through multiple seasons and his decision making process hardly improved, there was no logical reason for him to even travel to track down a woman! How could he know she wanted that? Did he do any practical research on social media? Call the bookstores? There were so many *free* options and for someone who is quite poor, I found it hard to see the romance in him not exhausting every other option before going broke yet again.

The writing in particular was fine but maybe just not for me. I found much of the dialogue to be quite flat and cold but I suppose that's the character's personality. I wonder if I would have found the writing better if I liked the characters more.

I won this ARC in a giveaway! I finally got around to reading this book but I did enjoy it. I liked the little love story. I thought the premise of flipping a coin to make all the decisions for a year was a cute idea. I think I would have enjoyed it more if I hadn’t just read a book with the similar love story arc.

I think this is the first time that I read a rom-com type book that was completely from the male point of view. While that was a nice change, I just didn’t the story to be that engaging and Josh honestly started to become annoying. It’s hard when you lose interest in the main character and don’t really care if he finds love anymore.

Meet Josh. He does everything right. He has the ring, he picked out the perfect place, and he has the girl of his dreams standing right in front of him when he pops the question. What could go wrong? Except everything does when she says no. Josh’s entire whole world comes tumbling down and he doesn’t know how to move forward with his life. And then he gets this great idea of flipping a coin to make every decision he makes. He puts everything on fate.

I really enjoyed reading this heads or tails laugh-out-read. This is a pretty fast-paced book and the plot is easy to follow.

Thank you @netgalley and @harpercollins for this audiobook for an honest review.

Josh appears to have his future all mapped out as he has a job he enjoys, is living with his girlfriend and has the perfect proposal all planned out. The only thing he hadn’t planned on was for his girlfriend to turn him down which not only means he needs to move back in with his parents, but he doesn’t have a job either.

With the turmoil going on in his life he is beginning to question each and every choice he has made and doesn’t believe his judgment can be trusted. He has decided that he will leave all his future choices to the flip of a coin and that is when this wild and wacky adventure really begins.

The situations that Josh finds himself in is sure to bring a smile to your face, but it manages to balance romance and emotion as well. The character of Josh evolved over the course of the story with the help of a great group of secondary characters their journey is certain to keep you entertained.

This book was so fun! I will definitely be looking to read more from James Bailey! I love British romcoms and this one was delightful.

The Flip Side was an overall enjoyable read. It is definitely focused more on Josh's self-discovery than romance. I went in expecting a romance focused book and that isn't what this is. It really is about Josh learning about himself and growing as a person the year after having his marriage proposal to his long term girlfriend rejected, and losing his apartment and job.

Super enjoyable read for fans of romcoms. I enjoyed the premise and the settings, for the most part stayed with it through to the very end. It’s got a lot of amusing situations and was a really enjoyable light read.

A fun British rom-com. No, it's not fun to see Josh lose everything - girlfriend, job, home - and have to start all over. He feels like he's mad all bad decisions in live to end up losing it all at his young age. So, it is fun to watch him make a New Year's Resolution to base every decision on the flip of a coin. Thankfully he soon realizes that what color socks to wear every day doesn't need a coin toss. It's fun to start betting in your own head how the coin toss will land and will it lead Josh to love and employment.

Josh is a twenty-something who has had a rough year. He lost his girlfriend, his job, and his apartment all at once and has to move home with his parents. He's sent out a gazillion job applications with no luck. The highlight of his life are the bar trivia nights he goes to with his friends. This not how he'd pictured his life, and he's not sure what to do next. Since being thoughtful about his choices hasn't worked, Josh decides to give his decisions to chance. He will flip a coin to help him make every decision for the next year. How will this work out? Will he stick with it? Read the book and find out. This felt like a new adult coming of age story and will probably appeal to new adult readers.

Thanks to NetGalley and William Morrow for an advance copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.

It's great to have male romance authors writing romances strictly from the male point of view, and this looked like a cute premise. But this is more of a cringefest, and despite witty dialogue at times, that type of comedy has never been my thing. I know it's supposed to make us feel good about our own lives: "OMG, his parents are like that? He dated someone like that? He had like that?" But then I wind up just feeling embarrassed for the character. And because Josh is flipping the coin for almost everything, it makes the plot seriously zigzag around. I got about a third of the way in before I had to skim the rest (and then forgot most of it because I didn't write a review right away). Of course there's an HEA, but I couldn't stay invested for the whole ride.

I wanted to enjoy this book, but found that I only finished it because I started it. While this story was cute, I felt it dragged on in several spots and once the main character was reunited with Sunflower girl, it was rather anticlimactic. In the end, I was more relieved to have finished than elated at the actual story itself.

3 Stars

I wanted to like this book a bit more than I did. Don't get me wrong, it was cute. I think what ultimately made me rate this book the way that I did is because it ultimately became a madcap romp around Europe looking for a girl whose name Josh didn't know.

Josh begins the year by losing his long-time girlfriend, his job, and his home. Having, to his mind, made so many poor decisions to lead him back to living with his parents with no income or love life, he decides to let the flip of a coin determine all of his decisions. Sounds like an interesting premise for a romance novel. Like Josh though, you quickly learn that flipping a coin to determine what socks to wear is a bit ridiculous. He soon modified his plan to include only big decision or things he couldn't make up his mind about which is a blessing for the reader. Even though his friends make fun of him, they soon have him flipping the coin for things to, which is a fun addition to the dynamic.

You don't really get to the "romance part of this story until around halfway when Josh meets a girl while waiting in line to get into a museum (which he only went into because he needed to use the restroom). They start talking in line and wind up spend some time browsing the museum and when they leave to meet Josh's friends at a marathon outside (where he was supposed to be cheering on his friend) he loses her in a crowd and quickly realizes he doesn't know her name or anything else about her that would help him find her except that she works in a bookshop in another city close to a museum that has another Van Gogh painting.

This begins the final leg of the story where he travels Europe looking for her and honestly, I just wanted there to be more of a romance story here. Instead it's just one misadventure after another. It did ultimately end up being a cute story though and I'm happy that I got the chance to read it.

THE FLIP SIDE is a hilarious romance debut about a young man who, guided by the flip of a coin, embarks on a romantic adventure to find "the one." This sweet love story is sure to entertain.

2.5. This is...fine, I guess? Romance novels written from the POV of a guy (without the dual M/F POV) are rare, so I was looking forward to seeing what Bailey did with that.

Overall, it's pretty formulaic, but it's a pleasant read. There are some predictable conflicts, and some events that are glossed over more than necessary, which was disappointing. I enjoyed Josh's relationships with his friends; in fact, I was even more interested in the lives of his friends than I was in his life.

If you're looking for something cozy with no surprises--for better or worse--give this one a try.

This contemporary British rom com from a male POV was a welcome relief from the stress and seemingly endless hours at my election job. And at a time when travel isn’t safe, it was delightful to visit several European cities from the comfort of my reading chair.

Plot summary: It’s New Year’s Day and Josh is in a sad place. His girlfriend declined his elaborate proposal, he lost his job, and he’s moved home with his parents. Having lost confidence in his decision-making abilities, he resolves to flip a coin to make every decision in the new year.

The Flip Side is humorous, witty, and sweet. It features a great group of trivia-loving friends, honest multi-generational family relationships, and a meet-cute that results in a lovely romance.

This was delightful and I’m eager to read the author’s next novel. Thank you to William Morrow for the gifted copies of this delightful novel.