Paradise Lodge
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4.1 • 9 Ratings
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- $13.99
Publisher Description
A delightful story of growing up, getting old, and every step in between, from the acclaimed author of Man at the Helm and Love, Nina.
After succeeding in her quest to help her unconventional mother find a new "man at the helm," fifteen-year-old Lizzie Vogel simply wants to be a normal teenager. Just when it looks as if things have settled down, her mother goes and has another baby. On top of that, Lizzie's best friend has deserted her for the punk craze, which Lizzie finds too exhausting to commit to herself.
But Lizzie soon gets more commitment than she bargained for when she takes a job as a junior nurse at Paradise Lodge, a ramshackle refuge for the elderly that has seen better days. It's no place for a teenager, much less one with as little experience emptying a bedpan as Lizzie. What begins as away to avoid school and earn some spending money (for the finer things in life, like real coffee and beer shampoo) quickly turns into the education of a lifetime. Lizzie encounters a colorful cast of eccentric characters -- including a nurse determined to turn one of the patients into a husband (and a retirement plan); an efficient but clueless nun trying to modernize the place; and Lizzie's unlikely first love -- who become her surrogate family.
When Paradise Lodge faces a crisis in the form of a rival nursing home with enough amenities to make even the comatose jealous, Lizzie must find a way to save her job before she loses the only place she's ever felt she belongs. A hilarious and heartfelt coming-of-age tale, Paradise Lodge proves that it's never too early -- or too late -- to grow up.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
If Cassandra from Dodie Smith's I Capture the Castle was a teenager in the 1970s working at a Leicestershire nursing home, she would be just like Lizzie Vogel, the narrator of Stibbe's latest. Lizzie, a schoolgirl who just wants to make enough money to buy Linco Beer shampoo, takes a job as an auxiliary nurse at Paradise Lodge, an old folks' home as close to death as some of its residents. Her grades suffer as she almost single-handedly runs the home while the supposed adults in charge take advantage of her earnestness. The matron expects her to miss class to fill in shifts, the owner abandons all thought of laundry, and the trained nurses leave her in charge of patients. Even though she's only 15, Lizzie cares deeply about both the other staff and the residents, many of whom could have easily become caricatures but instead are as richly drawn as the dilapidated manor house in which they live. Stibbe (Man at the Helm) manages to make Lizzie sincere and na ve without being syrupy or precious, and creates a story that helps readers understand human nature a little better.
