Thanks to NetGalley, the publisher and the author, Susannah Dickey. This was an interesting book but it was not for me. I read it awhile ago but i did not submit my review and because of that I do not have much details but it is about growing up and the fear about it.

Tennis Lessons by Susannah Dickey is an engaging novel written in the second person about growing up and the insecurities that come along with that.

An interesting read that I'm glad to have discovered. I'll definitely be seeking out more by this author.

A very average read, not what I hoped it would be. I received this ARC as I had read and enjoyed Expectation by Anna Hope, and it being compared to such a great read gave me high expectations. Sadly, I can't find much to praise about this novel.

Some bright spots, but mostly quite dull and meandering, I felt like the author was striving to be the new Sally Rooney and it fell flat. I didn't necessarily mind the second person prose, but it often felt clunky and the timeline difficult to follow.

All in all, a pretty quick read, but I wasn't too sure what the point was in the end. Thanks to the publisher and NetGalley for the ARC.

Sharp, witty and quirky, yet quite strange. I didn't really warm to the characters which I always find hard. Its started strong but I slowly lost interest and found it quite frustrating in parts. Reminded me of Exciting Times. A moving coming of age story but just missed the mark for me.

Dark and funny coming of age story, I enjoyed this straight away. I like a story where I can see myself in the main characters, and I felt able to relate to Dickey's writing and experiences.

A coming of age story that tells it as it is.

Thanks to NetGalley and the publishers for the ARC in return for an honest and unbiased opinion

I read this book in a single day, I couldn’t put it down. The writing style is masterfully done and the author communicates the “coming of age” experiences, and the emotions that accompany it, so beautifully. At times, it is difficult to read. Dickey expresses female experiences and thoughts rawly and honestly.

A coming of age novel that is written in a style I've never seen before.
Really easy to read and follow and I felt I could really empathise with the main character.

This was such a quirky read and I loved the narrative style throughout. Told from the point of view of the protagonist, it charts her life from childhood, with each chapter being dedicated to a particular memory or formative moment. Despite the gaps in time between each chapter as they leap forwards in time, the voice of the main character is so strong that her complexities are laid bare and I found it easy to forge an understanding with her, even when I didn’t agree with her.

It’s a fantastic concept, and it’s entirely character based. These moments create her as a person, a selection of jigsaw pieces picked up and compiled to make a whole. It really got me thinking about the old nature/nurture argument, and thinking about how early experiences can be so shaping, without realisation. She believes that she is inherently ‘different’ and this belief underpins the entire novel and the events within it. The decisions she makes are poor, and grounded in an inability to think well of herself – she doesn’t believe she is worth anything, and it’s a sobering read for this reason. I felt heartbroken that this young woman thought so little of herself from such a young age and it was a pattern that set to repeat itself. Whilst it can be classed as a coming of age style novel as it does chart growth into adulthood – it feels so much more than that. Raw, honest, dark and unafraid. It’s an unfiltered ride, serious, yet funny and at times utterly gross and others tear-inducing.

I found Tennis Lessons to be a compelling, dark and yet witty read, it was one I quickly fell into and I found myself drawn to and caring about what happened to this young woman. The close narrative drew me so close to her that I felt her pain and at times felt angry on her behalf, as well as angry at her. Mental health is a key theme throughout, and for this reason there are some scenes that are difficult to read, and some that are difficult to interpret as on onlooker – and I must admit I did get a little lost in some of these sections, although that was probably the point!

An interesting and varied read. I loved the writing style and adored the concept, I will without doubt be looking out for more novels from this author.

This was a bit of a strange one, very bizarre main character! This wasn't a bad book, but there was very little to enjoy about it, quite dark and confronting, rather like constantly reading someone's intrusive thoughts. I enjoyed the parts in the author's childhood but the teen years were just awful.

I felt the time jumps were sort of interesting, but it meant we missed so much character development - we just see people being completely different.

Overall I just felt like this needed some more work, it had potential and the writing was quite compelling but I didn't see the point.

Tennis Lessons by Susannah Dickey is a moving story about the enduring nature of friendship. It is a coming of age story about navigating your formative years whilst being an outsider, or at least leaning on the periphery. 

There are many good things about this novel. The teenage turmoils are handles in a blatant way. Dickey doesn’t hide behind euphemisms, she shows how difficult it can be. She talks about period, bullying, sex etc with honesty and condor and Tennis Lessons is all the better for it. 

Tennis Lessons is a novel for the outsider, the one who grew up not quite fitting in. It is a good story.

Tennis Lessons by Susannah Dickey is available now.

For more information regarding Susannah Dickey (@SusannahDickey) please visit www.unitedagents.co.uk/susannah-dickey.

For more information regarding Doubleday Books (@DoubledayUK) please visit www.penguin.co.uk.

If you're missing Fleabag and intense characters then I've got a book for you.

Using the unconventional second person narrative, Susannah Dickey's debut novel, Tennis Lessons, takes the usual coming of age story and gives it more intimacy and honesty between the unnamed girl and the reader as she navigates to womanhood and independence.

Told in short, poetic vignettes, the reader follows our character from childhood, delving into her private world and insecurities, her loneliness and the way she observes life as it happens to her. Her pet dies, her uncle's death that is never explained to her, her mother's unexplained illness, the coldness of her family at their growing disappointing at her.

Full of dark humour and very touching as the character's vulnerabilities are laid out to the reader. This is a relatable character who tries too much to be perfect which leads to her downfall, and at times reminded me of Fleabag with the self deprecating humour with a character isn't always likable, which in my opinion makes for a more rounder, realistic look at life.

She feels like she isn't normal and her friends think she is strange and the growing tension within herself of not being good enough spills out into her life with her anxiety causing her to not meet her own expectations with exams, having to battle with bullies, sexual assault. She tries to find acceptance but ends up feeling more like an outsider, watching others navigate successfully through life. Susannah Dickey creates a character that you can't shake even after finishing the book.

The writing style really draws you into the story, and I finished the book in two reading sessions as I just couldn't put it down. I also loved that this book doesn't have a predictable ending, and she isn't rescued by a relationship or ended up with a perfect life.

If you've enjoyed books like Sarah Haywood's The Cactus or Eleanor Oliphant is Completely Fine then you're going to love this book. Tennis Lessons is available from your favourite bookshop.


Thank you to NetGalley for the ebook arc.

This was quite an infectious book.....Loved it an easy read which i read quite quickly. Its about the coming of age, and really does delve into life of growing up as it is.....Lots of interaction, all subjects covered, sex, periods, all rowing up ailments it is really relatable....A story that is told as it is....
I loved it

This is billed as a raw, gritty, growing up tale. I could empathise with the MC, who was a bit of a loner, bullied and always just on the outside of everything. I enjoyed the earlier parts of the book, during the MC's childhood. However, the teenage years were a bit too ‘gritty‘ for me - too much sick, poo and blood and the sex scenes were weirdly gynaecological. (That scene on the train was just bizarre!)

It was also told in the 2nd person, which is an unusual device and didn‘t work for me.

Maybe I'm just not the target market for this book.

Tennis Lessons uses second person narration to centre on the first two decades of an unnamed girl. The narrative style creates some laugh-out-loud observations, for example of her mother;
"her voice stays low and threatening, yellow cotton wisps of her hair come loose from the little lump of bun. Often the small, round detachedness of her bun reminds you of the neat scrotum of the neighbours' blonde Labrador.'
Furthermore, this technique enables Dickey to relate events from the inside outwards as well as the outside in; allowing the central character a little detachment and the reader to witness her reactions;
"you can make out the small brown outline of a rabbit, making its way across the soil. Long-eared soft man, you think." or
"He puts his hands back to your hair and kisses you, but it's too soft and wet, like sushi"

Sadly Dickey’s misfit narrator doesn't believe she has much going for her, and the evidence she presents suggests this belief is correct. Despite her ability to bounce back whilst laughing at herself and the world around her, from the outset things are quite difficult- with her mother's mysterious illness, her uncle's death and (uncomfortably believable) episodes of bullying. If anything, things get steadily worse, rather than better, as she bombs at school and struggles to form balanced friendships and relationships.
I found as the novel progressed, that I wanted her to fight back more. Instead she increasingly doubts herself, even wanting to apologise to her mother; "for not being normal and pretty and uncomplicated, for not being what she deserves...you know you were strange and wrong from the beginning."
Rather than being a normal person who behaves quirkily, she increasingly makes bizarre decisions and behaves in foolish ways that fail to endear her to her parents, her friends or, indeed, the reader. Perhaps Dickey's real triumph is eliciting a response where I literally wanted to hold the girl in front of a mirror and shake her gently but firmly by the shoulders.

Although, by the end, things look a little more promising, I was frustrated by another tale where the female protagonist feels she is just not good enough for her surrounding world and, more frustratingly, believes that she is powerless to alter her destiny.

My thanks to the author, publisher and netgalley for sharing an advance copy of the book with me in return for my honest opinion.

"You are nothing. Everything is nothing. You realise you won't even have the capacity to think 'I'm nothing'. You won't have the ability to register your no longer existing. There will only be oblivion. You try, for a few moments, to not think anything. You start to panic."

Tennis Lessons is a coming-of-age novel about growing up and finding your place. It explores the life of an unnamed protagonist in episodic chapters, from her third birthday to her late twenties. The book is written in the second person, which I was surprised by, but once I got used to it, I found it flowed really well and made me race through the chapters - it felt like I was reading a stream of consciousness as I was put directly into the brain of the protagonist.

She knows that she is a misfit and people think she is strange: her mother thinks she's a disappointment and she's bullied at school. The protagonist's life is a series of one bad event after the other and is by no means an easy read, the novel deals with everything from mental illness and death, to bullying and sexual assault. The key thing about this book is that she continues to make mistakes, but you can't fault her for it because it's realistic and true to life. The high school chapters especially, I thought were so relatable and perfectly captured the harsh realities of teenage years.

Tennis Lessons is a brutally honest and dark debut novel about trying to navigate your way through life, dealing with trauma and how to eventually come to terms with who you are. I struggled to put it down.

Tennis Lessons by Susannah Dickey is a coming of age novel set in Northern Ireland. We meet our unnamed protagonist as a child and again at various points through her childhood, teenage years and into her twenties. These snapshots draw a portrait of somebody uncomfortable in her own skin, somebody just on the outside of whatever is happening and somebody who struggles to fit in.

It is an authentic portrayal of what I think most women feel growing up. Teenage years are tough, especially when you’re not the popular one, or the funny one or the pretty one. If you’re the introspective one, or the one who reads, or overthink, or overshares, life, especially at school can be a difficult place. Throw in a mother who suffers with depression and parents in an unhappy marriage and things for our protagonist are pretty miserable.

Written in the second person it almost felt like I was reading back on my memories and recollections. It was a immersive reading experience and I found it quite intense at times, especially given some of the subject matter which is quite tough on occasion. It was quite difficult to read and I had to put the book down and take a breather. This isn’t a criticism by any stretch of the imagination, it’s testament to the strength of writing that I found myself so emotionally invested in the narrative.

None more so than when reading the authentic portrayal of female friendships, particularly at school. The intricate balance of being in a group of girls with a clear and distinct alpha when you’re the one who is likely to say the wrong thing. There are passages which are uncomfortable to read, especially when it comes to the visciousness of teenagers. But then, there is the pure and lovely friendship between our protagonist and Rachael.

This friendship is written so beautifully, with Rachael being the only person who really understands her friend. It isn’t all flowers and rainbows though, when something horrific happens she doesn’t confide in anybody, least of all Rachael and it is this event which sends everything on a downward spiral.

A book about growing up, about learning who you are, about friendships, family, being comfortable in your own skin and finding your place in the world, Tennis Lessons is a searingly honest novel. I loved the narrative structure and the use of second person and I really loved the protagonist. Highly recommended.

Tennis Lessons by Susan ah Dickey, was a dark and brutally honest coming of age story. The characters were weird and wonderful. The writing was in second person. Overall, the book made me feel uneasy and entranced at the same time.
Thanks NetGalley and the publisher for the ecopy of the book for review.

Tennis Lessons, by Susannah Dickey, documents a number of episodes from across the life of an unnamed 29-year-old Northern Irish woman. They start at the age of three, forming a picture of her personality, her family and home, and her school and friends. We see her negotiate the battleground that is high school, experience an unspeakable traumatic experience and subsequent breakdown at the age of 17, and go through fits and starts in her 20s as she comes to terms with her awkward self and becomes who she’s meant to be.

I’m really enjoying seeing more and more books coming out that reflect my experience as a Millennial (see also: Scenes of a Graphic Nature, by Caroline O’Donoghue) and a former awkward child (for example, The Van Apfel Girls Are Gone, by Felicity McLean), and this is a winner because it does both!

The author’s descriptions of finding the other children have marked you out as strange and different for reasons you can’t fathom, realising you’ve grown out of being the smart one because everyone else catches up eventually, and being in your late 20s when you finally get a job you actually like are spot-on. She also captures the petty (and not-so-petty) cruelties of high school, the nice girls’ helplessness against the horrible ones, and the encroaching feeling that there’s something wrong with you really well.

That probably makes this book sound like a self-indulgent misery-fest, but it’s actually really funny and comforting. There’s humour throughout the book, whether it’s the protagonist’s clever jokes that amuse adults but go unappreciated by other children (been there too…), the daft conversations between her and her best friend, or her ability to find laughs even in the darkest times. Her story affirms “it’s not just you who’s had these experiences” and “there’s no set timetable for life - so what if you didn’t get your dream job at 21, you got there in the end.”

It also reminded me that my parents probably aren’t as disappointed as I always imagine, and that school doesn’t set the stage for the rest of your life: some people peak as teenagers and are never as successful or popular again, some bullies turn into perfectly pleasant adults, people you saw every day forget all about you and never even committed to memory the cringey scenes you still remember so vividly when you’re trying to get to sleep, and it’s a lot easier to discover and accept who you are when you’re older and less of a slave to your hormones and other people’s opinions.

This book’s episodic, second-person format is unusual, but it really worked for me. After noticing the first few ‘you’s, I settled down and became accustomed to the fact that the narrator is addressing herself - much as I do inside my own head.

The author’s use of selected scenes solves the problem of representing 30 years of someone’s life without getting bogged down. It reminded me of another book I really liked, Your Fault, by Andrew Cowan, which uses the same devices to take us through a self-examining character’s entire life. By doing so, both authors distil the protagonist’s personality and story, not unlike how autobiographers choose to write about the anecdotes and events they think best convey who they are and how they ended up where they did.

The only criticism I have is that this approach left me wanting to spend more time with the character - this is quite a short book as it is, and the brevity of some of the scenes, particularly early on, left me with a feeling of scarcity. Tennis Lessons is funny, relateable and comforting. I just wish it had been longer!