This is the story of life of an ordinary English woman from her life in the 1990's to the present. Susan is in university, studying English with plans to maybe teach. She works part time in a sewing shop to make ends meet and there she meets Norma who will become her best and longest friend. Susan's plans are put on hold when she meets Roy Warren and soon is pregnant. Instead of returning to her studies, she marries Roy and has her daughter Honey.

When the shop closes as women's lives change and sewing becomes less popular, Susan works a number of jobs. She ends up working at the local university, starting as a part timer and working her way up until she becomes the personal assistant to the Chancellor. Along the way, she keeps up her friendship with Norma who gets her degree in English and has much more career success. The book ends with the coming of the covid pandemic and how that affects the life of Susan and the university.

This was my first Nina Stibbe book and I listened to this novel. It had no real passion or threats, just the everyday life of a woman with its ups and downs. Susan is a survivor who takes what life gives her and looks for the best in everyone and every situation. Norma is a stranger character who often backstabs Susan or goes out of her way to be secretive with her. But the friendship endures and when Susan needs her, Norma usually eventually comes through. This book is recommended for women's and literary fiction readers.

3.5 Stars*
I originally received a copy of this book from Net Galley.
"One Day I Shall Astonish the World" follows Susan throughout her life. Susan met her best friend, Norma, at a job at The Pin Cushion in the 90's. Now, thirty years later they still remain friends, but Susan is questioning whether she made all of the right decisions in her life, including Norma.
One thing I really appreciated about this story was that it felt paced exceptionally well. The entire story spans over thirty years, and that is not always an easy thing for an author to keep up with, however, I never felt lost or like I was missing anything from Susan's character. The story progressed in a logical way.
Susan is such a relatable character. Her life was not always easy, and life definitely threw her some major curveballs, but she always made the most of her situation. She also always believed that one day she would astonish the world, and I loved that. She took a path that many people in circle scoffed at, but she believed in herself, and she always knew that she was destined for greatness. This is the type of main character I want to see represented, especially for a more mature protagonist. Her life did not turn out how she imagined at 20, but it was still beautiful, and it is never too late to start over, if that is what you want to do.
I disliked pretty much everyone Susan surrounded herself with. I felt like her partner and friend were so unsupportive and quick to rain on her parade. Susan is so special, and I hated not seeing that reciprocated for her. I do think this provides a very important message about friendship. Sometimes people are only meant to be in your life for a season, and that is okay. Everyone in Susan's life provided a purpose and helped her to achieve where she ultimately ends up, but just because someone was kind to you 30 years ago, does not mean you have to keep them in your life forever.
I highly recommend this book, and I look forward to reading more from Nina Stibbe in the future.

This was a heartfelt story about the friendship between Norma and Susan. Give it a shot if you like light summer reads.

One Day I Shall Astonish the World by Nina Stibbe @ninastibbe

I picked it up for its 'astonishing' cover (really, isn't it lovely?) and stayed on for the wonderful story of Susan and Norma's friendship, IF we can call it friendship.

This is a 'friendship' story unlike most others I've read where are friends are ready to sacrifice their all. I find them pretty disgusting, to be honest. Disgusting in how unreal they seem to me. Ofcourse, this may not be the case for others. However, as someone who has had serious issues around 'friendships' , Nina Stibbe's story comes as a refreshingly honest take on a human relationship that, in many ways, is above all else. I loved how the changing power dynamics between Susan and Norma were shown and how there were elements of envy, competition, bitterness (even if just a sprinkling) thrown in coz isn't that how people are? The imbalance in their relationship is palpable from the very beginning and takes more structure and form over the years.
Through most of the story I hated Norma. And even as I hated her, I found her saying things which I might have said in those circumstances. So, well...no prizes for guessing why I ain't good at friendships. 🤷🏽‍♀️

Anyway, I loved the book. Thanks @hachetteaudio and @netgalley for sharing an ARC 🙂

🌟🌟🌟💫 (April'22)

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A tale of two women. On one hand we have Susan, the dishwater dull protagonist who shows early academic and intellectual promise that she fails to live up to. On the other hand we have Norma, an almost sociopathically independent woman who excels at everything she touches. These two friends meet in their youth when Susan takes a job in the fabric shop owned by Norma's parents. Despite Susan's technical seniority, Norma is made manageress (Susan's/Stibbe's word, not mine) because of her family connection, and this sets the stage for the entirety of their relationship for the next two decades.

It's light, and it's clever, and I think it does a great job of presenting the perceived dichotomy of female choices in an older generation (eg. you can have the baby or the career), and contrasting it with the much more open, not-bound-by-gender nature of the younger generation.

Highlight: the misunderstanding about the name of the turtle leading to a dramatic reveal of parentage that literally no one engages with.
Lowlight: Covid as deus ex machina that finally shakes up the dynamic in Norma and Susan's friendship.

Thank you to #NetGalley and Hachette for the ARC.

Mixed feelings. I think that the authoress Nina Stibbe has very good skills in capturing the everyday highs and lows of a lifetime female friendships. I find the deadpan/upper stiff lip mannerisms and the very typical British middle class behaviour being quite spot-on, accompanied with that typical English humour.
Yet...why are Susan and Norma friends? Do they ever...think about themselves and their lives? I think that the more I was with their story the more I have started to see them somehow as the caricatures of females, not real characters. The authoress luckily can play with the subplots and we see both sides of the both women during the years - their blind spots, but also their good sides and deeds. But i would love for them to actively question the state of their lives and the realities of their relationships, as they do not lead their lives, they only follow the events as the world goes by (or at least the narrator of the story, Susan, does - Norma has some decisions under her belt).
The novel loses the steam towards the end, at least the last third of the novel is anecdotal (even if it deals with the realities of a starting pandemic). Also and the ending part is quite abrupt, or it seems like if the authoress has planned to write more, but suddenly decided to end the novel here. Or should it signal the start of Susan´s emancipation in life (finally)?

I´d say the execution is quite good. I only wish for a more nuanced and more deep plot, the soul of the story.

Ms Joanna Scanlan, the narrator of the audiobook, is great. She truly elevates the story to next level with her skillful, nuanced work. I do not think that I would enjoy the listening experience so much with the different narrator. Ms Scanlan truly embodies the characters.

I enjoyed this overall, and was grateful to listen to ONE DAY I SHALL ASTONISH THE WORLD on audio because I really connected with narrator Joanna Scanlan.

Female friendship has become a favorite theme for me in books, and I can’t wait to read more by this author!

*many thanks to Hachette Audio/Netgalley for the gifted copy for review

I’m certain there’s no shortage of books that examine the intricacies of a friendship over decades. Friendships can be tested at various junctures in a person’s life, particularly when people choose partners, become parents, experience successes or failures, or if there is significant financial inequity. The challenge in writing a novel about such events and the impact of these on the friendship, is that the compressed timeline can render events overly dramatic.

Another danger in the friendship story is that it becomes one-sided. Invariably, one friend has all the luck while the other has only misfortune.

Somehow Nina Stibbe sidesteps the pitfalls, and in One Day I Shall Astonish the World she has created an authentic story that captures the see-sawing of Susan and Norma’s friendship over many decades.

The women meet during a university break,. Both working in a haberdashery shop, they have big plans for what comes next, and it’s also the first hint that Norma is the pushier and brasher of the two. Thirty years on, their lives have taken quite different paths and Susan, with a husband who is seeking immortality (despite not eating vegetables aside from iceberg lettuce and baked beans) and a daughter who is ‘challenging’, begins to wonder whether she has made the right choices about life, love, and work. Meanwhile, Norma’s focus on her academic career has come with its own costs.

Initially you might think that Stibbe has set the reader up to feel sorry for Susan, who hasn’t fulfilled the academic pursuits she once craved. However, descriptions of Norma’s life reveal a different kind of thinness, and although Stibbe stretched this a little too much toward the end, there’s enough there to give the reader pause and to weigh up what’s at stake for each of the women.

There are some genuine laugh-out-loud moments in this book, and I enjoyed the very gentle demonstration of ‘you can’t have it all’. But the real joy comes from the careful and accurate depiction of friendship, with its love and laughs, and grievances and resentments. Does it stray into the territory of ‘frenemies’? Probably. Is the friendship unevenly balanced? Yes, at times. But it also highlights that we can be distracted by the idea of ‘the grass is greener’, without stopping to consider whether we like green grass in the first place.

3/5 Wait for summer and enjoy it as a beach read.

I received an audio copy of One Day I Shall Astonish the World from the publisher, Hachette Audio, via NetGalley, in exchange for an honest review.

The kind of fiction that you would have mix feeling about this book, it's one of those books that you seem to like and feel uncomfortable about!
The story follows Susan's life and her long friendship with Norma, they have been best friends for a long time. But you'll keep wondering why are they friends?
Susan was a student in English literature when she dropped out after finding out she was pregnant, she got married and didn't finish her studies. Norma didn't like or support that decision, and she was very loud with her opinions. At the same time, Norma has been studying geology and found new interest in literature, she changed majors, pursue her academical profession and become a professor in the same university.
Norma is a weird person and the friendship between the two women is weird.

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I enjoyed this tons. It reminded me of how I as a reader feel so involved in everything that is going on with the protagonist's life and all the characters that Susan and Norma connect with.

I love stories like this :)

However, for most, this could be a hit (like in my case) or a miss.

I received a complimentary copy of this audiobook. Opinions expressed in this review are completely my own.

This ended up being quite a middle of the road book for me. For the first half or so I was enjoying it; the writing is funny, I was getting to know all of the characters. But once I made past that halfway mark the story just lost me a little bit. The characters slowly started to get on my nerves - some of them were just down right awful - I didn't really understand their choices or the motivation for them, and there were bits of the story/relationships that just felt unresolved, even at the very end.

A gently humorous, quintessentially lower middle class English novel about a small life that ultimately blossoms. Though it starts in the 1990’s and moves to the present day, it has a much more old fashioned feel to it, particularly in the early days which, with its names and fashions, seem more like the 1950’s or 60’s.

Sue’s life in the fictional university town of Brancombe is bound by her lack of ambition and unwillingness to expand her boundaries. While she’s studying English at university, she has a temporary part time job in a haberdashery shop where she meets her future husband, Roy, and her future best friend, Norma.

When she accidentally falls pregnant, she gives up her studies and settles into an uneventful life. Over the course of many years, Sue develops a low level career at the local university and watches Norma pursue a career as an academic, marry twice, live in Copenhagen, and generally live the sort of expansive life that Sue once aspired to. It’s only when the COVID pandemic strikes, that Sue finally comes into her own.

I found this a frustrating novel full of irritating people. Sue is an observer of the minutiae of life, a garrulous small talker who passively allows herself to be bullied and manipulated by Norma. Norma shamelessly takes from Sue, sucking up her education, stealing her ideas, even copying the wedding dress Sue never got to wear, all the while patronizing and belittling Sue. Roy gradually becomes indifferent, and passive aggressive and their marriage chugs along without much input from either of them. Only their daughter, Honey, and her friend Darnley are (ultimately) supportive towards Sue.

As the pandemic hits, Sue finally finds her voice and her backbone but while this was a satisfying resolution, for me, it was many wasted years and far too much of the novel too late.

The audiobook is narrated by Joanna Scanlon who does a credibly nuanced job of keeping Sue’s voice in character without being too grating. As Sue is narrating the novel from the present day, she has an older voice which feels a little out of place for her younger days but works ok. She does a good job of voicing the different characters appropriately and keeping them separate - her Norma is particularly good.

Thanks to Hachette Audio and Netgalley for the audiobook review copy.

While the narrator was excellent, she captured the deadpan manner of the narrator perfectly, the story itself wasn't really holding my interest. I would drift off after 30 minutes and not feel as though I missed much. I am an audio learner, and I listen to over 100 books a year. When I drift, it is rarely the narrator's fault and it is almost always that the material didn't keep me going. Books about life are my thing, but this book about life just fell flat somehow. I can't put my finger on it, but I just didn't love it like I thought I would.

The narration was fabulous! The material not so much. I didn’t really like this book much, I feel bad saying that but it just was rather boring.
We follow Susan and Norma over the course of a 30 year friendship and their what goes on during their lives.
This just wasn’t for me, the author is talented but the story just was missing a spark to keep me engaged, spot on narrator tho.
Thank you to NetGalley for the audio arc in exchange for an honest review.

Thank you to Little Brown and NetGalley for providing this ALC in exchange for an honest review!

I love a book about family drama and long term friendships, but this one just didn't quite fill everything I was looking for. To start, the book is pretty long, and I didn't find a lot of the events that took place to be super exciting, so I was losing my interest a little bit while reading. With that being said, I also wasn't a huge fan of either Susan or Norma, because they just didn't seem very well suited to be friends, and overall were not very good to each other. I think there is a lot of charm to this book, but it wasn't quite was I was hoping for.

Thank you Net Galley and Hatchett Audio for this advanced copy of One Day I Shall Astonish the World. The book takes the reader through the journey of the narrator meeting her husband and best friend in the 1990s, to the present day pandemic.
I thoroughly enjoyed reading this book, although I did not find the main characters particularly likeable. The relationship between Susan and Norma is challenged by their life choices and the diverging paths that they take after working together one summer. Susan becomes occupied with marriage and motherhood, Norma pursues higher education. Their friendship at times very close, and at time strained, ultimately provides a safe space for both women who learn to grow together. The book is humorous, with underlying tension between the characters that has you rooting for a penultimate resolution.

A well-written, character-driven tale with a good narrator. A recommended purchase for collections where slice of life stories are popular.

This book spans a bit over 30 years, and follows the very dysfunctional friendship of two women. Their dysfunction is fully embraced by the author, and was definitely comical. I did laugh out loud a few times while reading this. However, the characters in One Day I Shall Astonish the World were not likable, and it was hard to find someone to root for.

Thank you Hachette Audio, Little, Brown & Company, and Netgalley for providing an ARC in exchange for an honest review.

Thank you to NetGalley and the publishers for the opportunity to listen to this audio book in return for an honest review.
Synopsis
From the beloved author of Love, Nina, a frank, tender, and poignantly funny story about the ebb and flow of female friendship over half a lifetime.

Susan and Norma have been best friends for years, at first thrust together by force of circumstance (a job at The Pin Cushion, a haberdashery shop in 1990s Leicestershire) and then by force of character (neither being particularly inclined to make friends with anyone else). But now, thirty years later, faced with a husband seeking immortality and Norma out of reach on a wave of professional glory, Susan begins to wonder whether she has made the right choices about life, love, work, and, most importantly, friendship.

Nina Stibbe's new novel is the story of the wonderful and sometimes surprising path of friendship: from its conspiratorial beginnings, along its irritating wrong turns, to its final gratifying destination.

This was right up my street. A darkly comical monologue spanning 30 years of marriage, children, friendship’s, frenemyship, deceit, honesty career and the sort of life ramblings that make up rich tapestry of humanity. But the wit and humour is excellent. The narration is magnificent and I thoroughly enjoyed every minute. A side note that towards the end the book covers the Covid 19 pandemic, and while I’ve read a fair few books set in Covid times now. This one didn’t seem in poor taste at all. Although I appreciate it’s still a horrific situation for a lot of people.

This was such a fun, lighthearted read and I really enjoyed it. Dysfunctional relationships, dysfunctional friends and just the perfect escape. Set from the 1990's to the current day. Its not often I want a bigger book but I feel more about the sisters growing up would have been beneficial. It seemed to jump a lot of this stage. The nostalgia of the 90's was good but again I would have loved more. The narrator was great and made it such an easy listen.