Tennis Lessons

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Tennis Lessons evolves over the years of our protagonists life from a very young age up until just under thirty. The reader learns of her experiences growing up and the way she develops. All of the good things and the bad things. This is really a no holes barred story and I loved it for that. The awkward experiences that can shape lives. I found myself nodding at some points and squirming at others. I found the times of those teenage school years to be particularly moving. The feelings of never quite fitting in but also being afraid to stand out, and of course the way we feel about our bodies and how they change. It’s about low self esteem and feeling you don’t belong anywhere, a misfit. And then it’s about shame and trauma, burying yourself deep. About stumbling between alcohol fuelled sexual encounters that generally don’t end well. The book follows the main character from the time she is three years old up until her late twenties, and never flinches away from things we prefer not to talk about, from conversations we were never supposed to hear to dark thoughts we can't unthink, from ingrown toenails to blood clots, from times we were the victim to times when we were the bully. So the style is sublime, and the content is thorny and complicated. Siobhan and Lily are difficult characters who aren’t easy to sympathise with; they both view others with an often scabrous contempt, they both lie and manipulate. They’re so blinkeredly wrapped up in their own lives, neither can see that they might find a much-needed real friend in each other if they actually started paying attention to the world outside their own fevered minds. The lives of a bereaved young woman and her neighbour who is consumed by her affair with a married man entwine in this dark, compelling and compassionate coming-of age novel.

That said, I did feel slightly mislead by the books synopsis. Making it out to be me more of a dark, psychological thriller than it turned out to be. Though there was some semblance of slow building tension, it never really amounted to much. And to be honest, felt rather anticlimactic towards the end. This was a book I struggled to write a perfect review about so I do apologise for the ramble that I have put together. It’s very rare that a book leaves me like this but nonetheless it was a very well written novel. It pays off, however. Despite there being a fair few occasions where you want to shake her, or at least beg her to stop making so many bad decisions, the fact that the heroine of Tennis Lessons often seems like an alien who has recently arrived from a faraway planet makes her a fascinating character. Her peculiarity yields some blessings, along with the obvious curses. She doesn’t appear capable of holding a grudge, which leads to a beautifully and complexly drawn redemption arc for her teenage bully. Our protagonist views the world from a different perspective. Things that everyone else takes for granted – the necessity of taking exams, climbing the career ladder, having a family – she questions. Tennis Lessons sometimes reads as an anthropological study of a distant tribe, only the distant tribe is us. We don’t often come across particularly well, but there’s always the hope of improvement. Upstairs, Siobhan is consumed by her affair with a married man. Her days revolve around his sporadic texts and rare visits. She barely notices the strange girl who lives below and dawdles in the foyer.elevating the ordinary with luscious prose . . . [Tennis Lessons] gives us the magical ability of seeing this tired old world with brand new eyes. What an invaluable gift, and what a beautiful book. Culturefly Lily and Siobhan live in an apartment building in Belfast and both are grappling with their own loneliness, love and loss despite living strikingly different lives. Lily has shut herself out from the world following the death of her mother and Siobhan is consumed with her affair with a married man and his sporadic visits and messages. Lily and Siobhán are two young women living in the same apartment building, but who don’t know each other really at all. Lily is still reeling from the recent loss of her mother, and Siobhán is a teacher navigating her relationship with a married man. Fundamentally, this is a book about relationships, and how the relationships we enter, whether they’re platonic, familial, or romantic, end up defining us. Sara Baume gave a brutal poignancy to her marginalised narrator in Spill Simmer Falter Wither through a second-person narrative told to a one-eyed dog. In Ghost Light, Joseph O'Connor's luminous and underrated novel about the actor Molly Allgood, the second person created an intimacy with a protagonist whose failing career and past loves had brought her low. And Claire Keegan's short story The Parting Gift is a masterclass in second person, providing the reader a devastating proximity to a young woman leaving a troubled childhood home.

Lily, recently moved to a flat in Belfast after the death of her mother, is struggling in her isolation. When she encounters Siobhan, a girl who lives in the flat upstairs, Lily perceives her as someone who has a happier, fuller life than her own. Lily fantasises about them forming a friendship, being out for a drink together, but she cannot see any way to bring this about. Overall, it was a great exploration of character as there wasn’t much in terms of plot. But I loved the writing style and how their pasts were explored, especially Lily’s through mundane memories and conversations with her mum. These moments were witty and full of emotion and that’s what won me over. Since her mother's death, Lily has withdrawn from the world, trapped between grief and anger. She has to break out of this damaging cycle - but how? For fans of I MAY DESTROY YOU and ADULTS, readers who want to laugh, cry, gasp and nod along. The brilliantly brave and darkly funny story of a girl's tortuous and spectacular journey to womanhood, stopping at each year along the way. I think the longest sequence in the book involves a history exam, a Wetherspoons pub and a roundabout. It results in a climax to a number of things that have happened to her and I thought it was just an amazing piece of writing - chaotic and on the edge. MisfitIronically, we are left with the impression that Lily might be starting to find her way, while Siobhan has a longer road ahead.

In the hands of a skilled writer that lesser-spotted animal, the second-person voice, can be used to great effect in fiction. With its quirky, outsider narrator and atmosphere of discontent, this first novel has echoes of Tessa Kavanagh’s Things We Have in Common, Lottie Moggach’s Kiss Me First and Michelle Gallen’s recent debut Big Girl, Small Town.The so-called “pathfinders” were one of the lesser-known elite units of the second world war, but, as Will Iredale reveals in this mesmeric account, their contribution to Britain’s victory was vital. Their dangerous, often deadly task was to fly ahead of allied bombing raids into Germany and drop flares illuminating the key military targets. Iredale skilfully interweaves details of the brave pilots’ lives with a weighty account of British military strategy, which, as this book details, was risky and successful.

The story has all the makings of a great novel but it didn’t come together. The characters were too similar in many ways - Lily’s mother sounded a lot like Siobhán bizarrely. The episodes did not knit together well. None of the characters were likeable. Siobhán’s relationship with Andrew was interesting in a car-crash sense (hard to look away) but it wasn’t enough to save the book. The epilogue was incongruous and just left me shrugging, I didn’t care.In an apartment building in Belfast, two women wrestle with the sorrows and spectres of love and loss. The author interweaves questions on human nature, class, religion and identity into this complex story, and I found that interesting and engaging as well. But at the end of the day, the book is about how our relationship with our parents formed who we are today and still impacts our view of ourselves and our relationships with others. Lily seems to have reached peace, but Siobhan is still processing. It’s a hard read. But this author has a really good sense of cynical humour which helps. And you see that in the epilogue as well.