Lizzie is eighteen, keen to escape her slightly eccentric family and yet nervous about where her life may go. When she gets offered a job as a dentist's assistant, a job that comes with the flat above the surgery, it seems time to leave the family home and start supporting herself. It is 1980s Leicester and Lizzie is about to be thrown into a story of love, friendship, growing up, driving lessons and amateur dentistry.

This story fits with Nina Stibbe's other novels about the quirky Vogel family. However, I really don't think I have read them in the right order, not that this seems to matter too much. Lizzie is an engaging and naive narrator and her story is funny and charming. I've seen comparisons made between Stibbe and the late, great Sue Townsend - I can certainly understand this, as Lizzie has a touch of the innocence and humour that made Adrian Mole so popular, plus a wonderful cast of keenly-observed eccentrics around her.

This novel is at its best when it describes Lizzie navigating her everyday life - her interactions with her cantankerous dentist boss, her rather free-spirited mother, her snoozy driving instructor. I felt it was less successful when it got more serious, but that might be my personal taste - I wanted it to be happy and upbeat throughout.

Overall, I would definitely recommend this novel to those who enjoy humorous fiction in the vein of Adrian Mole - a naive protagonist adrift in an adult world that is hard to navigate. Lizzie is a sweet and charming narrator and you will want to read more of her story.

Reasons to be Cheerful by Nina Stibbe

This is a story about an eighteen year old young woman leaving her childhood home to embark on an independent life and a career quite improbably as a dental technician assisting an eccentric dentist in Leeds. Pretty much everyone in the story is somewhat eccentric or quirky in their own way - particularly her mother, an ex-alcoholic aspiring to be a writer, who suffers from depression and has had numerous, messy relationships.

It's an appealing and humorous read and one that I very much enjoyed. I do feel though as if I've encountered quite a slew of eccentric mothers in my recent reading - see, for example, The Queen of Bloody Everything, which I also enjoyed.

The story ambles along with a rather flat romance and various characters evolving a little as we go. Ultimately I'm not sure that I got much out of the story and lacked real curiosity about the characters.

Ultimately what makes this book worth reading is the humour - the observation and superb physical descriptions of the characters, the irony and the laugh out loud moments. It's a positive and heart warming experience reading Reasons to be Cheerful and it's actually quite compelling on subjects such as the importance in tackling mental health issues of caring for others and feeling that you've done something worthwhile even heroic in a modest way. This is a great book to read if you're feeling a little down.

I love Nina Stibbe’s writing. Reasons to be Cheerful is the latest episode in the semi-biographical ‘Vogel Saga’ based on her teenage years living (a lot like Adrian Mole before her) as a brainy working class teenager in early 1980’s Leicester with itchy feet and a loveably dysfunctional family.

The story is a prequel to ‘Love, Nina’ and I like it even better than that marvellous book. Lizzie, our heroine, goes to work for the hideous JP, a dentist who would give the demon tooth puller in The Little Shop of Horrors a run for his money; she lives away from home for the first time, she ponders on what she really wants from life and she falls in love, all with the background of that curious period in British social history between the end of punk-rock and the start of Margaret Thatcher tightening her grip. It is very nicely done - evocative, true to life and consistently funny and it pulls gently on the heartstrings without ever being sentimental.

Highly recommended for all fans of British comedy.

Lizzie is finding her way in 1980s Leicester, a girl becoming a woman as she becomes a dental assistant and moves on top of the practice. The novel kept me interested, but I wasn’t overly wowed by it. I picked it up in the middle of the night when I couldn’t sleep, coming across a major plot twist that really took me by surprise. It was true to life - happened to me in a way when I was 19 - but this twist felt odd in this story. Thus I have mixed feelings about this book to be honest!

Every book from Nina is an event, so it's great to be back with the Vogels and to hear the unique, ironic voice of Lizzie. From the first page you know you're in safe hands with comfortable characters that feel like old friends meeting new characters that expand and enlarge Lizzie's world and the reader's enjoyment. Much is being made of a more famous writer saying that Nina is the heir to Sue Townsend's throne, I also feel that her deft touch of irony and pathos embrace this caparison but also she has slight of hand of Victoria Wood, you'll be laughing one moment and ready to cry the next. The only complaint I could ever have about this series is like Wodehouse they are over too quickly, and you need to wait too long for the next instalment.

I love Nina Stibbe's writing with every fibre of my being. She is funny and has that wonderful knack of getting the balance between dark and light so perfectly in her writing so you can be hooting with laughter one moment and crying the next. She is perfection when it comes to writing about the strangeness of every day life and the confusion of relationships. I also love that she writes about Leicester. I have lived in Leicester on and off all my life, and am probably only a few years younger than Stibbe. Her evocation of the places I know so well gives me such satisfaction and nostalgia I can't really describe it. Someone described her as the rightful heir to Sue Townsend and I feel that's very true. This is the third book about the trials and tribulations of Lizzie Vogel, starting with Man At the Helm. I was delighted to meet her again in Reasons to be Cheerful and the book was utterly satisfying in every way.

I should start this by saying I am a huge Nina Stibbe fan, and I think it helps if you have read her other books first-Love Nina, paradise Lodge, and An Almost Perfect Christmas. Reasons to be cheerful follows on from the paradise lodge days, detailing Lizzies foray into the world of dental nursing and living alone. I find Nina’s writing so humorous, it’s just like reading your own diary as you fire through it quickly- if I was as witty as Nina that is! I love the references to magazines, shops, even food that take you back in time, and the crazy tales of her family members- in particular her mother. I adore Nina and hope she continues with further autobiographies in a similar vein!

1980. Leicester. Lizzie finds herself employed as assistant to unorthodox dentist Mr Wintergreen, and resident in the flat above the surgery

I had read and enjoyed all of this author's previous books so I was grateful for the opportunity to read this one. Lizzie starts working for a dentist and moves into her own flat, gets a boyfriend, learns to drive.