This was a stressful reading experience, rife with anxiety, but in a good way. I would compare it to the reading experience of "The Guest" by Emma Cline because both have this creeping feeling toward a date in the future for the main character and you as the reader don't know if they'll make it or how they'll get through it. The descriptions of food and cooking in the novel are unlike any other literary fiction I've read and I found them the most rich prose in the book. The description of Piglet's feelings almost paled in comparison to her experiences with food and cooking, but I think that may be on purpose! I would recommend this to readers of "sad girl lit fic" which is a category I belong in. It reminded me of a cross between "Sorrow and Bliss" by Meg Mason and "Fleabag" which to me is a compliment!

"Piglet" by Lottie Hazell is a Literary Fiction Debut Novel!

The main character, Piglet, has carefully recreated herself around her relationship with Kit, the man she will be marrying in 98 days.

She has a new home in one of the best areas, a wonderful job as a cookbook editor, and prepares great meals served at effortless dinner parties. Then, thirteen days before the perfectly planned wedding, her loving and caring fiancé, Kit, tells Piglet something that quietly devastates her...

"Piglet" is a story that won me over quickly and I swallowed it whole in one afternoon. Less than 300 pages and not quite 8 hours made this a perfect choice as an immersion read. The audiobook narrated by Rebecca Hinds was my preference, but either format will deliver a great experience.

There are many pieces and parts to Piglet's story. We learn about her past growing up, the life she carefully constructs with Kit, and her present state as she begins to consume Kit's shocking news. Piglet's pain is palpable as she envisions her dream fading away.

The descriptions of the many delicious dishes add flavor to a story that draws unique comparisons between living life and following recipes. This story has an engaging writing style, a diverse selection of likable and not-so-likable characters, and storytelling that's creative, original, and different. It's the type of story you keep thinking about long after finishing it.

If you enjoy a great character study with interesting wordplay, "Piglet" is a satisfying option I highly recommend!

5⭐

Thank you to NetGalley, Henry Holt and Co., Macmillan Audio, and Lottie Hazell for a DRC and an ALC of this book through NetGalley. It has been a pleasure to give my honest and voluntary review.

Piglet is a very interesting debut that will be very divisive, imo. It's written largely in dialogue and extremely descriptive cooking sequences. It’s got that awkward everyone-is-unlikable British flavor that I've come to love over the past couple of years - but again rubs some readers the wrong way. Putting all of this together and still creating a propulsive read is a heavy lift, esp for a debut author, but Hazell does that. The chapters are short, the tension is extremely high, everything is a countdown sequence and as the book hits the third act the crescendo is not unlike the horrible train wrecks on an episode of the Great British Bake Off.

From the jacket - "when Kit confesses a horrible betrayal two weeks before they’re set to be married, Piglet finds herself suddenly…hungry. The couple decides to move forward with the wedding as planned, but as it nears, and Piglet balances family expectations, pressure at work, and her quest to make the perfect cake, she finds herself increasingly unsettled, behaving in ways even she can’t explain."

I think the biggest strength/weakness of Piglet is that Hazell doesn't hold your hand or spell anything out for you. We get big reveal type information in shockingly light and unimportant feeling passages, but more often we get no reveal at all. I happen to really enjoy an open-ended narrative but a large number of the 1 and 2 star reviews are disappointed with the lack of clarity and lack of revelatory information. Know thyself reader. The second caveat is the food and cooking descriptions - when I tell you that the entire novel is the food and the dialogue, I mean it. the descriptions of cooking are as detailed as you will find and are plentiful throughout the book and go on for pages, so if that's something that would be an issue, again reader know thyself. I will say that I was prepared to be troubled by disordered eating, and while I wouldn't pass this book on to a person with a history with ED, I also was surprised to find that it was much less a factor than I anticipated.

Thanks to NetGalley and Henry Holt & Company for the ARC of this book in exchange for my honest feedback.

This was a strong debut from Lottie Hazell, and I look forward to her future works! That said, I did have some issues with this book. Let's start off with the great parts of it - it was fast paced, had some of the best descriptions of cooking + food I've ever read, and did a good job building tension. However, the writing at times felt clunky, almost? It didn't flow well, and I feel like we spent too much time on certain aspects of the story, and not enough on others. I needed more on Piglet's past with Kit and her own family. By the end of the book, I felt incomplete and wanting more. If you enjoy reading books about food and the female rage, you might enjoy this book more than me and I'd recommend giving it a read!

Thank you to NetGalley and Henry Holt & Company for letting me read this title!

Many thanks to NetGalley, Henry Holt & Company, and Macmillan Audio for gifting me both a digital and audio ARC of this debut novel by Lottie Hazell, with the audio perfectly narrated by Rebekah Hinds - 4.5 stars!

The clock is ticking down towards Piglet's marriage to Kit. She's happy with her life (besides maybe that childhood nickname!) - she's a cookbook editor, has great friends including Margot, her best friend since childhood, and Kit is more than she could have dreamed for. Until he makes a confession 2 weeks before their wedding date. Suddenly, Piglet is ravenous as she tries to navigate her new reality.

This was a darkly funny, yet poignant character study of someone trying desperately to fit into the expected molds, but at what cost? I loved Piglet's relationship with her sister and the backstory behind their nicknames - totally endeared her to me. Both sets of parents leave much to be desired and you can feel Piglet's angst and understand her desire to fill those empty spots. I loved the way the story played out - the author didn't present things in black and white, but left the reader to fill in the blanks. And all those food descriptions - amazing! I can't wait to read more from this author!

I appreciate getting an arc of this and I genuinely went in, trying to push through but it wasn’t as gripping as I needed it to be. I didn’t get past 25%.

Wow. I've never read anything quite like Piglet. If you have a history with disordered eating, I would take care with this book, but wow does it lay out so much about women's very complicated relationship with food. I'll be thinking about this for a very long time.

Damn! This book makes me angry. It makes me tense. It makes me want to hug a character who was, without apology, caller "Piglet" by almost every person in her life for the entirety of the book. She was stamped by circumstances almost no one in her life understood. She was one of two daughters, both with a body dismorphea. Both by an eating disorder. Only one by the unacceptable results. I was angry as a woman had to decide whether she was worthy of expecting respect, loyalty, fidelity, support...

I was angry that she seemed to agree with the, mostly men, who believed she should settle. I was super pissed that she could not get support and was constantly judged by strangers.

I was left open and raw with the unreconciled ending. In my mind, Pippa moves past all of this and lives her life on her terms-neither fasting nor gorging in reaction to others. Just deciding how she wanted to live. Imagine women being allowed to live the life they wanted.

What a mixed-up bag of emotions that this book left me holding. The author weaves a tale with great eye for detail and if there is one warning that I could give you is don't read this book hungry or snackless. You will find yourself rummaging about for all sorts of food to eat or headed off to the shop to grab the ingredients for meals you didn't know you wanted. The relationship to food for Piglet, our main character, as well as for her sister is definitely mired in mental health. For the sister, it could be written off as body confidence issues, but anyone who has battled or knows someone battling anorexia is fully aware that is an oversimplification that doesn't begin to chip away at the iceberg of mental health blocks that anorexia truly is. For Piglet, she started out attempting to hide her sister's issues and later uses food as a way to showcase her version of the perfect life. The story is really an in depth look at believing the lies that we weave for others. All you need to do to understand what I mean is to look at social media to see the carefully curated and often faked "view" into our friends and acquaintances lives to see what I mean. Piglet wove the life she thought she wanted and we come in as she is counting down to the perfect wedding to the perfect groom from the perfect family that she aspires to belong to. However, it all comes crumbling down as the cracks become crevices that become chasms that can't be put back together in the same perfect way. What would you do? Would you live life as a lie and hope you will eventually find some happiness or toss it and start over to attempt to find real happiness? This is the story of a woman who must make that exact decision. I can't say that I liked all the decisions that she made, but I can empathize and understand the momentum of life carrying you forward. I finished this book and my emotions are still a swirling storm so I will definitely say that this author is extremely talented as she still has me worked up a full day later. I'm intrigued to see what else she has written and what she might come up with next!

This book was such a mix for me -- I couldn't put it down while reading and thought about it often, but parts of it made me so frustrated.

We first meet Piglet as she is settling in to the house she and Kit have just bought, and are working on fine tuning their wedding plans. The first part of the book counts down in days until the wedding. Piglet is a cook book editor and most of her life revolves around food. Kit makes a big confession to her less than two weeks before the wedding, and Piglet grapples with how to move forward with this new information.

The food descriptions were so vivid - I could picture all the food so well. Some parts sounded so good it made me want to try it right away, and some made me feel very glad I wasn't reading this while eating.

Parts of this book gave me so much secondhand embarrassment and that made it hard to read at times -- but I really had no idea how it was going to turn out and I couldn't wait to find out.

I will be curious to see what Lottie Hazell writes next! I thought the writing was so engaging and made me feel actual emotion - which is not always the case.

Thank you to NetGalley for the advanced copy of this book!

I definitely requested this book purely on the cover and title.

After I started reading it, it surprised me...I found I couldnt put it down.

Definitely a "weird book for weird girls" and I was there for it.

I wish I could re-read it for the first time all over again.

I loved this book! I sat down to read it on a friday evening and I didn't get up once until I was finished. Hazell has written a brilliant novel and I cannot wait for her next one. Piglet starts on 98 days from her wedding to her fiance Kit. Piglet and Kit have purchased a home and seem to be the perfect marriage, but quite quickly you realize there are cracks appearing on the surface. Piglet, a nickname given by her family and still what many people call her, is a woman who is trying to create the image of herself that she thinks everyone else wants to see. Trying to keep up appearances is hard and once the veil is lifted, the come down is hard.

As a character study, Piglet is fascinating. Piglet is flawed, yes, but her big, surprising, impulsive choices throughout are deeply satisfying and created a story with fantastic pacing and tension throughout. Like I’m sure everyone reading the book will say: the food descriptions are delicious, and I loved that as a device throughout the story. Family dynamics were crystal clear and understandably difficult for Piglet to navigate, as even as a reader I was massively uncomfortable during any and all family scenes.

Ultimately my rating isn’t higher because, well, I wanted to know what Kit did! Of course I have my guess, and I’m sure it was a deliberate choice for the reader to have a guess they felt justified Piglet’s actions. I just personally would’ve found Piglet more compelling and had a more satisfying reading experience if it were revealed.

Either way, this is a story I’ll be thinking about a long time.

This is a complicated book for me to review…. Starting off I found the writing style a bit challenging to read and not a style that I really enjoyed. I don’t necessarily think this book wasn’t good, I just don’t think it was for me.

But what really made this book hard for me to read was that I had a very challenging time connecting to any of the characters. While we got to know Piglet some, it never really got beyond surface level and I didn’t understand her motivations behind anything she did.

I also just found this book really painful to read. I had to take breaks from it so I could calm my nerves. It’s stressful to watch someone self destruct and this book was not worth the stress for me. While others liked the food descriptions I often found them unsavory and they didn’t do it for me. I mean she compared custard to fat from
Liposuction and a lot of the descriptions were like that.

Also, WE NEVER FIND OUT WHAT KIT DID. What the actual…..

I just don’t think this book was for me. It is getting a lot of good reviews so I’d say give it a shot if you like unusual/quirky books.

Thank you netgalley for the arc

This book is incredible. It begins with Kit and Piglet, an engaged couple moving into their new apartment in New York, arranging an elaborate dinner party even though they haven't even unpacked. I fell in love with Piglet through her desire to serve everyone a roast chicken before she even bought a table. Her deep desire for pleasure through food is irresistible, and I was right there with her for every meal she ate. When Kit reveals his infidelity two weeks before their wedding, the novel becomes stressful and claustrophobic in a masterful way. Piglet attempts to find satiation as the rest of her world is falling apart, but she is stymied by her WASPy in-laws-to-be who of course are more concerned with her fitting into her wedding dress than her emotional wellbeing. Piglet continues on with her grandiose plans of making her wedding cake--except it's not a cake, it's a CROQUEMBOUCHE--and pushes down her feelings of betrayal in the hopes that if everything else is perfect, she will just figure out how to forgive Kit. The rest of the novel is a fever dream of denial and permission as Piglet tries to consume everything in reach lest she be consumed herself. CW--this book may be difficult for those who have struggled with disordered eating. Take care of yourself!

It's hard to believe that this is a first novel, as I feel it did exactly what it set out to do. It was gross, horrific, and so very relatable. I find it so interesting the way that it made me feel such unease along with the main character, while having very little in common with her other than being a woman and what that means in this world. The way that nicknames and real names are used in this book is a masterpiece, and when you find out Piglet's real name it packs such a punch.

After seeing this book all over my UK friends’ Instagram pages, I was excited to receive an advanced copy thanks to NetGalley and the publisher, Henry Holt.

This book is an unfiltered examination of what happens when a woman puts aside her desires to maintain the picturesque facade she has built up of her life as her wedding approaches. This book had me continuously cringing at the nickname Piglet, while holding my breath as the story unfolded.

I loved the structure of the story, how the surprise is built up in the first section and told through dialogue and food in the other sections. A big secret is revealed, and the first part of the book countd down toward Piglet and Kit’s wedding day. And, we see Piglet struggling as she processes what happened and needs to decide how to proceed.

There are many layers to this novel. While it’s clear that Kit screwed up in a devastating way, this doesn’t just focus on Kit as a bad guy or his wrongdoing, but on how Piglet handles it. The novel speaks to the choices we make, how important asking for help is, and makes you examine family, friend and even co-worker relationships. Should the people in your life stand by you even if they think you’re making a mistake? We see some friends take a rather harsh stand, and we also see some striking generational differences here in the advice Piglet receives from members of her family.

Food is an important part of the book. It speaks to women’s relationships with food and control. Piglet feels most in control when she is cooking for others; yet, when she hits hard times, food controls her as she makes decisions she regrets. This is where the novel does get a bit dark; I read food as a form of self-harm. As she faces the choice between standing up for herself and her happiness and the life she’s built that is falling to pieces, food turned into a form of escapism and even self-harm. Piglet is literally falling apart at the seams, and no one can save her but herself. Will she do it, or will she continue the sham?

I read this book in a day. It was well done, and I’m looking forward to its US release so I can hear what others think!

This novel takes a relatively common story about a woman and a crisis leading up to her wedding but tells it through the lens of food: what we eat and why, how food makes us feel, etc. It looks at how body image and desires are tied to emotions and relationships and focuses on the appetites of women in a completely unapologetic way. All that plus great characters and beautiful prose… I can’t recommend this enough.

Apologies in advance for this review because, to paraphrase an oft quoted on Tumblr line, I somehow both loved and disliked this book at the same time, and I’m still trying to figure out how that could be.

To start, I really loved the writing. The prose was evocative and a lot of the MC’s musings about life, relationships, and family deeply resonated with me. I loved how Hazell explored the topic of staying in a situation (whatever it may be) because, on paper, it’s exactly what you want, but realizing how truly unhappy you are after getting there. And I really enjoyed how the narrative centered around food and nourishing oneself in a myriad of different ways.

But, while I usually like weird books, this one didn’t fully work for me. I was originally put off by the asides at the ends of each chapter because they seemed pointlessly ominous without just stating what was going on, and I don’t like that kind of storytelling. And then Hazell made another choice in how to tell the story that, while a valid option, really didn’t work for me. On one hand, I get what she was trying to convey (or, at least, I think I do), but on the other, that choice combined with the vague references about what was going on just left me feeling frustrated. And I realize this section of my review is also annoyingly vague, but in the interest of avoiding spoilers, it’s the best I can do.

I would still recommend this book because I think it’s well crafted, but I bet it will be a polarizing one. But, if you do choose to read it, please let me know because I am dying to discuss it with someone.

Thank you to Henry Holt & Company and Netgalley for the ARC. Piglet will be released on 2/27!

3.5/5

Piglet thought she was happy, she was about to get married, escaping her somewhat negative family and into a more posh lifestyle that she had grown up in, and she is an up and coming food/cookbook editor. But then her fiance Kit admits to a betrayal two weeks before their wedding. After that, Piglet becomes ravenously and insatiably hungry - the only thing that can fill her empty soul is food; and as the countdown to the wedding begins the reader follows Piglet through her food journey and nothing seems to satisfy her.

This one is weird, weird but good - but not for everyone. I love food so I really enjoyed all of the descriptions but not so much the ingestion of the vast amounts of food, but since I took them to be a metaphor it didn’t bother me as much as it otherwise might have. This novel explores classism, fatphobia, wedding culture, food culture and betrayal within relationships. I loved the audio and switched really seamlessly between the book and the audio. Personally, the novel spoke to me and I looked forward to coming home and reading it.

Thank you to Henry Holt & Co. MacMillan Audio and NetGalley for the ARC to review