What a superb laugh out loud romantic comedy! I just didn’t want to put this book down, I devoured the whole book in just two sittings.

Josh feels it is the right time to propose to his girlfriend Jade, they have been together a while now, share a flat and even have a pet rabbit Jeremy. Josh couldn’t think of a more romantic propsal, it’s New Years Eve, he’s booked the London eye with the full works and an evening at a night away, the most perfect proposal until he’s turned down.... but where did he go wrong? He did everything right? After a couple of disastrous dates, now living back with his parents and out of a job, Josh finds a 50p coin, you know what they say about finding a penny, maybe now he will have fifty times more luck? And now decides to leave all his decisions down to the fate of a flip of his coin! But just how far will his flip of the coin take him? Would you be prepared to let the flip of a coin control the future of your love life? A hilarious, uplifting love story you don’t want to miss out on. A perfect summer read. A cracking debut read, I can’t wait to read more by James Bailey.

4.5 STARS

Josh is a 28 year old guy who proposed on New Year's Eve to his girlfriend and she rejected him. Not only that, but they break up and walk their seperate ways. Since Josh was working at her family business and he was living at her place, he ends up unemployed and homeless. Since he's on this tough road he decides to make decisions for the rest of the year based on a coin he tosses. This current situation, plus his coin decisions will definitely affect his life and the route it's going to take.

At first his story sounds very typical and maybe common, but as it progresses we face very unique situations and the scenes are hilarious! I found some things over the top, like his parents and their unique characteristics that kept going until the very last pages of the book. I felt like they were fun at first, but at some point that we had gotten the drill, I wished that it would tone it down.

However, this was such a pleasant story. The secondary characters and their sennanigans were a blast, the dialogues were amusing and the romance was adorable as well. To be honest, it surprised me, because I didn't see it coming. For some reason, I thought it would walk on another way, so I was pleasantly surprised, when it didn't. I loved Josh and his adventures, his crazy family and his best friends who stood by him whenever he needed them.

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.

Being dumped by your girlfriend on New Years Eve whilst trapped on the London Eye is not the best way for anyone to start the coming year. That’s exactly what happens to Josh whose plans for a romantic proposal to girlfriend Jade, complete with champagne and chocolate does not have the happy outcome he expected. Sad, alone, homeless and jobless Josh at least has the comfort of his two best friends Jessie and Jake who are determined to get him back in the dating game. Josh’s lack of faith in his own judgement leads him to adopt an unusual method of decision making in the hope of finding love and happiness in the future. From now on the flip of a coin is going to decide his fate, much to the consternation and mockery of Jessie and Jake. The results of which turn a hopeless beginning into a heartwarming uplifting and hilarious, enjoyable read.

Always in a novel of this genre the characters need to be larger than life, lovable, perhaps slightly bonkers or quirky and most importantly there has to be that cute factor surrounding one or both of the main leads. You most definitely get this in the form of Josh’s character, since I felt sorry for him from the very beginning. At nearly thirty, suddenly living back with his parents, losing his girlfriend and job and home in one foul swoop how can you not want this young man’s luck to change and for him to find true love? His obvious love for grandfather Pap melts your heart quicker than an ice cream on a hot summer’s day, making him the perfect male lead for this romcom. I understood his resolution to use the flip of a coin to make any future decisions as what has he got to lose? Perhaps allowing heads or tails as a method for choosing socks is taking the concept a bit to far but it’s amusing to see the mixed fortunes this has at various points in the narrative . Poor hopeless Josh is basically an overgrown moody teenager but I loved him.
Equally adorable is Josh’s mum who is just plain bonkers. Her belief in horoscopes and reincarnation, her attempts at matchmaking and reverting to treating Josh as a little boy may make her a cliche of a motherly character but she is so likeable due to her streak of quirkiness.
Jessie and Jake are the epitome of best friends, loyal to a fault, equally invested in helping their friend in his search for the Sunflower Girl, using everything in their power to prevent her becoming the one who got away. With such a wonderful cast of characters it’s easy to get swept up in this make believe happy ever after world.

I absolutely loved the humour in this novel. The Quizlamist Extremists is just a great name for a pub quiz team, nearly always triumphant over the All-Jays and the scene at Jessie’s yearly fancy dress party is hilarious. However it’s unlucky in love Josh’s dating experiences that really had me laughing out loud. His awkward fish and chip supper with hairdresser Emma and his non birthday pizza date with Olivia were brilliantly written and absolutely priceless. They read like a comedy of errors. I do think the comedic value was slightly lost once Josh embarks on his mission to find Sunflower Girl. For me that’s when the romantic element overtook the witty one liners but despite the chance in a billion of finding her, I was silently cheering him on. After all who doesn’t want the underdog to come up smelling of roses??

The Flip Side is a sweet charming and often funny romantic read, sure to delight and brighten any day. It’s straightforward, lighthearted and full of warmth and laughter with a main character who brought out the motherly instinct in me; I just wanted to give Josh a big squeeze and a sloppy kiss and remind him that he’s one of the good guys . The Flip Side is the ideal book to escape into, to lose your head in the clouds for a few hours, leaving you with a warm fuzzy glow inside. My rating reflects the fact I didn’t think Josh’s love interest held the same amount of appeal to elevate them to the kind of perfect couple found for example in The Flatshare but that is me being super critical. Perhaps Josh’s character is more rounded given this novel is written from a male perspective?
Predictable ✅ Cheesy✅ Ridiculous (but in a good way!)✅ Laugh out loud funny✅ The author has delivered on all counts and I shall look forward to his next offering.
My thanks to the publisher Penguin for the invitation to read an ARC in exchange for an honest review.

Imagine the heartbreak. You've planned for what feels like forever, and finally got the girl of your dreams in the place of her dreams, with a ring waiting in your pocket, the privacy of an empty pod on the London Eye, and it's New Year's Eve to boot.
Then she says no.
This is precisely what happens to our hero, Josh.
He finds himself jobless, homeless and girlfriendless to boot.
After moving home to his parents, a 27-year-old failure, he decides the flip of a coin will be the best way to make all the choices about his life for a year. After all, making them on his own hasn't worked out that well.
Will it help him find love? A job? A new home?
What follows is a gigglesome account of what happens when a small disc of metal dictates what you do next.
I enjoyed the story, though possibly a little unrealistic, but it made for an easy read.
Many thanks to NetGalley and Penguin Michael Joseph UK for an ARC in exchange for an honest review.

The Flip Side is a quirky, sweet and uplifting story about following your destiny. Josh has planned the perfect proposal. It's New Year's Eve, he's on the London Eye with his long-term girlfriend, Jade, and he has chocolate truffles and champagne on ice ready to toast their engagement. Except, things don't really go to plan. Jade turns him down, and not only that, she also announces she wants to split up and tells him she has met someone else. So, things couldn't really have gone any worse. Except that he is now homeless and jobless, as he works for Jade's father.

Finding a 50p coin on his depressing walk home, he makes a decision. From now on, he's going to let the coin decide his fate. Every decision will be made on the flip of a coin.

Drifting through life he feels lost. Until he meets a girl. Randomly bumping into her in a queue for an art gallery they have an instant spark. But when they get separated before he even finds out her name, it seems that their story is over before it's even begun. But the coin tells him to search for this girl. With little to go on except that she works in a book shop near Van Gogh's Sunflowers somewhere abroad, he narrows the possibilities down to a few possibilities. With a little help from his friends, he begins his mission.

After travelling to Munich and Amsterdam, he is starting to feel that his mission is doomed to fail. But he finds her in Paris. Once again, things don't quite go to plan. But Josh is determined not to give up on this amazing girl and goes all out to prove his worth to her.

The perfect romantic escape for difficult times, I loved this sweet story of daring to try again.

The flip side by James Bailey was such a fun and great story to read.
I enjoyed the writing, the characters and the overall life experience of Josh with his turning point in life when the decisions he has to take aren’t quite the best thing he ever has done in his life.
I loved the banter and how reliable the situations are, how sometimes he left a downhill moment to take over his life and how the author has managed to show both sides of the coin with the good and bad things that can come from that fear of taking each chapter as it comes.
I highly recommend this book and it’s just perfect for the long summer nights.

The Flip Side by James Bailey follows Josh whose life crashes down when he proposes to his girlfriend and they break up. Feeling as if he cannot be trusted to make his own choices Josh decided to leave it up to a coin he found that fateful night. Each time a decision needs to be made he will flip the coin and follow through with the decision made for him.

This book was a lot of fun. I am pleased to report that it made me laugh out loud on several occasions. A really fun read. Josh was surrounded by great friends. You really route for him throughout the story. It made such a nice change to read a book from a male protagonist in this genre. More please.

One coin, one year and one new shot at love.

Josh thought he was doing everything right.

He found a girl. They adopted a rabbit. He finally found the perfect moment to propose.

She said no.

On the London Eye . . . On New Year's Eve . . . Suspended 443ft in the air . . .

Now they're awkwardly eating truffles and praying they'll be back on the ground soon.

Realizing he can't be trusted to make his own decisions, Josh decides to spend a year putting his faith in, well, fate.

From now on, every decision will be made by the flip of a coin. And maybe, just maybe, the coin will help him find the girl of his dreams.

After all, who says you can't take a chance on love?

Thanks to Netgalley for a review copy of this book.

As a bit of a geek I loved that Josh and his friends Jake and Jessie met up regularly for a pub quiz, and this is a theme that carries on throughout the book. The characters in this book are loveable, especially Josh's Mum.

The idea that a 50p coin could decide all of your life decisions is a fun one and it definitely made me think..

This book is an excellent debut for this author and I look forward to seeing what he produces next. Overall a fun, poignant, comforting read that I will be recommending to others..

Unfortunately I couldn't finish this book. It started off so good with great humour and a good male POV. However it started getting a little ridiculous and I didn't like all the lying the character did on a day to day basis. I just got tired of it and didn't feel the want to continue.

Not your typical rom-com, being told from the male perspective, this brings a new modern feel. Follow Josh as he uses a 50p coin to decide on all his moves and tracks his sunflower girl. Fabulously feel good fun.

Thanks to Michael Joseph and NetGalley for letting me read The Flip Side in advance! After reading a bunch of serious experimental fiction, I was really craving something light and romantic - it wasn't quite as rom-com-esque as I'd hoped but I enjoyed this nice and engaging novel.

Josh is 28 when he proposes to his girlfriend on the London Eye on New Year's Eve. She says no. It's unfortunate because she also owns the flat they live in, and her dad owns the hotel they both work at. In one sweep, Josh is single, homeless and unemployed - and with no significant prospects of anything changing. In a moment of desperation, he decides that for his New Year's Resolution, he is going to allow a coin flip to determine all his decisions.

It's a nice conceit for a novel, although it doesn't always live up to its potential. Josh is likeable and easy to root for, even if some of the situations he ends up in do seem a bit too ridiculous - but one of my favourite parts of this book were his best friends, Jessie and Jake, who are lovely! The writing's definitely at the higher end of very commercial fiction, so I would recommend this if you fancy picking up something light and entertaining, but not unintelligent. I think the best bit of the book for me was the London Underground-themed fancy dress party, which yielded some of the most inventive costume ideas I've ever heard of. 3.5 🌟

This book is just what I needed! Amazing! Reading a romantic comedy where the guy is the centre of attention and unlucky in love is a style I’ve barely come across so this was refreshing and brilliant.

I loved Josh and his group of friends, I laughed, I cringed and I may have cried a tiny bit. Perfect debut novel.

Such a great summer read, loved the story and found it really interesting looking into Josh’s new life of flipping the coin!

I really enjoyed The Flip Side. It made me laugh out loud, cry my heart out and put a great big grin on my face. A perfect summer romantic read.

Sorry I couldn’t get into this book at all. I kept persevering but I was just not for me. Sorry.

Thank you to Netgalley for my copy.

This was such an earnest, heartfelt, laugh-out-loud romcom that I cannot recommend enough! The story was simple but engaging due to the wonderful characters- they didnt all have much time to develop but even those with a few pages contributed so much to the story. This was one of the better-written romcoms I've read recently, that's for sure!

The Flip Side is a hilarious book that I enjoyed reading from beginning to end. There wasn't a dull moment and I thoroughly love it so much. A story of a man who got rejected and broke up with his girlfriend and finding his way back to love from coin tossing, failed first dates and starting over with life.

I was really intrigued by the premise of this story so I requested on Netgalley UK and fortunately got approved. This story makes me laugh out loud, it was poignant and makes me shake my head with the characters' antics. It was real, raw and honest. Something that might just happen in real life too. From going through a messy breakup, moving on and searching for love among millions and to finally meeting the one. It's not a smooth journey but that's what makes it most interesting and unputdownable.

The main character, Josh is a likeable character and his constant companions, Jessie and Jake are likeable too. I love when they're together which happens a lot in this book and they're honestly the kind of friends that you need in your everyday lives. The romantic gesture to search for sunflower girl was extra but I love it. I agree with the characters that people nowadays don't really make a lot of effort when it comes to love and take it for granted so what Josh did, going from city to city in search for the one makes my heart burst with warmth.

I really cannot recommend this book enough. Just read it yourself and you'll know exactly what I'm talking about. You might find Josh's new year's resolution of tossing a coin a tad ridiculous but you'll be surprised that its actually not that bad. It'll save you time from being indecisive and regret later on but you know what, I'll just leave it to fiction because there is no way am I ever going to entrust my life and the decisions I make just from flipping a coin.

After huge dissapointment, Josh is adamant that from now on, every decision will be made by the flip of a coin. Maybe he will finally find a girl from his dreams.

Funny, lovely and fresh summer read.

Josh is certain he’s found the girl that he’s going to spend the rest of his life with. That is until they break up at the very moment he planned to propose. Realising that he might not make the best decisions he is inspired to let the flip of a coin decide his steps for the following year. Will the coin help Josh find the right girl?

The Flip Side is a genuinely funny, enjoyable read. Josh is clueless but very likable, and I found some aspects of his story surprisingly relatable, particularly meeting old classmates at his school reunion. I liked that the story didn’t focus entirely on his search for love but included some entertaining sub-plots featuring his family and his friends Jessie, Jake, and Jake’s boyfriend, Jake. A brief encounter leads to Josh going on an adventure through Europe, taking us on a tour of some real-life well-known bookshops. Having heard of these shops but never having the opportunity to visit them myself, I enjoyed getting to visit them through this book. However it was during the Europe trip that I started to lose interest in the story. An unexpected event towards the end did add some emotional depth and made the ending a little less predictable.

This is the perfect book for someone looking for a warm, silly holiday read. I’m thankful to the publisher for the opportunity to read and review The Flip Side.

The Flip Side was a complete cover request, and I have to admit that I'm so pleased to have been approved. A lovely, laugh out loud romcom which really surprised me, I read The Flip Side in two sittigngs, and didn't want it to end.

Josh has it all planned out, he's going to propose to his live in girlfriend (Well, he lives with her), and they're going to live happily ever after with their rabbit Jeremy - but his bubble is quickly popped when Jade says no and Josh spends the next 29minutes drinking champagne and eating truffles on the London Eye after paying an extortionate amount of money for their engagement package, and trying not to look at Jade.

Now homeless, jobless and Jade-less, Josh has to move back in with his parents. Deciding that he obviously doesn't know how to make a decision for himself, he decides to flip a coin for his every decision - leading to some hilarious moments throughout the book, and several misunderstandings.

Josh was a fantastic main character, he was funny, self depricating and I loved that he didn't just bottle everything up. Another thing I really enjoyed was his friendship with Jessie and Josh and Josh's Josh - really funny and heartwarming moments there. The Sunflower Girl was also super lovely, I thoroughly enjoyed Josh's journey to find her and was grinninhg from ear to ear at the ending.

Highly recommend The Flip Side. Huge thanks to the publisher for approving my request to read this lovely book.