Publishers Weekly
05/01/2023
In Ameyaw’s thoughtful and absorbing debut, a trio of teenagers explore identities and relationships through their artistic gifts. After she’s rejected for a ballet apprenticeship, Ghanaian Canadian 16-year-old Aisha Bimi returns to Toronto from her majority-white western Canada ballet academy. With her caring stockbroker father in Tokyo and her estranged former professional ballerina mother forbidden from contacting her, Aisha struggles with an emerging dissociative disorder and relies on imaginary relationships with celebrated Black ballerinas, including Michaela DePrince, for reassurance. In Toronto, she wins a place at Korean Canadian best friend Neil’s public arts high school, where Aisha develops a possible romance with musician Ollie, of Algerian heritage, and cultivates an unexpected affinity for modern dance. As Aisha navigates her own internal challenges, however, she becomes increasingly disturbed about Neil’s growing reliance on alcohol and teams up with Ollie to help their friend. Via Aisha’s sensitive voice, Ameyaw steadily builds layered suspense about the crisis that separated Neil and Aisha three years prior and destroyed Aisha’s relationship with her mother to craft a tightly plotted and smoothly written novel that tackles issues of racism in classical ballet alongside mental health and body image conflicts. Ages 14–up. (June)
From the Publisher
Ameyaw adeptly creates visceral responses to the characters’ situations, while treating their issues of mental health, eating disorders, and traumas from assault and alcoholism with sensitivity. A needed addition to all collections that serve young adults.”
—School Library Journal, *starred review, 08/23
“When It All Syncs Up is a thoughtful, delicate illustration of the pivotal stage in which a teenager steps off the blueprint of childhood into the unknown.” —Quill & Quire, 06/26/23
Joya Goffney
"With storytelling that’s beautifully dark and moving, Ameyaw crafts a captivating journey of healing and growth."
School Library Journal
★ 08/01/2023
Gr 9 Up—This realistic debut is set in an elite ballet academy and then in a public school for the arts. Readers first meet dancer Aisha when she is taping up posters of Black ballerinas and trying to hype herself up for an audition for an apprenticeship at her ballet academy. Though she dances perfectly, she is not awarded the apprenticeship because she doesn't have "the look." Aisha decides to visit Neil, an old friend from ballet. Upon her arrival, she finds that Neil is in the hospital with alcohol poisoning, brought there by his friend Ollie. While she is staying with him, Neil encourages her to audition for the public school for the arts. Aisha, following an impressive audition, is welcomed into the school where she excels, given opportunities that she had not been afforded at her old school. As Aisha and Ollie deal with Neil's alcohol abuse, their friendship blossoms into a romance; however, they both have huge personal obstacles to overcome. Aisha's estranged mother shows up and causes some past mental health trauma to come back up, leaving Aisha and her friends with difficult decisions to make about priorities. Aisha and Neil are Black, Ollie is Asian, and there is diversity in the race and ethnicity of the other characters. VERDICT Ameyaw adeptly creates visceral responses to the characters' situations, while treating their issues of mental health, eating disorders, and traumas from assault and alcoholism with sensitivity. A needed addition to all collections that serve young adults.—Helen Prince
Kirkus Reviews
★ 2023-03-29
The highs and lows of ballet—and of growing up.
Sixteen-year-old Aisha Bimi has worked hard to be one of the best dancers in her ballet-focused boarding school, but she is continually reminded that, in many people’s eyes, she doesn’t look the part. Aisha is Ghanaian Canadian, and there are few Black people in the world of ballet. After she fails to receive an apprenticeship with the Western Canadian Ballet, Aisha makes the split-second decision to return home to Toronto. There, she toys with the idea of enrolling in an arts high school with her best friend, Neil. She can see that Neil, who is of Korean descent, has an alcohol problem, and she is determined to help, enlisting the aid of Algerian Canadian Ollie, one of Neil’s quiet yet compelling school friends. Can Aisha balance her relationships old and new, her mental health, and ballet, or is it all too much? Aisha’s feelings about dance consistently ring true, from the isolation of having few role models or friends who look like her to her love of classical technique and her hunger for something new. Her struggles with body image are especially authentic. Aisha and her friends face real problems and are not without their stumbles and missteps, but they also work to support each other in finding healing and healthy ways to move forward.
A hopeful, realistic exploration of mental health among teens invested in the world of the arts. (Fiction. 14-18)
