Instructions For Dancing by Nicola Yoon Book Review

After the longest book I’d ever read and finishing a four-year project…I wasn’t in the mood to get into anything big. I figured, let’s pick something for my next read that was not gonna be a burden to get through. I found Instructions for Dancing at my library, and figured, I’ve never read a Nicola Yoon book before. Let’s try this one!

A young teenage girl, Evie Thomas, is going through a very rough time with her parents’ divorce. Her father cheated on her mother and now he’s about to marry the woman he was having the affair with, and that has turned Evie from someone who’s swooned over romance novels and shipping to the moon and back, to packing them all up and donating them out of her life. But in the midst of her swoon purge, she earns a strange supernatural ability she never wanted; the ability, which she can’t turn off, to be able to see a dizzy spell when they see a couple kissing, learning how they got together, and ultimately what will cause their breakup.

Trying to figure out how to turn this curse off, she is led to a sort-of rundown dance studio in town, where they’re looking for amateur dancers to compete in a nationwide contest. Evie gets paired up with a really hot guy named Xavier, but everyone calls him X. (This was published right before the stupid Twitter takeover.) X is part of a rock band and everything. Could there be a spark? And does Evie want to risk really getting to know him, now really reluctant about the idea of true love?

Let me start by saying Instructions for Dancing is a rare book that is great for lovebirds and love cynics alike. It shows us the importance of being able to let people into our lives, but it knows that a lot of happily-ever-after situations we find ourselves in don’t end up lasting, as much as we try or as much as we can’t imagine how they could ever fail. 

As someone who has had his heart broken, and as a result has had to tone down expectations of relationships, you could say it’s obvious I could relate to Evie. The book is very easygoing; there are not really any big words teenagers won’t understand, it doesn’t spend too long on the steps and routines Evie and X do as they practice for the competition, and its shortness makes it straightforward. I also give it props for having a couple of LGBTQ+ romances. There could’ve been more pages by maybe introducing a rivalry between some of their dance competition, or more discussion about a disagreement between X and his father, but you know what? This is a simple 280-paged book that accomplishes its goal of being about someone undergoing hurt.

Nicola Yoon was going through a very painful time in her life while writing this book, and the heartbreak shines through. There’s a surprise ending I didn’t see coming, and it will stick with you long after the story’s over. It’s above average for the romance genre.

My grade: 4 stars out of 5