An original idea executed very well! Hazell does such an effective job of building tension in several scenes, I had to double check that this is a debut novel. And the food descriptions are first rate. Some readers may struggle with a plot where not much happens, but the quality of the writing kept me turning pages. I will definitely tune in for Hazell's sophomore effort.

This was an addictive read that left me hungry for cheeseburgers.I loved the writing style and food descriptions were delicious. I found the characters compelling and was on the edge of my seat waiting to see what Piglet would do. I do wish the eating disorders had been unpacked a little more, especially since it seemed both Piglet and her sister had differing ones. Overall, I would recommend to others with trigger warnings. I will post my review on bookstagram on February 27th. Thank you!

It’s a quite normal book. It feels very 2020s with the way the story with Piglet and her fiancé and family is told. It feels like an airport read. Something you’d pick up once and never again. It’s completely fine for what it is but nothing extraordinary.

I wanted to love this book. As a girl who has struggled with overeating and simultaneously experienced that feeling of emptiness, I had hoped to see a lot of myself in the character of Piglet. However, I ultimately just found her decision making, and the writing of her interiority, to be unclear and frustrating. I wanted so much more from her and from the plot of the novel, which felt undercooked to say the least. I’ll be curious to read more from this author as she develops her voice, but this one was sadly a bit of a miss for me. Thank you for access to the arc, though!

After a betrayal by her fiancé, Piglet (an unfortunate childhood nickname she hasn’t outgrown) finds herself consumed by insatiable hunger.

I struggled to get into this one. I liked the idea, but the writing didn’t draw me in.

Thank you to Netgalley and Henry Hold Co. for this ARC in exchange for my honest review.

Piglet was a DELICIOUS!

WARNING: Best to read on a full stomach! The foo descriptions will make your mouth water and your belly hungry. The evening I started reading the ARC, I kept telling my family, "I just want to be left alone with Piglet." She felt like a friend. In fact, she reminded me of a friend who enjoys cooking/overeats and was obsessed with planning the wedding of her dreams. The author is very descriptive. I appreciated how she described table settings and meals, as well as just the right amount of brad name usage, such as Le Crueset, Mark & Spenser, etc.

I appreciated the witty lines, including:

"...their conversations rising as their wineglasses emptied."

"It had reached the point in the evening when the plates were empty and the atmosphere was souring like Piglet's tongue, dry from the wine."

"....and she would feel his words like shard a shard of bone between her ribs."

The book explores relationships of being a daughter, sister, friend, girlfriend/fiance, wife and in-law. Piglet's dad has some very powerful statements. I appreciate the themes and messages of this book.

Piglet is one of the most original novels I have read in a long time. It focuses on the titular character’s relationships - with food, but also with family, friends, her fiancé, and family-to-be. Piglet is in a time of transition, in her thirties and about to be married, where all of her relationships are in flux and she is trying to build herself a perfect life. But just days before her wedding her fiancé reveals a secret, and suddenly the life she has constructed isn’t looking so stable after all.

The language and writing style are so immersive. The first chapter is almost guaranteed to hook you. As others have noted, the food descriptions are fantastic. But I really loved the way emotion was conveyed through the cooking scenes, and how her relationship with food really echoed how she was feeling about the rest of her life as the narrative unfolded. The book also highlights other aspects about people’s relationships with food: how it connects with our identities, with our class, and how it can connect us with others or divide us. There is so much in between the lines here.

I recommend Piglet to anyone who likes character and relationship focused stories. It’s a fast and propulsive read - I finished it in a couple of sittings.

*Thank you to NetGalley and Henry Holt & Company for the gifted eARC in exchange for an honest review!*

This book is an exquisite mess, as is its protagonist. It is highly dramatic and made me audibly cringe and gasp at many points. I loved the incredible food descriptions, the understanding of two eating disorders present in two sisters, the social class clash between the two families, and the incredible challenge that it is to stand up for yourself and listen to your gut when it’s telling you something is wrong. Thank goodness for good friends like Margot.

I really enjoyed Piglet but could not get past how disappointed I was by the ending. I think this will be a polarizing title, however, and a great book to use for a book club!

Piglet is seemingly settled in her life. She has a fiancée (Kit), a new house, a group of friends to have over for dinner parties, and a job that she enjoys editing cookbooks. However, Kit reveals a betrayal two weeks before the wedding and suddenly Piglet feels an emptiness inside of her that must be filled by food. Suddenly all of her relationships, with her family, her friends, her coworkers, and her fiancée, are all in turmoil and she cannot stop eating. This was an absolutely fascinating read. The writing was incredible and I just wanted to see where the story was going. The descriptions of food were absolutely amazing, so don't read this book if you're hungry. I would recommend it to fans of Sweetbitter, anyone who is big into food, and anyone who likes books about complicated relationships.

I really liked a lot of elements of this novel. I really liked Piglet and Kit. I found their character development to be believable. I found myself starting to skim when food descriptions came up. I just didn't care and I felt like they really started to drag. Otherwise, I really enjoyed the plot and characters.

Thank you @netgalley and @henryholtbooks for the digital arc in exchange for my honest review .

TW: Eating disorders and fat-shaming

Piglet (as friends and family call her) is just weeks away from marrying the sophisticated, well brought up, man of her dreams. Together, they own a home in posh Oxford. Her job as a food writer is a dream. Their friends lunch in their beautiful garden on the gourmet treats Piglet has whipped up. This life is everything she’s wanted.

Piglet thinks she’s built the life she’s always dreamed of by choosing her fiancé Kit, that is, until he reveals a terrible secret. Now Piglet must chose, will she stay in her beautiful lie, or destroy it all?

There are elements of this story I thoroughly enjoyed. I became invested in Piglet’s plight and found her to be a sympathetic character. I found the relationships between characters believable. There’s some great commentary on class. The right amount of foreshadowing also helped keep my invested in the impending climax.

But where the story shines in plot, it lacks in the execution. Just some personal preferences: I found a lot of the food descriptions to be too long, lacking the substance to make them worth reading; some of the character’s actions were so cringy, it was uncomfortable to read; and finally, Hazell spells out the lesson Piglet learns (no spoilers, I promise) with such precision, it’s like she didn’t trust the reader to figure it out.

And while Hazell gives us the moral on a silver platter, she never once directly stated that the toxic comments Piglet’s family makes about her eating are problematic, or that Piglet’s eating is disordered, as a result. I wish that element of the story had been handled with more care.

So is it worth the read? If you love a foodie story and a messy romance gone-wrong, check this one out, but be prepared for the cringe factor, this one gets messy.

3.5★

Piglet is an up and coming cookbook editor, with lovely friends and a handsome fiancé. Two weeks before they are set to be married, Kit, her fiancé, confesses a horrible betrayal. The couple decides to move forward with the wedding as planned, but as it nears, Piglet finds herself increasingly unsettled.

This book has no likeable characters, but is totally relatable. The fact that her parent's gave her the nickname Piglet and still call her that name into adulthood, is quite jarring. I feel like this is more a book about a woman's relationship with food than it is about her relationship with a man. However, what I found most relatable is how Piglet cares so much about what people think of her. Her fiancé cheats and she's more worried about what others will think of her, than what they think of him. 3.5 stars.

Thank You NetGalley for the free e-galley.
Publication Date: February 27, 2024

Wowowowowowowow. Within the first three chapters, I knew this would a favorite. This is the type of book that just *feels* different. I have yet to find another book that has as eloquently explored womanhood in the modern age.

I can imagine people in 15-20 years looking at this title as a reference point for analysis. I’m just flabbergasted.

Also can we talk about that cover? Its perfection. Kudos to the designer.

Please do yourself a favor and read this one!

I want to thank the author, the publisher, and NetGalley for providing me with an Advanced Reader Copy of this book.

Piglet was a very interesting read for me. Parts of this book I found fascinating- the descriptions of food, the themes of greed, selfishness, betrayal and status. It was all very pointed and I liked to motif of "food" as a means to paint a broader picture. With that being said, NONE of the characters (with the exception of Margot) were likeable. I understand that it was part of the point, but they were written in an enjoyable unlikeable way, the were simply flat characters. We never received the big reveal on what this big "betrayal" was and while it didn't totally bother me, it did make the book less impactful. It's been a few days since I finished and I ended up lowering my rating from a 4 to a 3. I see the vision the author was trying to achieve and I feel she slightly missed the mark. Not a bad book by any means, just not one that is going to stick with me. Credit to the cover for being unique and eye catching!

Thank you to the publisher Henry Holt & Company for providing an ARC via Net Galley!

My first 5 star read of 2024! This had me enthralled. I was unable to do nothing else but obsess over this book until I finished it. I loved the opening dinner party scene and was immediately intrigued by the characters. The writing style drew me in immediately, and the suspense and hints of betrayal kept me reading. I loved the messiness and depth of all the characters, and especially loved Margot. I am one of those eat to live rather than live to eat people, and actually find food as a requirement of living kind of annoying, so I was unsure how a book centered around food and hunger as a central theme would work for me but it was done beautifully. What an incredible debut novel! Going to be reflecting on this one for a long time.

While I didn't enjoy reading this book, I was eager to find out how it ended. For such a character driven novel I felt like I never really got to know Piglet. There was also information purposely omitted that I felt weakened the story. Thank you to Net Galley and the publisher for this ARC!

This was a great debut! Filled with complex characters and relationships I couldn't put it down.
Piglet is the story of a woman about to be married who begins to question her existence after her fiance reveals a secret. We are never told what that secret is but as Piglet's wedding date approaches her world begins to unravel.

This was a great debut! Piglet was engaging, intensely descriptive, and not entirely unlike watching a car crash. I would recommend it to anyone looking to get into literary fiction (or BookTok readers looking for a starter "weird girl" fiction, or "female rage" fiction), or to readers who enjoyed Milk Fed by Melissa Broder. I would be happy to read whatever Lottie Hazell comes up with next.

There was so much that worked for me: Piglet’s struggle with binge eating and her shame about her family, her friendship with Margot and doubts about herself… but I left feeling dissatisfied. I don’t, as a rule, feel that the secret at the heart of a book must be revealed. For about half the story, I admired the decision to explore the aftermath of what Kit did rather than the logistics. By the end, the withholding was distracting. Every other relationship’s flaws and struggles were explored in specific detail, and their specificity constituted the world of the book. It lent them unique moral weights and insight into Piglet’s loved ones and interiority. Her dilemma about Kit was disembodied and hollow in comparison. It felt important to know what he did because not all betrayals and conflicts are the same. Whether your fiancé cheated on you or assaulted someone or stole all your money should make a difference in how you respond. That says a lot about you. We just didn’t get to know. So the book collapsed around itself, like the croquembouche, despite some of the delectable writing.

Thanks to NetGalley & Holt for the arc — I’m looking forward to reading more of Hazell’s work!