Review: "When It All Syncs Up" by Maya Ameyaw

When It All Syncs Up by Maya Ameyaw
Published June 2023 via Annick Press
★★★

Aisha dreams of dancing, but she also knows that the ballet world is stacked against her: in whitewashed Alberta, her skill and talent are never quite enough to compensate for the fact that her teachers see her skin color first, and everything else second. In Toronto, maybe, things can be different—Toronto, where her best friend lives, and where there's a quiet and alluring musician next door, and where Aisha is not the only Black girl around. But while some problems can be outrun, others are shadows nipping at one's heels.

I've been reading a lot about ballet recently—not a new interest, but there's been a fantastic crop of new books—and Aisha underscores some of the things that Alice Robb, Chloe Angyal, Georgina Pazcoguin, and others have written about: the landscape is changing, but not quickly enough; certainly not quickly enough for many of the talented young dancers who are being pushed out today for their skin tone or the length of their neck or the shape of the muscle in their thighs. At one point, watching a professional performance, Aisha notes that "I'm painfully aware there isn't a fully Black female dancer in the entire show" (loc. 2037*), and what goes unsaid is that there are far too many people who wouldn't be aware, or who wouldn't see a problem if they were.

So I'm always delighted to see books that take this and tackle it head-on (readers might also be interested in The Other Side of Perfect by Mariko Turk). I waffled with the rating, though, or rather am still waffling with the rating. Aisha is great as a main character, and the love interest is also solid—some complexity to him, and I do always love a romantic conflict that cannot be solved with a simple conversation or two. But there's so much going on in the book: racism, family trouble, mean girls, romance, a drinking problem, an eating disorder, abuse, anxiety, other family trouble, two types of dance... It's not that all of that can't be going on at once, but I wouldn't have been sorry to see one or two issues dropped in favor of giving more space to the others, and to more general worldbuilding for the Toronto setting.

At the end of the day, I'm mostly just pleased to see the face of YA dance literature changing alongside the dance world. I hope When It All Syncs Up (and its gorgeous cover) will make it to many school library shelves.

Thanks to the author and publisher for providing a free review copy through NetGalley.

*I read an ARC, so exact quotes and locations may change.