

Instructions for Dancing by Nicola Yoon

Author: Nicola Yoon
Imprint: Penguin
Genre: Contemporary Romance
Length: 304 Pages
Published Date: 3rd June 2021
ISBN: 9780241516911
Much thanks to The Write Reads Tours and Penguin Random House for this complimentary copy. This review is voluntary and the opinions are fully my own. Also, all quotes are taken from the ARC and may be different in the final published copy.
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“Happiness is tricky. Sometimes you have to fight for it. Sometimes, though–it sneaks up behind you, wraps an arm around your waist, and pulls you close.”
INSTRUCTIONS FOR DANCING

Book Blurb
#1 New York Times bestselling author of Everything, Everything and The Sun is Also a Star Nicola Yoon is back with a new and utterly unique romance.
Evie is disillusioned about love ever since her dad left her mum for another woman – she’s even throwing out her beloved romance novel collection.
When she’s given a copy of a book called Instructions for Dancing, and follows a note inside to a dilapidated dance studio, she discovers she has a strange and unwelcome gift. When a couple kisses in front of her, she can see their whole relationship play out – from the moment they first catch each other’s eye to the last bitter moments of their break-up.
For Evie, it confirms everything she thinks she knows about love – that it doesn’t last.
But at the dance studio she meets X – tall, dreadlocked, fascinating – and they start to learn to dance, together. Can X help break the spell that Evie is under? Can he change Evie’s mind about love?

About The Author
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Nicola Yoon is the #1 New York Times bestselling author of Instructions for Dancing, Everything, Everythingand The Sun Is Also a Star. She is a National Book Award finalist, a Michael L. Printz Honor Book recipient and a Coretta Scott King New Talent Award winner. Two of her novels have been made into major motion pictures. She’s also co-publisher of Joy Revolution, a Random House young adult imprint dedicated to love stories starring people of color. She grew up in Jamaica and Brooklyn, and lives in Los Angeles with her husband, the novelist David Yoon, and their daughter.
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☁ Took My Heart, Made Me Fall, and Broke It ☁
📚 Series? No.
📚 Genre? Contemporary Romance | Young Adult
📚 Read for? TheWriteReads Tours
📚 Cliffhanger? No.
⚠ Content Warnings: Dealing with parental divorce. Cheating.
⚠ Book Tags : Magical Realism. Ballroom Dancing. Music. Friendship.
There are just some authors whose writing style meets exactly what would get me going. Nicola Yoon is one of them. When the opportunity to get an advanced copy of this opened up, I jumped in blindly–and now I’m extremely satisfied.
Instructions for Dancing is (not a) love story in the way you would expect, but it hits all the right notes in how it portrayed the different facets of love. I was hoping for something light and sweet, basing on the cover, but I should have known that Nicola Yoon will be able to deliver some heartwarming (and heartbreaking) within a few hundred pages.
As I read the book, it felt light and fluffy. As much as there was prose, many chapters of this book was told uniquely, in your usual Nicola Yoon way. The dynamic beats the boredom one can have with some pacing. Overall, it was so enjoyable that I read it in one sitting!
However, I do admit that though that cover teases a lot about dancing, it didn’t felt like it was the focal point of the story. I love all of the bits featuring dance and music, but a lot of the real-life personal issues and the magical realism part took over.
Now, the characters all drew me in. Aside from Evie and X, our main couple, all the side characters were fascinating for me, and I loved knowing bits of them. In a way, I kinda felt like the book was cut short and I wanted more. In particular, X is extremely lovable and if I could’ve had a hundred more pages of him, I would’ve eaten that up!
☁ FINAL THOUGHTS & RECOMMENDATIONS ☁
Instructions for Dancing is a surprisingly emotional story with profound lessons scattered within its pages. I highlighted so many quotes on my Kindle that I want to do a compilation page just about it!
Nicola Yoon, you’re still very much amazing. The way you design stories and tell stories are truly unique, charming, and special! I will surely carry the story with me (particularly, the ending) for a very long time.

My Book Rating Breakdown
🌼 Synopsis:⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐
🌼🌼 Synopsis:⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐
🌼 Main Character:⭐⭐⭐⭐☆
🌼 Significant Other:⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐
🌼 Support Characters:⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐
🌼 Writing Style:⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐
🌼 Character Development:⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐
🌼 Romance: ⭐⭐⭐⭐☆
🌼 Pacing: ⭐⭐⭐⭐☆
🌼 Ending: ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐
🌼 Unputdownability: ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐
🌼 Book Cover:⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐
Final Rating: ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ | 4.81/5

great review!! this book sounds so good.
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Great review! This one is on my TBR list.
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Great review!
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