Queering the Timeline

Dahlia Adler is a name you need to know in queer YA. First of all, she writes amazing books like this one, Home Field Advantage, Cool for the Summer, and more. But she also happens to run one of the best queer book blogs out there, which I’ve mentioned many times in this newsletter: LGBTQ Reads.

I managed to get an ARC of Going Bicoastal, so I can tell you it’s just as good as the stunning cover would suggest! This is the most bisexually structured book I’ve ever read. Natalya has to make a choice between spending the summer with her estranged mother in L.A. (where she meets and falls for a boy) or with her dad in NYC (where she gets to know the girl she’s been crushing on from afar). In alternating chapters, we see her life in both versions, Sliding Doors-style — because binary choices are bullshit. It feels completely natural to swap between them, and it’s comforting, because, as the cover says, “There’s more than one path to happily ever after.”

The first day of school is always hard, especially for Vivian. She’s had a string of bad luck with first days. But the first day of 8th grade turns out to be the worst one yet — and then she has to do it all over again, stuck in her own Groundhog Day scenario. Along the way, she has to let go of trying to have the “perfect” first day, and instead learn to be true to herself, even when it’s messy.

Kaori convinced shy Shizuku to start fake dating her in order to inspire Shizuku’s writing. Of course, real feelings start to develop between them — but they’re made more complicated when Kaori admits to her past as a school bully, and it comes out that Shizuku is hiding her own secrets.