Reasons to be cheerful /

A can-do attitude, ""cleverly worded"" cover letter, and spirited interview land unqualified but ""dentally particular"" teen Lizzie Vogel a job as dental assistant to J.P. Wintergreen in Leicester, England, 1980. Last seen in Paradise Lodge (2016), Lizzie enjoys the work, especially when charming technician Andy is around, which makes it a bit easier to tolerate the xenophobic, lazy, and generally revolting Wintergreen. The job also comes with its own apartment above the office, and Lizzie is surprised she enjoys living alone. Free from (though missing) her raucous family, she finds time to explore back issues of women's magazines, much to her literature-devoted mother's dismay, and starts writing columns she never submits. The apartment also allows Lizzie to host friends, particularly Andy. But is he just a friend? Lizzie is a dream narrator, entertaining and companionable as she tries to figure out where she and Andy stand (and whether horror he's taken up with her belovedly eccentric mother), learns to drive, and even performs some ad-hoc dentistry on the QT. Winner of England's Wodehouse Prize for Comic Fiction, Stibbe presents the third and final novel starring Lizzie Man at the Helm (2015) was first is heart-skippingly funny, but also psychologically incisive, socially adept, and disarmingly poignant.--Annie Bostrom Copyright 2019 Booklist

Stibbe's charming latest (after An Almost Perfect Christmas) chronicles how 18-year-old Lizzie Vogel navigates young adulthood while working at a dental practice in 1980s Leicester, England. With some nursing experience under her belt and a way with words, Lizzie finds a job as a dental assistant for the intolerant and often thoughtless JP Wintergreen. Lizzie helps out JP's part-time employee turned girlfriend, Tammy, who remains a friendly, if overbearing, presence. Their personal foibles--such as JP's desire to join the Freemasons and Tammy's fertility issues--often spill into the workplace. Through the practice, Lizzie becomes involved with childhood acquaintance Andy, now a lab tech, though their love life suffers after her mom, Elizabeth, takes him in as a boarder and takes a shine to him that Lizzie worries might be romantic. Stibbe nicely captures the tug of love and exasperation at the heart of this mother-daughter relationship, and also successfully writes quirky characters that don't come off as cutesy or forced. She's particularly adept at inhabiting a daughter's forgiving eye of her mother's past alcoholism and other dark times. Stibbe's memorable characterizations and storytelling talent hold steady as a tragedy in Lizzie's life suddenly unfurls. This novel treats readers to a rare voice that captivates with pathos and humor. (July)

Quirky, British, and on the cusp of adulthood, Lizzie Vogel is starting a new chapter of her life, which will include guerrilla dentistry, her first dinner party, and possibly a romance with Andy Nicolello, whose mother may be even more eccentric than her own ("Mine: drunk, divorcee, nudist, amphetamine addict, nymphomaniac, shoplifter, would-be novelist, poet, playwright").In two earlier volumes, Stibbe (Paradise Lodge, 2016, etc.) has traced the chaotic but disarming history of the Vogels as experienced by middle child Lizzie. Now 18, Lizzie no longer works part time at the Paradise Lodge old people's home, having accepted a proper job as assistant to hateful, racist dentist JP Wintergreen. The position comes with an apartment over the practice, and Lizzie encounters the mixed blessings of freedom and loneliness there; she finds solace reading women's magazines, which inspire dreams of a future, in London, writing columns of her own like "Eleven Warning Signs that Your Husband Is Bored with His Food." Deadpan yet droll, and no kind of rebel, Lizzie is taking her first unsteady steps into adulthoodlearning to drive, buying a clingy dress (to be worn without panties), and exploring the possibility of intimacy with handsome yet diffident Andy. Andy works for the Mercurial Dental Laboratory, so is always dropping in, but the couple bonds over the use of Lizzie's Hoover Aristocrat washer/dryer and a spot of illegal dental work to help out a friend of her mother's. Stibbe, a master of low-key observation and throwaway punchlines, captures Lizzie's romantic uncertainty and open, sometimes-wounded heart while also pointing up the intermittent absurdity and restrictions of life for women in provincial England in the early 1980s.An idiosyncratic, bittersweet coming-of-age tale that certainly justifies its title. Copyright Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.