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.

This was cute!

This book plays out in alternating adventures, but I felt more connected to the one with her leaving to California where she meets the boy with dark mysterious eyes…I liked how it ended ♥️

After reading this book, I can say that Dahlia Adler has become a new favourite author. This book captivated me from the very start. I loved the characters and the plot.

DNF at 30%

This book seemed like it was a favorite for so many, but unfortunately it wasn’t for me. I found the alternating life between chapters so confusing and repetitive in some cases. The writing was really well done for what I did read, but ultimately this just wasn’t my kind of book.

I did enjoy the characters! I thought they were very easy to connect with, but they weren’t enough to make me continue reading. I hope that I’ll pick this back up in the future because I really don’t like DNFing. Thank you NetGalley and publisher for the ARC in exchange for an honest review. All thoughts and opinions are my own.

DNF. Usually love Dahlia alders books but this one didn’t connect and I’ve had this arc for almost a year so I think it’s time to say goodbye.

Thank you Wednesday Books and NetGalley for the eARC of Going Bicoastal! All opinions in this review are my own.

I have loved everything that I've read so far by Dahlia Adler and Going Bicoastal is no exception! While it did take me a few chapters to get used to switching between the stories, I like how it shows both outcomes of Natalya's summer decision. At first, I favored the New York storyline but the LA one grew on me by the end.

I love how realistic and honest Adler's characters are. They are relatable and I appreciate the diverness among them. I like how in both storylines, Natalya grows as a person and tries new things. Despite the choices of where to spend her summer seeming vastly different in the beginning of the book, Natalya is still able to learn the same things about herself by the end of both stories.

This was just okay for me. I think the characters were delightful, but the parallel choose-your-own adventure-ish formatting, while fun, I think just resulted in a weaker story.

This book was such a delight to read!! i absolutely loved both timelines almost equally, something i hadn't expected. my main worry was not being able to tell them apart, or getting confused between them, but that was not an issue at all.

DNF at 20%. The alternating life experiences was SUPER confusing. I picked this book up in June, took me a long time to figure out what was happening. Put it down and tried again recently. Still super confusing, unfortunately. Maybe if it was more clear in the chapter title?

I preordered Going Bicoastal by Dahlia Adler and got a personalized autograph, and luckily I loved the book (I rarely preorder because I’m worried I won’t enjoy)! This book is about how there’s more than one way to find happiness. It’s about Natalya, who has to decide whether to stay in NYC with her dad or visit her mom in L.A. for the summer. What follows is two stories, depicting how each decision might play out for Natalya. In the NYC timeline, she dates Elly, checks out the music scene, and does some babysitting. In L.A., she has an internship with her mom’s marketing company, meets Adam, and enjoys the food scene. Both timelines have great Jewish rep, and there is even an orthodox character in NYC. I loved the Shabbat dinner scene where Elly tries to pass around her phone! Plus, the characters from Cool For The Summer are part of Elly’s friend group!⁣ I did wonder if there was a mistake when something was mentioned in the NY timeline that actually occurred in L.A., but overall I loved this one.

This book was so cute! I really enjoyed it. I thought the concept was interesting and well-executed. The characters were fun to read about and felt real, although I don't feel like I got to know anyone but Natalya that deeply, which is fine. I liked hearing about New York and LA (though I feel like I heard more about places in NYC than LA, but I live in New York so many I just noticed it more). Thank you to Wednesday Books and NetGalley for this ARC!

I received an ARC from St. Martin's Press in exchange for an honest review. All thoughts are my own!

This is the story of Natalya Fox has about a day to decide how she will spend her summer. She can stay in NY with her dad and hopefully muster up the courage to talk with the cute redhead girl working at the coffee shop. Or head to LA and spend the summer with her estranged mom and hopefully repair their relationship. She can't decide so the summers play out in alternating timelines. Will there be one that feels more like real life? Or will she continue to have these alternative timeline experiences.

I liked the idea. I really enjoyed the Jewish representation. There are not enough cultures in YA stories. I thought this story also brought up important topics about young adults trying to figure out what they want to do in the future. I know that many young adults struggle to figure out what they want to do. This is a great way to help them realize that it is normal not to know what you want to do and that it is okay to explore many options.

Content: little bit of swearing, sexual innuendo

Read if you enjoy:
Jewish Rep
LGBTQ+ Rep
Alternating Timelines
LA/NY stories
Romance

I did not have time to download and read this book before it was archived, so I'm unable to leave a review.

Going Bicoastal has a good plot and interesting characters. However, the author's writing style wasn't my favourite. But overall, I would recommend!

What a rollercoaster of emotions! This book seamlessly blends romance, humor, and genuine emotional depth. The story is told via dual timelines, exploring both possible futures during a fateful summer. I really enjoyed the two potential timelines, so vastly different, but so rich in story telling and self discovery. Adler never fails to deliver amazing stories!

Sincere thanks to NetGalley, St. Martin's Press, and Wednesday Books for an advanced reader copy in exchange for an honest review.

I really wanted to get to this one, as it seemed interesting. This was requested when I first found out about NetGalley and I had requested so many ARCs that I could not get to all of them before they were archived. If I can find this somewhere for a reasonable price, I will try to get it!

It’s weird trying to review this book because I think there’s a lot to like about it —the cute romances, the discussions of queerness and religion, the amazing food descriptions—but at the end, I was left feeling really unsatisfied. I felt like Natalya didn’t really go through that much growth in either of the timelines that we saw her in, and because the book is essentially two storylines in one, I don’t think either of the storylines gets as much depth as they needed.

This was such a fun YA romance! Basically our girl Natalya has to choose whether to stay in NYC with her dad over the summer and maybe pursue this red head girl she’s been crushing on. Or move to LA to live with her mom and work an Internship at her moms company. But lucky for us Nat/Tal gets to live both realities simultaneously.

I had no idea this style of romance had a name “sliding doors romance” but I’m here for it. It was basically a choose your own adventure. And I was extremely stressed coming to the end because I had no idea which scenario I wanted to be “real”. I had one I was slightly rooting for but both paths felt right in their own special way. That ending though was *chefs kiss*

I will definitely continue to read anything by Dahlia Addler.

I liked this one, but not as much as I thought I would. It took a minute to get used to the flipping back and forth, but once I got into the rhythm I enjoyed it. I think I'd like to go back and re-read just the straight (ha) narratives at some point.

Thanks to the publisher and NetGalley for an advanced review copy of “Going Bicoastal” by Dahlia Adler. Thoughts and opinions are my own.

Okay I loved “Cool for the Summer” by this author. I would still highly recommend that book. This book not so much. I was really intrigued by the idea of this book and how the author would pull it off and the answer ultimately was that they didn’t? I don’t know what ending would have been satisfying but it wasn’t this. This felt like two writing exercises the author did before writing the actual book but then they just decided not to write the book and instead publish a choose your own adventure story.

I think I would have liked the story better if they had all come together at some point rather than them just being two different timelines. For such a short book, I was bored often and annoyed with the jumping back and forth and all the characters across the two stories.

I guess the problem early on was that I didn’t like Natalya. She was so judgey and it wasn’t enjoyable being in her head. She kind of gave Rachel Berry from Glee energy which wasn’t fun. I didn’t get why either potential love interest would like her. She was weirdly stalkery with the female love interest and the male love interest was basically a cardboard cutout of a person and tried to do some weird enemies to lovers but he secretly has a heart of gold? It was just too much happening. And the stories progressed in the same way so Natalya starts hooking up with the love interests really fast. I would have rather had one book that combined the storylines somehow and given Natalya more time to know the love interests.

I was bothered by how Natalya kept setting all these traps for the male love interest to make him prove he’s not homophobic. She literally outed another queer character just to see how the love interest would react. That was really not cool. She also didn’t feel the need to constantly test the female love interest in the same way which was a choice.

This book was not for me. I know I’m not the target audience. But after reading “Cool for the Summer” I had high hopes for this one and it did not deliver.

3/5 stars