It\u2019s the early 1980s and our narrator, Lizzie Vogel, is about to leave home for the first time, and move from her village into the city of Leicester. Her first fulltime job is to be a dental assistant working for the awful JP and his partner Tammy. The job comes with its own flat, and initially reluctantly, Lizzie leaves the family home and moves in.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
There is much humour to be had early 1980s dentistry, the\nintroduction of McCain\u2019s Oven Chips and freemasonry. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
This is the third book in Nina Stibbe\u2019s wonderful series about Lizzie, although they all work as standalone novels. It follows Man at the Helm<\/a>,<\/em> when Lizzie and her sister tried to find a partner for their newly single mother, and Paradise Lodge<\/a> <\/em>where Lizzie worked part time in an old people\u2019s home while still at school. <\/p>\n\n\n\n The details are as ever pitch perfect. Lizzie devours waiting\nroom copies of magazines like Women\u2019s Own<\/em>,\ntells horror stories of meals in Fenwick\u2019s department store, and notes that a\nlocal accountant has built his own nuclear bunker, but it\u2019s supposed to be\nsecret.<\/p>\n\n\n\n As well as moving out, Lizzie is dealing with having her\nfirst proper boyfriend and learning to drive. But Lizzie moving out has meant that\nher mother is able to get on with a novel, a science fiction epic that she is\ndetermined will be published by Faber & Faber.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Stibbe handles all this masterfully, and it\u2019s the eye to\ndetail that absolutely convinces you. <\/p>\n\n\n\n