Tennis Lessons, Susannah Dickey
Tennis Lessons, Susannah Dickey
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Tennis Lessons

Author: Susannah Dickey

Narrator: Louisa Harland

Unabridged: 6 hr 26 min

Format: Digital Audiobook Download

Published: 07/16/2020


Synopsis

Brought to you by Penguin.

'Incredibly funny and honest . . . by turns charming and disgusting and I loved it' NELL FRIZZELL

The darkly funny, fiercely honest debut novel about a spirited young misfit and her rocky road to womanhood, stopping at each year along the way.

You’re strange and wrong. You’ve known it from the beginning.

This is the voice that rings in your ears. Because you never say the right thing. You’re a disappointment to everyone. You’re a far cry from beautiful – and your thoughts are ugly too.

You seem bound to fail, bound to break.

But you know what it is to laugh with your best friend, to feel the first tentative tingles of attraction, to take exquisite pleasure in the affront of your unruly body.

You just need to find your place.

From dead pets and crashed cars to family traumas and misguided love affairs, Susannah Dickey's revitalizing debut novel plunges us into the private world of one young woman as she navigates her rocky way to adulthood.

©Susannah Dickey 2020 (P) Penguin Audio 2020

Reviews

Goodreads review by daniella ❀ on January 30, 2023

warning: there's nothing about tennis lessons in here. only bits and pieces of someone else's life. reading this felt like hearing my childhood best friend's life story or even reading my own diary because it's so... personal. it literally has no plot so i don't think everyone will like it, but i lov......more

Goodreads review by leah on May 20, 2023

a mundane coming of age story with an edge of melancholy. perfectly captures the cruelty of adolescence and the discomfort of growing up.......more

Goodreads review by Kat on February 23, 2025

EDIT: guys if you enjoyed this you should definitely watch Memoir of a Snail (2024)!! this one’s for the weird girls with deep platonic relationships who ask their boyfriends if they still loved them even if they were a worm 🪱......more

Goodreads review by Coco on November 03, 2021

relatable and reassuring in a weird way. felt like i was reliving school, friendships, leaving school and feeling lost which was kind of hard but it ended on a light note :)......more

Goodreads review by Laura on April 26, 2020

When I think of certain passages of Tennis Lessons, my cheeks burn and my toes curl with embarrassment, because Susannah Dickey's account of the good, the bad and the ugly of growing up and feeling out of place excruciatingly real. The book follows the main character from the time she is three years......more


Quotes

This is a raw, fierce, shockingly honest coming-of-age story. Tennis Lessons heralds the arrival of a startling new voice in literary fiction Louise O'Neill

I loved Tennis Lessons so much ELIZABETH DAY

An incredibly funny and poignant portrait of what it is to be young, female and human. The whole thing is witty - the narrative voice, the dialogue, the plot and the detail - while also having searing moments of sadness, discomfort and cruelty. Susannah Dickey has created a world and a main character that is by turns disgusting and charming and I loved it. Nell Frizzell

A beautifully written and psychologically incisive bildungsroman...the arrival of a young writer to watch Observer

Brilliant . . . a wonderful writer, hugely talented, very funny and insightful. Alan Davies

Propulsive . . . brilliantly vivid . . . stays in the mind long after reading Irish Times

Absolutely brilliant . . . touchingly captures the awkward, aching longing of a misfit . . . darkly funny Express

Wonderfully shocking . . . a stunning, original debut. Irish Examiner

Fundamentally intimate . . . beguiling . . . A novel about being normal that is anything but. Irish Independent

Terrific... astute, tender, raw... very funny Metro