Frittelli, John (February 8, 2008). "Ship navigation in harbors: safety issues" (PDF). U.S. Congressional Research Service. Archived from the original (PDF) on 28 May 2008 . Retrieved 6 August 2019. Stibbe scores many hits with this undoubtedly funny setup: her ear for off-kilter dialogue is as brilliantly tuned as it was in Love, Nina; and she is a maestro of bathos, continually undercutting vivid gaiety with moments of horrible sadness. But the novel is also problematically episodic, going from one hair-raising drama or sharp vignette to another without enough regard for the importance of pacing and tempo. Her conversational tone both muddies our sense of who the narrator is – a child, or an adult recollecting childhood? – and gives the impression of a writer uncertain of how to get to the next thing. Noel, John V. Jr. (1991-01-16). Knight's Modern Seamanship. John Wiley & Sons. pp.259–260. ISBN 978-0-471-28948-7.

Man at the Helm by Nina Stibbe | Waterstones

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at the helm

The book is told purely from Lizzie's perspective, I found this got very boring after a while. The characters have no opportunity to shine either, I found them all very flat and one dimensional. This book should have been amazing, but it just wasn't. Ron Rash is renowned for his writing about Appalachia, but his latest book, The Caretaker, begins ... Love this one, or dislike this one, that's up to you now. It did not float my boat or ring my bell. I think I could have skipped to the end chapter and missing NOTHING in the middle. It just doesn't have anything spectacular going on, it's paced quite slow and that does not alter at all and after a while it's a bit like the same story on repeat. It's certainly not as funny as indicated it might be, which is a shame as I was looking forward to that. Overall it was a very average and "okay" read in my opinion. It has some moments that are great but the majority is as bland as watered down custard.

Man at the Helm,’ Nina Stibbe’s Comic First Novel Review: ‘Man at the Helm,’ Nina Stibbe’s Comic First Novel

After Lizzie's mother had listened to her husband's phone call, the following morning she took a pan of eggs and flung it over her husband. He screamed like a girl expecting it to be hot and fell of his chair. I was planning on giving this book a solid four stars. It is funny. And clever. It has this perfect balance between darkness and humor; pain and hitting your funnybone. But then I decided I had to give it five stars because dear Lord look at all these people that have given it 2 stars or a DNF. And look at its overall rating. It certainly deserves higher than a 3.54. It's got some sad tones underneath really, things like the girls traveling to London on trains on their own (aged nine and twelve) to get their mother's pills from the only doctor in the country that will prescribe them. It's not stated what the pills are but good hints indicate they are something like Valium. Tragedy for these girls, playing the parental role almost in role reversal.Nina Stibbe's first book was one of last year's buzziest debuts, the coverage it attracted partly down to its curiosity value: Love, Nina was a collection of the letters that the author, then 20, wrote to her sister Victoria describing her life as a semi-competent nanny in the intellectually rigorous and mildly bohemian Camden household of Mary‑Kay Wilmers, editor of the London Review of Books. Alan Bennett lived over the road and popped in to eat his dinner while delivering characteristically double-edged appraisals of it; if you wanted to borrow a saw, you had only to go a few doors down and ask Jonathan Miller. It's not hard to see why this insider account was catnip for highbrow nosy parkers. If you liked 'Love, Nina' (and if you didn't, stop reading my review, we're clearly not going to get on), you will love this too.