Is love worth the risk?

After Evie's parents’ divorce, she finds it hard to believe that it is.
When she gains the ability to see the beginning and end of a couple's relationship by seeing them kiss, it only makes her more sure than before that heartbreak is inevitable.
When she meets X and starts taking more risks--by entering a ballroom dance competition--she struggles to balance her head and her heart.

This story, equally heart-warming and heart-wrenching, is an exploration of the risks we choose to take with our heart—and why love is always worth it.

This was my first Nicola Yoon novel, but I had previously seen the movie for Everything, Everything—so I would venture to say that this story is more bittersweet than her previous works. I've learned that her stories tend to throw one or two surprises my way, and sets hers apart from the other YA works I read. I feel like I walk away from them inspired to live and love more—which for me, is the whole point.

At points the pacing felt a bit quick for the amount of character development, especially the very end, which wrapped up extremely fast in my opinion. But, overall, I didn't think it took away from the effect of the story and I'm very glad I picked this one up.


Thank you Delacorte Press and Netgalley for providing me with an ARC of INSTRUCTIONS FOR DANCING

Thank you to Netgalley and Random House Children's for this advanced reader's copy!

I have loved Nicola Yoon's writing for years, and Instructions for Dancing did not disappoint.

When Evie witnesses a kiss between a couple in love, she sees their entire relationship played out before her eyes. This causes some skepticism about relationships for her, especially her own budding one with her dance partner, X.

This book was a quick read, but full of heavy content. It was thought-provoking and tackled topics of divorce, breakups and grief.

The relationship between the main characters seemed a bit rushed, leaving me unable to fully buy into it. However the struggle Evie had with herself felt very real and important. It was my favorite part of the book. She went from self-sabotaging to protect herself to discovering being happy in the moment and living life to the fullest.

I think this book lives up to Yoon's other work, with the addition of a little magic. If you're a fan of Everything, Everything and The Sun is Also a Star, I have no doubt you'll enjoy this one as well.

I loved this book. I found it to be new and refreshing. I can't wait to read more books by this author. So enjoyable!!!

This book was so beautiful & so heartbreaking. I loved Evie & X's relationship and how it developed. I love this look at love and how it can break us but is also so good while we have it. Thank you Nicola Yoon for this astonishing beautiful story.

Thank you NetGalley and the publisher for this ARC!

This book has quickly become one of my favorites of all time. I am sad to admit that I have had books by Nicola Yoon on my TBR for a while but after reading this one, I am going to go straight into reading everything she has written. It was a perfect book for me. While it was a quick read, it was extremely well-paced. I never got bored and was so enthralled that I finished the book in one sitting. It has a mix of romance, heartbreak, and everything in between with a touch of magic. Everything mixed together to make this one of the few five-star reads I have this year.

3.5/5 stars!

The heroine is disillusioned on love due to her parents' divorce. After getting rid of her romance books, she ends up with a power that disrupts her mental health. She meets the love interest at the dance studio and they ended up becoming close, even ending up as amateur dance partners.

This heartwarming YA story brought mixed feelings in me. I didn't like one part of the ending but appreciated the message of the story. I did enjoy the journey the heroine went through in the book, though I would have liked more details in some parts as a personal preference of mine. I liked some secondary characters, especially the love interest. But I would have loved more scenes focused on the dancing aspect. Overall, this is a nice YA story with a great message that I would recommend.

**Thanks to the publisher and NetGalley for the review copy. All opinions and thoughts are my own.**

Evie’s parents are divorced after her father has an affair. Evie can’t forgive him, even though it seems her mother and sister have. She takes all of her rom coms to a little free library and her life is changed after meeting a mysterious woman. As Evie watches people kiss, she sees their entire relationship before her eyes. It becomes a curse for her and makes her unwilling to take a chance on love. Then Evie meets X and she learns to dance. Will she also learn to love? Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for allowing me to be an early reader in exchange for my review.

Rating: 4.99999 stars because I'm a jerk and because I wish this were longer.

"Love stories are like fairy tales: you're not meant to believe in them forever."

As much as I make fun of cheesy rom-coms and formulaic love stories, underneath all that sarcasm and derision (like way, way deep down,) I'm a hopeless romantic, and I think that's a big reason why I think I loved Instructions for Dancing so much. I mean, how many YA contemporary books--how many romances--are told in a skeptical, sarcastic tone?

This book is just the right combination of sap and snark and is exactly the kind of love story my cynically romantic heart craves. Yoon simultaneously pokes fun at and celebrates the familiar tropes founds in romance that we all know and love (or love to hate,) which is pretty much my relationship with the whole genre in a nutshell. (Seriously, X reading and sassing Cupcakes and Kisses is me 85% of the time I read/watch anything remotely romantic.) Like, I need this to become a new subgenre of romance because sometimes you just want a side of sarcasm to go with your love stories.

Evie Thomas is a hopeless romantic turned jaded cynic after her parents' divorce, and while we share very little in common, there's just something super relatable about her. Her voice comes across the page so clearly and really makes the story come to life. (This is one of the few cases where first-person POV is actually done right.)

Speaking of the story, the story, you guys. It's nuanced and beautiful and so not what you would expect from a YA contemp romance. It's about loss and love and learning to heal, and I don't even have words to explain how much I loved it. I don't even like magical realism, but this book comes together so seamlessly, the whole "I see visions of people's love lives" is surprisingly believable. And while this is a romance, it's not your predictable, HEA nicely tied up with a bow, kind of romance. There's complexity and a healthy dose of reality, but it's also a story of hope and of healing and of heart. There's this contemplative aspect to the story that's not really common in YA fiction, and I kind of loved it.

Of course, a story is nothing without a good cast, and Yoon's characters did not disappoint. Obviously, there's Evie, my fictional foil, is a girl after my own heart who I absolutely adored. Martin eighteen-going-on-eighty is so endearing, Archibald and Maggie are relationship goals for life, and Fifi is the sassy, blunt dance instructor I need in my life. And the non-romantic relationships in this book are so good. Ugh, you guys. I love the dynamics between Evie and each of her family members. I am such a sucker for a good sibling or father-daughter relationship, and we get both in Instructions for Dancing. The fact that these aren't storybook perfect but complex and flawed makes them that much better. Also, there's this one mother-daughter scene towards the end that reminds you why moms are the best 😭.

My only complaint, and the reason I ended not going all the way and giving this a full 5 stars is that it was over too quickly.

The story is almost like a collection of montages; Instructions for Dancing is a blink-and-you'll-miss-it kind of a book. The story is strong, but Yoon gets straight to the point and doesn't give us much time to really linger from scene-to-scene. The ending, especially, is a bit rushed and doesn't quite pack the emotional punch it could've. I mean, it still hits you hard, but with a little more development, it would've been a knock out for sure. Similarly, the characters have pretty distinct personalities; I just wished they had been developed even more.

As usual, Delacorte Press provided the ARC, and I get to tell the people what I really thought.

This was a truly impressive and mature love story. Instructions for Dancing has just enough magic to give this story a solid footing in the YA world, but it is also insightful enough in its exploration of love to not alienate an adult audience. I was amazing by the level of chemistry and emotional complexity Nicola Yoon is able to write in her characters- not just in Evie’s personal romance or the relationship with her teenage friends, but with the uncomfortable, bitter, swirling feelings that come from dealing with a family separation. This was a captivating read that not only has you rooting for romance, but also has you remembering why its worth diving in head first again and again.

Yoon is a good writer. She is clever and her characters are engaging and meet all the requirements of a good YA read - a snarky, smart girl and a genuine, sweet, handsome boy. Evie is reeling from the breakup of her parents and is trying to decide whether to embrace life with all the possibility of heartbreak or to wall herself off somewhere safe. This isn't high literature but I'd read it on a beach any day.

vie has sworn off romance for life after seeing your father kissing another woman while still married to her mother. The parents have sense divorced, and Evie has become more closed off to her family and friends until she meets X. She tries to not like his as they partner for a ballroom dance competition. Can Evie enjoy life in the moment instead of fearing heartbreak of the future? The book started a little slow. Once events picked up, the story turns in a swoon worthy romance! Appropriate for mature grades 7 and up.

Instructions for Dancing is one of those books you can not put down till you finish. If you could see into the future, would you do it? Especially with your relationships? Sometimes you just have to take a chance.

Nicola Yoon fans looking for her usual story-based novels with a romantic thread may have to adjust their lens a bit with Instructions For Dancing, which leans more towards a romance with a more serious undercurrent. At the same time, Yoon plays on the generic characteristics of romance novels in her clever and skilled way so that it feels fresh and very readable. Don’t worry though, Instructions For Dancing has all the YA hallmarks--handsome boy, cute, snarky girl, quirky friends, etc. Evie’s still reeling from her parents' divorce and has sworn off all romance--including her favorite books--when she realizes she has the magical power to see the end of relationships of couples in love. (Did I mention magical realism? Yeah, that, too.) All bets are off when she meets Xavier and they enter a dance contest for his grandparent studio...romance novel, remember? Yoon throws in a few twists, so things may not turn out exactly the way it seems, but readers still get all the feels they expect from her books. Although the very abrupt ending and significantly fewer pages than her last two books left me thinking she rushed to meet a publisher deadline, the honest acknowledgments revealed stress and sadness in Yoon’s personal life that made this understandable. Not Yoon’s best effort, but certainly worth the time for her fans and readers looking for something fun and well-written with themes of love vs. heartbreak, friendship, and family.

Where do I even begin?

This was quite the whirlwind of a book. Instructions for Dancing by Nicola Yoon somehow managed to deal with the heavy topics of death and divorce while subtly weaving in themes of forgiveness and redemption.

The plot flowed nicely and all of the characters had unique personalities, which is always nice to see in a YA book. This novel also featured a diverse cast of characters along with several memorable locations. Yoon has a very visual writing style that will stick with me long after I finish writing this.

I would definitely recommend this fresh and unconventional take on young adult romance. It was a quick, clean read that I can see appealing to a wide variety of ages. Pick it up! You won’t regret it.

I received an ARC of this book via Netgalley and the publisher, all opinions are my own.

This is a sweet, easy YA read. Nothing groundbreaking, but I also wasn't the world's biggest fan of her other two books. Would probably not purchase this with my own money, but it was good to read!

I loved this book. I couldn't stop reading it. High-school senior Evie Thomas no longer believes in romance. She thought her parents had a perfect marriage and can not forgive her father for asking for a divorce and falling in love with another woman. Determined to renounce love, she gets rid of all her romance novels. In the process, she is given a strange book, Instructions for Dancing, which not only give her the gift/curse of seeing how relationships end ( usually badly ) but also leads her to a dancing studio, a dance competition, and X, her partner. Evie must determine whether love is worth the heartbreak is can bring.

This is the first Nicola Yoon book I've read. It was lovely! The story is simple, it's about falling in love and all the heartbreak that comes with it. I love the representation in this book and the cover is so beautiful. However, I don't think the title is a good match for what this book is about. Yes, Evie does dance in it, but it isn't the main plot of this story. Dancing helps start the plot but the true meaning of this story is love.

The main character, Evie, doesn't think of love in the same way because her parents recently got divorced and her dad is getting remarried. Of course, this means in order to understand love she has to fall in love herself. In come, X (Xavier) who she ends up falling in love with.

It's a cute, heartbreaking and emotional story! :)

4.5 stars.

Thank you to NetGalley and Random House Children's for my ARC in exchange for my honest review. This book will be published on June 3, 2021.

Nicola Yoon is one of my favorite YA authors. This is the third book I’ve read by her and I will likely read anything she writes.

This was a quick, fun, happy and sad read, all in one! 18 year old Evie finds our her parents are getting a divorce and shortly thereafter discovers a superpower (leap of faith here) that she can see how relationships end if she witnesses people kissing. Her love of romance novels goes out the door so she decides to donate her books to a little free library, where she stumbles upon the book Instructions for Dancing. This leads her to a dance studio where she meets X and gets entered into a dance competition. Her ability to see how their relationship *might* end scares her as she thinks all love ends in heartbreak.

If you knew how you were going to die, would you want to know? This book challenges us to live in the moment and embrace it.

Review also posted on GoodReads.

#InstructionsforDancing

I initially had a different plan for my TBR order, but as soon as I got approval for this brand new Nicola Yoon book, all that went out the window because I had to read this as soon as possible! Yoon is a master at what she does and creating compelling contemporary YA of which I've loved both of her previous books.

Here, the main character Evie doesn't believe in love anymore after her parents' divorce. The girl who once devoured romance novels now can only see how couples' love stories end instead of the actual loved-up parts. After some fated encounters, she ends up at La Brea Dance Studio and finds herself learning to dance with the spontaneous, adventurous X. Xavier, who goes by the nickname X, is the total opposite of Evie but the two of them are thrown together to pair up for a local ballroom dance competition. As they practice together and get to know each other, she has to confront if love is really worth the risk sometimes. An emotional Yoon read that's also a dance romance, yes please!

As I read, this book is full of engaging language and I can truly get inside bookish Evie's head. There is a magical, fantastical element of sorts that explain how some things occur and connect. Overall, this doesn't feel quite like her other books, but rather something completely new and I equally love this one as much as her previous ones. The characters are relatable and authentic, too, and Evie+X has such a squeal-worthy, precious connection and romance. Then, there's a big bombshell reveal in the second act that took me totally by surprise and hit me right in the feels. This book's so vulnerable and surprisingly profound and actually made me cry. It's a beautifully written book and so authentic because, hey, not everything lasts forever but that feeling and association of love can. This book is romantic, fantastical, authentic, vulnerable, bittersweet, and heartfelt. I loved it so darn much. Yoon effortlessly blends the contemporary with the fantasy in this sweet YA read about the power of first love. This book is just so flipping good, Yoon's done it again. Brava!

Read this book in one day. Though the main character loves romance novels, this is not your typical love story.

Evie Thomas has about given up on romance when she meets a mysterious woman who changes the course of her life. We watch as Evie struggles with all of her relationships: friendships, family, and romance with the mysterious "x" all while learning to ballroom dance.

Nicola Yoon never disappoints with her YA books. As soon as I see her name, I know I have to read what she writes. The relationships is this novel were rich and well developed. And the ending will stay with the reader long after the last dance has taken place. She has another hit on her hands with Instructions for Dancing!