Reviews with content warning for Car accident - Instructions for Dancing

Reviews tagging 'Car accident'

Instructions for Dancing by Nicola Yoon

18 reviews

notesbykamzzie's review against another edition

Go to review page

adventurous challenging sad slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.0

Content Warnings

12dejamoo's review against another edition

Go to review page

emotional inspiring medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Plot
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? No

2.0

I feel mean giving this 2 stars but it was just kind of okay. It had a lot of great elements but also I think it tried to do too much. There were lots of threads, none of which received enough attention or development.

Kind of spoilery discussion:

We've got the main set up of Evie's dad cheating on her mum and her feeling jaded about love, which I think is plenty enough set up of our main character's problems with love, but then we add the superpower. This is probably what draws people in - it's a fun detail and ties into her feelings about love, but I think it isn't developed enough. It obviously puts her off at first, and makes things weird with her friends, but it doesn't <i>really</i> stop her from pursuing love at all. Like okay at the end there it does, but when that moment happens it feels really like it's coming out of nowhere because we haven't really spent that much time developing her power and how it affects her and how her relationship with X is potentially not perfect.

Also, the woman at the start with the Little Free Library and the book with the directions. Like?? It's all just a little bit random. I know it's one of those 'mysterious woman is the reason for weirdness' thing but the woman could also just not be in there and the whole book would have been absolutely fine. It's not a fantasy so we don't really <i>need</i> an explanation as to how she developed this power.

And then there's the dancing bit! Which is so thrown in. I can't believe the book is called Instructions for Dancing and then it hardly even talks about the dancing at all. We spend a lot of time stressing about going to the wedding and then not going and then yes going, and so much time on bonfires and waffles, that we never spend any time with them learning to dance. I wasn't paying 1000% attention to the timings but I don't think it was feasible to go from zero dance skills to winning amateur titles. For instance, there is the chapter where Fifi says they have two weeks to go and then she starts teaching them the Argentine Tango from scratch?? I'm sorry but even for an amateur competition you need more than two weeks of practice. I guess my main point is that if there was no dancing in this book it would have been the exact same book.

Evie's character development was all over the place. She would learn and grow and then change her mind and backtrack. It was really frustrating.

Good points include: I liked a lot of the scenes, I just thought they were often underdeveloped. I liked the format with text conversations and prose and lists thrown in. It was fun. I will say that a lot of the chapters were too short (but that goes back to underdeveloping). I liked a lot of the ideas and I liked some of the characters. Fifi was great and the idea of Martin was fun. I liked Evie and her family. X kind of annoyed me a lot of the time, but other times he was fun.

Content Warnings

axel_p's review against another edition

Go to review page

challenging emotional hopeful inspiring sad fast-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.5

The pacing was a bit off and I wish there was more dancing.
I cried

Content Warnings

megannoelle's review against another edition

Go to review page

challenging emotional funny hopeful lighthearted reflective sad fast-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.0

Content Warnings

spookily's review against another edition

Go to review page

emotional funny lighthearted sad medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

2.0

Content Warnings

kbairbooks's review against another edition

Go to review page

challenging emotional funny hopeful inspiring lighthearted reflective sad fast-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.5

By the end I wanted to cry. That was really special. These past two years have been hard and focusing on the here and now is harder. Especially when the here and now is the worst something has ever been. But this book was a beautiful reminder that that’s all you have. Once it’s past the here and now it’s just a memory.

Content Warnings