A review by mehvie
Instructions for Dancing by Nicola Yoon

5.0

Hearts grow bigger so you can love more

What happens when your favorite couple, giving you couple goals break-up? And leave you feeling that all the romance books you've read are filled with lies and that happily ever afters aren't true? The same was happening with Evie until she met X (Xavier) at a dance studio, with no intentions of learning how to dance.

I think this might be my favorite book by Nicola Yoon! The epigraph and the first few lines of the novel gave me the feeling that this novel will be a hell of a ride, especially in the department of breaking hearts!

Both the times that I've read this book, my views on love/romance were in a process of changing from what they were (mostly it was unrealistic :P ). Having that altered view on romance/love in general, made me relate to Evie's character, her predicaments, and her view on love after what she had witnessed. But as Evie was going on a journey of learning how to cherish love at the moment and value the people around her, before their time is up with you- I too was on this journey with her parallelly. While reading the book I learned some valuable lessons, that left an impact on me:

- Live your life with the people you love, live every moment with them cause you don't know what the future is, and love them as much as you can.
- Love doesn't have to last or be forever, and it still means something even if the relationship ends
- YOU can't control the future


Moving to the side characters; Xavier is such a sweetheart ! I like how helps Evie understand her thoughts on relationships/love. They're helping each other out to become the best versions of themselves. The dates they went on were the CUTEST and made me want to third wheel LOL! Another favorite after Xavier- was Fifi, the dance instructor who made every dance lesson fun yet took both of them out of their comfort zones.

This book in my opinion was a mixture of the movie Big (1988) and the tv show That's So Raven (2003), but I can't tell you why :P. The ending was bitter-sweet; just like in her other books, it was open-ended and left to the reader to interpret.

All in all, Instructions for Dancing keeps you hooked from beginning to end, leaving you with lessons to cherish. This book will warm your heart and at the same time, it'll break it too. So if you're going through a heartbreak and have given up ALL hopes on love but deep down you still want that fuzzy book kinda love then this one is for you!

Buddy read this with Hamnah <3