Cover Image: Going Bicoastal

Going Bicoastal

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Member Reviews

A dual reality with a reader chooses the ending with two equally cute romances to boot! I was sold. With a great narrator who slipped into both realities seamlessly, this one was a hit from the start.

Natalya has to choose between staying with her dad in NYC for the summer, and finally talking to the girl shes been crushing on for months… or go to visit her estranged mother in LA where there may or may not be a very cute boy as her coworker. For the reader, Natalya doesn’t have to choose since the author takes us on a journey through both realities with friendship, romance, and trials for each.

I really liked the premise of this one but i couldn’t connect to one of the storylines as well. I also loved her connection with her mom while she was in LA but felt like there should have been more tension based on how the author described her and her mom’s relationship in the beginning. Overall, it was cute and definitely a fun one for teenagers!

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I received this ARC from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

This book may have one of the most beautiful covers I've ever seen and it is equally dazzling inside.

Going Bicoastal is an absolutely delightful queer rom-com with a unique format. At the beginning, our MC Natalya learns that she must choose between staying in NYC with her dad for the summer or going to stay with her mom in LA. The remainder of the book consists of chapters alternating between the two possibilities to show how each choice would play out. It's almost like a choose your own adventure story. In the NYC timeline she falls for her long time crush, Elly, but in the LA timeline she falls for her coworker, Adam.

There was so much to love about this book, but there are a few things that really stood out to me. I adored both Elly and Adam and thought both romances were so sweet and swoony. As a bisexual woman, I really appreciated the representation in Going Bicoastal and thought it was especially well-done. I also appreciated the Jewish representation and the illustrations of Natalya's culture and traditions.

If you're looking for a sweet, mostly light-hearted romance with excellent LGBTQIAP+ representation, I highly recommend Going Bicoastal.

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Thank you to netgalley and publisher for the arc! first and foremost, i'd like to apologize for being so late to reviewing this and didn't have the time to review this when it was released or around the time before. Truly sorry for my thatt. All that said, I really really think this was a delight. charming and fun <3 and I can't wait to read more of the author's works in the future!

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A fun, quick, read! i don't think it was the BEST one but it was great and i liked it. I recommend it. :)

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I forgot to leave a review for this, but I really enjoyed it! It's been out for ages, so I won't say much more than I need to for my star rating. <3

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Finally getting around to this arc. I received this arc from NetGalley in exchange for a review.
I genuinely didn’t understand the dual timelines and definitely prefer Adam over Elly because he felt more fleshed out.
I am glad we got a choose your own ending so body is disappointed.
I cannot speak to the representation in this but it felt authentic from an outsider.

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Wow this was so good I basically read it in a day!! Brings me back to when I was a teen and would just sit on the couch until I finished a book.

ANYWAYS. I must like the sliding door set up more than I thought bc WOW I am obsessed with how everything worked out, like the general beats being the same but the way Nat got there was so different? Truly shows that sometimes things are just meant to be. I also liked how this wasn't tragic in any way? The other books with this set up have all been so sad and emotional, but here we just get to see Nat have a fun summer, fall in love, and reconnect with her mom.

Both love interests were so good that I truly did not care who she ended up with and like do you know how hard that is to pull off? Dahlia Adler is such a good writer.

Overall this was such a good listen (shoutout to audiobook narrator Mara Wilson) and I am obsessed. This is my second Dahlia Adler book and wow she has cemented herself as a fave.

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Going Bicoastal follows Natalya Fox as she goes through a Sliding Doors sort of experience. In one part of the story she goes to LA for the summer and meets fellow intern Adam. In the other part, she stays in NYC with her father and finally meets the Redhead that's been plaguing her life for over a year.

I'm not going to lie, this story had a very interesting premise and I really like the idea of falling for both a boy and a girl in different parts of the story because bisexuals can fall for both!!!! The only downfall is the execution. I've liked the author's books before but this felt a bit like a rehash of her previous book, Cool For the Summer with the exact same protagonist vibes.

I also didn't really like the CONSTANT reference dropping especially in the NYC part. I lowkey found Elly insufferable and not because it's the sapphic love story. I actually really liked their time getting together, but Elly was meant to be the quintessential "cool girl" but really just felt annoying and judgy. While Adam and Nat had a nice little rivals-to-lovers going on, Adam was definitely the nicer love interest and I liked his and Nat's love story so much better because with Elly it felt like Nat was trying SO HARD to seem cool enough to keep Elly's attention. With Adam it was like she could just be herself.

Overall, not that exciting of a book and idk if I would read it again.

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I sadly had to dnf this one.
I tried getting through it because I liked the idea of the book, but I didn‘t realise it would be jumping between basically two stories depending on what decision she would have made and I just couldn’t do it.
I don‘t really like those kind of things, so it‘s not anything specific against the book itself (although I‘m not the biggest ya fan anymore) and I‘m sure a lot of people adore it. It just wasn’t for me.

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I’m not a fan of contemporary, but Dahlia Adler makes it tolerable. After reading and loving Cool For the Summer, I had high hopes for her next project… and fortunately for me, majority of those high hopes were met! Just a sweet and fun story.

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Dahlia Adler's "Going Bicoastal" is a poignant exploration of love, loss, and self-discovery across the bustling cities of New York and Los Angeles. Through vivid imagery and engaging storytelling, Adler invites readers on a captivating journey with protagonist Sarah as she navigates the highs and lows of life, love, and career. With its relatable themes and heartfelt narrative, "Going Bicoastal" is a must-read for anyone seeking an uplifting and immersive reading experience.

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I really loved this. I went in thinking this would be a sort of very typical teen romance, but this was much better than I expected.

The one thing that I was prepared to dislike was the dual timelines, but I was surprised at how much it worked, and allowed Natayla to grow over the course of the book. She is such a strong character, and seeing how similar things in each timeline resulted in such different reactions.

This might be controversial, but I loved her relationship with Adam. I felt like it worked so much better than her and Elly (not that I didn’t love the relationship), because it felt more organic, rather than her pining for Elly and instantaneously falling in love, despite never actually meeting or getting to know each other.

This is a super cute, easy to read book that would be great for romance lovers of all ages. I finished this in a few sittings, but it could easily be read in a few hours.

Thank you to NetGalley, Wednesday Books, and the author for allowing me to read an advanced copy of this novel in exchange for an honest review. All opinions are my own.

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I truly enjoy Dahlia Adler's books, I have read them all!

So heartfelt and sweet and they make you squee and Going Bicoastal is just that! I love a "Sliding Doors" reference!

Such a sweet and fun book!

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Going into this book, I honestly had no idea whether it’d be my thing or not. The premise was fascinating to me, but Adler’s books have been either a big miss or a big hit for me, and I couldn’t tell where this one would fall. I was also worried that having two timelines playing out at the same time would lead to two shallowly fleshed out stories running side by side.

In the end, this book was fun though, and I had fun! It won’t be the most memorable book ever, but it was great for what it was and what I wanted it for, and I enjoyed the time I spent with it.

I was also pleasantly surprised by how well the two sides melded together. I definitely had moments where I was more intrigued in one side than the other, but both sides had their strong parts. I also really enjoyed how the same issues were tackled differently in each side, but in a way that really paralleled each other. Sometimes these style stories try too hard to make each side too unique, that it doesn’t feel like it’s the same character living these two lives anymore. In Going Bicoastal, it did really feel like the same character would make these choices on both sides. Even so, there was enough difference in how she grew as a person that really showed the impact of the differing series of events, and it was really fun to see how different each Natalya was by the end. I also enjoyed both of the romances, and was surprised I didn’t really end up preferring either too much.

Overall, this was a fun and pleasant read, and I believe it’s a perfect audiobook to pick up when you just want a short, entertaining read!

Review will go live on my blog and Goodreads once the boycott is over!

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Such a smart concept. Having two romances in a book was such a gift and you cannot help but root for the characters and how self discovery went hand in hand with romance.

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This book had a really interesting concept, but I was rooting for the fact she didn’t end up with any, but it didn’t happen. I thoroughly enjoyed it tho.

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I’ll be honest. This book’s title and cover is what got me interested at first, before I even read the summary or the structure. I’m so happy I read it because it was a lot of fun!

Natalya has to decide if she goes to LA for the summer with her mom or stay in New York with her dad. She chooses… well, both. There is a split narrative so we get a dual POV, but Natalya is providing both sides of it. We see the story unfold in alternating chapters, one of her in LA and one of her in NY.

The whole idea of a book with two concurrent storylines and a choose-your-own ending was very smart. It kept it from being a love triangle where Natalya would have to choose one of them. And for a book about being bi, I love that the tough choice wasn’t there for her… but it was there for me! The reader! I cheated and read both, which I feel is the true bisexual ending. Why not both!

I always feel safe in Adler’s narratives, and this time, I found myself captivated by the alternating storylines. Two books for the price of one!

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Thank you to Netgalley and the publisher for granting me free access to the advanced digital copy of this book, as this book has already been published, I will not share my review on Netgalley at this time.

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Natalya Fox, a bi-sexual Jewish girl, has a big decision to make. Spend the summer with her dad, a math professor, in NYC in hopes of getting to know the pretty red-head girl she has a crush on! Or head to L.A. to get reacquainted with her mom and intern at her firm? In her latest release Dahlia Adler gives us twofer one story in Going Bicoastal. In lieu of an actual choice, we join Natalya as she explores both possible paths. The chapters alternate between NYC and L.A. in a very low stakes feel good summer of self-growth.

In L.A. Natalya interns at her mother’s advertising firm and is forced to share a desk with a guy who comes off as unapproachable. Despite this uncomfortableness and her mother’s lack of attention, Natalya decides to take this opportunity to put herself out there and finds a wonderful new group of friends in the queer and foodie corners of L.A. That guy she original didn’t like… Turns out he was just what she was looking for after all! In NYC she mucks up her courage to go for the girl and works on repairing her relationship with her mother from afar by having book club meetings.

The back and forth of living the same story in two different "universes" took me a minute to get the hang of but this was a solid read and will recommend.

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3.5 stars. I loved the concept of the choose your own adventure model with this book! Super cute and a fun read. What made it less than great I think ultimately was that the two relationships weren’t equal. It seemed more one sided than in terms of which relationship she should be with.

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