Draft:Instructions for Dancing by Nicola Yoon

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Instructions for Dancing - Nicola Yoon

Intro Instructions for Dancing is a young adult novel by Nicola Yoon. It is a magical realism romance novel and was first published in 2021 by Delacorte Press (Penguin Random House).

Plot Yvette Thomas (Evie) is a 17 year old girl in high school. In the beginning of the book we learn that her father had an affair with another woman and divorced her mother and left the family. The anger at her dad affected Evie very hard and she started asking herself whether love is worth the pain.

One day she takes the bike to Hancock Park 10 minutes away from her apartment. She stops at a library where you take a book and leave a book. At the library she meets a mysterious woman who gives Evie a book called Instructions for Dancing. The woman insists on Evie taking the book. When she gets home she meets her little sister Danica and her boyfriend. They kiss in front of her and all of a sudden it turns black like the moment before a movie begins. Evie sees a vision of how Danica’s and her boyfriend's relationship started and how it will end. She thinks she is feeling sick, but as time passes, Danica and her boyfriend broke up exactly like the vision she saw.

In school she tells her best friend, Martin, about the vision and together they explore her newfound power by looking at other people together,, and they realize she sees a vision every time a couple kisses. When she gets home she thinks more about why this happened and realizes the mysterious woman who gave her a book may have a part of it. On the last page of the book there is a text that says La Brea Dance, and she decides to go there.

In the dance studio she meets a woman called Fifi who invites her to a dance class. After class she sees a guy riding her bike and she overhears him talking on the phone with his girlfriend. He is breaking her heart over the phone. When the guy is done talking on the phone he catches Evie standing there and introduces himself to her. The guy is called X.

One week passes and the visions keep on coming, and now she’s realized love and time equals heartbreak. Evie and her best friends Martin, Cassidy and Sophie are planning a trip after graduation but she can’t focus because she’s distracted by the visions. She decides to go to La brea Dance once again, and she meets Fifi who wants Evie to enter a ballroom competition. There is no pressure to win the competition, Evie but X will be her partner. FIfi says that you dance with heart and emotions, so she wants X and Evie to get to know each other. They decide to meet at LaLaLand tours, and Evie learns that X wants to be a world-famous rock star. X is everything that Evie is not: adventurous, passionate and daring. His philosophy is to say yes to everything.

X invites Evie to see him play at a club as their next “date”. They go on more, get to know each other, go on more dates and start to actually have fun. They talk about deep questions and they both share their experiences with life. On one of the dates they are at a bonfire with Evie’s best friends. When Evie wants to go to the toilet, X comes along and on the way back they kiss –– and for the first time she does not see a vision.

They continue to get to know each other and practice for the dance competition. In school she catches Sophie and Cassidy kissing and it goes black and the vision starts. Their relationship will ruin the whole group's friendship. When she gets home from school that day something is off with Danica and her mom. Her father is getting married with the other woman and he wants the family to go. X asks her out and they go to Wilshire Billiards and she teaches him billiards at the place she and her father used to go. This date made Evie realize she likes him. They dare each other to do the things they don’t want to, X tells Evie to go to her fathers wedding and Evie tells X to finish high school. After talking to her dad and X about the wedding she decides to go. The love for X grows and after so much practice it is time for competition. Her family and friends are at the cheering session. They dance and dance in different styles and after the final dance he says I love you and kisses her but that’s when it goes black and she sees a vision of their relationship.The visions show her eight months from now and she’s crying in a room with a paper in her hand. The paper is a funeral program and the name on the program is a picture of X and his name written on it. Then she’s back in the competition and she runs as fast as she can away crying. She can’t cope with the loss that hasn’t happened. She gets a text from X that says they won the competition but she answers that she doesn’t believe it’s going to work out and breaks up with him over text. She ignores X for days and everybody believes they broke up. She is scared that if she loves him more the pain will never go away when he dies. Time passes and when she’s at her fathers wedding she realizes she wants to be with X. She runs to the cabs outside the hotel like a chase scene in a movie where you run to the person you want to be with. When she finds herself at his house with him she tells him how much she loves him and that she has to have a dance partner at her fathers wedding. The book ends with them dancing and everybody notices their moves and she accepts that he is going to die. She sees the good part that will come with them being together and she decides to hold on because she loves him. She accepts that she will have to go through grief and pain because love is worth it.

Major Themes Love: Evie doesn’t believe in love anymore after her father cheated on her mother. Love is one of the major themes in the book because it’s shown in her family, in her friendships and the love for X. Love is also the major theme because she sees visions of love when couples kiss. Later in the book Evie asks her mother about her father and why she does not express anger at him. Her mother tells her that she didn’t want the way Evie saw her father to change. She also mentions that love is worth it because once upon a time she loved Evie’s father enough to make Evie and Danica, that makes all the nonsense and pain worth it. Evie also asks her father why he cheated on her mother and why people make those promises at weddings when they won't keep them. Her father tells Evie that love is the question, the answer and the reason to ask in the first place. The book tells us that to love is human and it also shows the courage to love. In the book we see Evie's development of overcoming the fear to open her heart to love again. To dare to love even though the risk of getting hurt.

Heartbreak: Heartbreak is also a major theme in the book because when Evie's father left it broke the whole family apart… In every vision she sees when people kiss there is heartbreak included. Evie is scared of getting hurt and the fear of heartbreak grows inside her as the feelings for X grows. When Evie sees the vision that X is going to die her heart breaks and she cannot cope with her feelings so she runs away. Heartbreak is why Evie is so skeptical of love, she has seen what heartbreak caused her family. The way Evie sees visions and sees how heartbreak tore her family apart makes her believe that love isn’t worth the pain because all relationships will come to an end eventually, often with pain. The questions whether love is worth the pain or not makes the plot and the development of the characters in the book. By reading the book we learn that the pain of heartbreak is proof of a well-lived and loved life and it is human to experience heartbreak. We also learn that it doesn’t matter that love ends, it just matters that it once was love.

Genre and style Instructions for Dancing by Nicola Yoon is a Young adult book. Contemporary romance book with elements of magical realism according to melaninya.com and goodreads.com. Yoon’s writing style in the book was characterized by emotional depth, vivid imagery and relatable characters. Overall the book combines elements of romance with deeper explorations of personal growth and resilience, making it a poignant read for young adults..

Development history Nicola Yoon wrote Instructions for Dancing during a hard time in her life when her mom and father in law were diagnosed with cancer. She asked herself why we allow ourselves to love other people when losing them will hurt so much. She gave Evie the gift to see relationships happy beginnings with sad endings so that she could fight the question that haunted her. She wrote the first draft by hand from five am on weekdays and because of the health issues in her family she didn’t trust the world and the ability to make sense of it. When Nicola Yoon came to the end of the book she came to peace with the uncertainty life can give. Nicola Yoon and her husband took dance lessons and learned bachata and tango. In the end of writing the book she says “In the end, I don’t think we have a choice about whether to love. To love is as much a part of the human condition as breathing” to the question “In writing this book, did you come to an answer to this big question? Is love worth the heartbreak and sorrow that can come with it”

Publication history Instructions for Dancing is Nicola Yoon's third young adult novel. She is known as a #1 New York Times bestselling author. She wrote “Everything, Everything” and “The Sun Is Also a Star”.

Literary significance and reception The book is named a Printz Honor Book which means outstanding work of literature for young adults. Instructions for Dancing also won the Coretta Scott King New Talent Award which honors new authors who reflect the African American experience. Critics also praised the book for exploring complex themes. In the writing style reviewers say that the book has “beautiful prose” and “clever dialogue” that balances humor and insight according to bookpage.com.

Awards and nominations The book received positive reviews, noted for its emotional depth, exploration of love, loss, and a touch of magical realism. It was featured on several best of the year lists for young adult fiction and received starred reviews from major literary publications like Kirkus Reviews and Booklist. The book won a Coretta Scott King New Talent Award and is also named a Printz Honor Book. Instructions for Dancing has been nominated for several awards like Florida Teens Read (2022) , Kentucky Bluegrass Award (2022), New Jersey Garden State Teen Book Award (2022) and Oklahoma Sequoyah Young Adult Book Award (2023)

External links https://melanininya.com/2021/06/07/book-profile-instructions-for-dancing-by-nicola-yoon/ https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/55600878-instructions-for-dancing https://www.nicolayoon.com/instructions-for-dancing-book-detail-page https://diversebooks.org/qa-with-nicola-yoon-instructions-for-dancing/ https://www.bookpage.com/reviews/26325-nicola-yoon-instructions-dancing-ya/ https://www.supersummary.com/instructions-for-dancing/summary/