Title: Tennis Lessons
Author: Susannah Dickey
Pages: 256 Pages
Publisher: Doubleday Books
The Blurb
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.
The Review
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.
