Going Bicoastal by Dahlia Adler
What's It About?
A YA rom-com in which a girl must choose between summer in NYC with her dad (and the girl she's always wanted) or LA with her estranged mom (and the guy she never saw coming).Dahlia Adler’s LGBTQ YA romances set the scene for characters who dig deep into their lives, thoughts and what they think their decisions should be. Her stories capture the complications of summer love, like Cool for the Summer, or the ups and downs of teen life, sports and tragedy in Home Field Advantage. Adler writes about themes such as the negatives of homophobia, the common topic of teenage angst, questioning your sexuality, and finding yourself when you are young with beauty and grace.
Her newest release, Going Bicoastal (Wednesday Books), is no exception to this pattern in this story about learning what it means to love someone else, grappling with double opportunities, and making decisions to change the course of a person’s future.
Grappling With Tough Decisions and Imagining the Possibilities
Dahlia Adler weaves a story for those of us who hesitate with making choices and wonder where each life choice could lead us. She does this with a character that a lot of us will relate to. The book has been compared to the Gwyneth Paltrow film Sliding Doors, where a woman finds herself living both options of her future and sees where each one might lead her.
Adler’s main character, Natalya Fox, has two choices for the summer and has no idea what to do. On one side, she has the option of staying with her father, a professor in New York City, and working a job with him. Or, she can head to California to spend time with her workaholic mom, a corporate professional that left her family to pursue her career dreams — something that led Natalya and her mother to drift apart.
But, there’s a temptation in each option. Natalya wishes to stay in NYC to find the guts to talk to her crush — a girl that she only refers to as Redhead. But, she could go and bond with her mother while working as an intern and could meet a guy that her mom refers to as “cute,” who just might be a nice distraction for her.
What follows is a true adventure, where readers will find themselves immersed in Natalya’s story, as she navigates life and the surprises that it has in store for her. Through dual timelines that imagine two versions of the same summer, we are able to witness Natalya’s feelings as she switches back and forth from one scenario to the next. The pressure to decide is something we have all dealt with, whether choosing between a love, a place, or an opportunity.
The novel is beautiful and it’s lovely to see how Natalya deals with different thoughts and experiences. She works towards understanding her bisexuality when it comes to liking both a boy and a girl, her Jewish background, and what it means to be queer — all mixed in in a heartwarming literary package.
Read Going Bicoastal for the story, enjoy the gorgeous dual perspectives, and you’ll leave with a lesson about the surprises that come with making difficult life choices, and the delight in choosing the path that leads to happily ever after.
About Dahlia Adler:
Dahlia Adler (she/her) is an editor by day, a freelance writer by night, and an author and anthologist at every spare moment in between. She’s the founder of LGBTQReads.com, her novels include the Kids’ Indie Next picks Cool for the Summer, Home Field Advantage, and Going Bicoastal, and she is the editor of the anthologies His Hideous Heart, That Way Madness Lies, At Midnight, and, with Jennifer Iacopelli, Out of Our League (forthcoming from Feiwel & Friends). Dahlia lives in New York with her family and an obscene number of books, and can be found on Twitter and Instagram at @MissDahlELama.
(Photo credit: Maggie Hall)
