Nina Stibbe can do no wrong - yet another brilliant memoir. Would absolutely recommend.

With thanks to NetGalley and the publisher.

Lizzie is 15 years old, bored at school and living in a dysfunctional family with no money to buy anything other than 'econo coffee'. This being the 1970s in the East Midlands, Lizzie decides to get a part-time job to buy shampoo and nice clothes from Chelsea Girl and that's how she ends up working at Paradise Lodge. The Lodge is a care home run on a shoestring and peopled by eccentrics, both staff and patients. Whilst at Paradise Lodge Lizzie falls in love, is removed from the 'O level stream', blackmailed by her Deputy Headteacher and grows up a little.

Nina Stibbe is a writer who has a very authentic voice which works incredibly well in this genre. She has a knack of picking out the cultural references that pepper her books, here referring to events (the deaths of Elvis and Marc Bolan), fashion (punk, hair dye and shampoo) and media (Starchy and Hutch) that resonate with her readers. No-one could describe this as being a deep and meaningful book, it is a series of amusing vignettes, but it it written with huge gusto and is laugh out loud funny at times.

I loved this, probably more than other books by Nina Stibbe. The story takes place in a nursing home and sees Lizzie Vogel, an insightful and strong-willed teenager, finding her feet in the world of care - and missing a lot of school along the way.

Stibbe is extremely adept at using humour; at creating a world from the 70s that those who were brought up then can identify with. Okay, so elements of it are formulaic and somewhat unsurprising - for example, the way she uses parenthesis frequently to explain a character's thoughts. However, 'Paradise Lodge' certainly provides a light-hearted look at the world, while at the same time showing elements of pathos - such as when beloved residents pass away.

If you want a read that brings a smile (in fact - many smiles!), this is definitely worth a few hours' reading time.