Lottie HazellRezensionen

3.5

Pretty much food porn with a side of relationship issues.

I can’t get over a grown woman calling herself Piglet, like seriously?
Also we are not told what the husband has done and I just found that irritating.

Piglet was a book that could have been very good but ended up being rather disappointing.

Except for (possibly - I could still go either way) Margot and Sasha, two very small side characters, all of the characters were incredibly unlikeable, and I can't tell if that was intentional or not. We don't see growth in any of the characters, including the main character, Piglet —no, her outburst at the wedding itself doesn't count as character growth, because she was just a boiling pot of oil that eventually got too hot (food metaphor intended).

Piglet's family is disgustingly awful. Both in how they have even given her the nickname "Piglet," but also in the way they treat her and talk to and about her throughout the book. SHAME.

There is an over-abundance of showing, to the point that it never actually tells you anything to a fault. It never actually tells us what the betrayal Kit did was, it never told us that both Piglet and Franny both had eating disorders, it never actually told us that Piglet was experiencing suicidal ideation under the bridge. It relies on the reader knowing everything that is going on just by the implications of the overuse of food metaphors throughout. By never actually telling the reader some of these key plot points, it makes the characters even less likable and makes the book that much harder to read.

While I don't mind the presence of food metaphors, I wish the author had been more intentional in their use and consistent throughout the book. Instead, it just kept stacking these metaphors on top of one another, overtaking presence of the plot and characters.

I get that it is supposed to have the underlying theme of finding what is best for your own life and not following a path just because that is the norm and is what is expected of you, and that the meaning of life is deeper than other's expectations. But, the way this was written just doesn't lead to that theme being in the forefront for me.

Trigger warnings:
- Eating disorders
- Self harm
- Body shaming
- Toxic relationship

I think this worked well for what it is, but I didn't love it. It's basically an extended metaphor for appetites and never being satisfied with surface level success when you crave something more meaningful. I didn't feel like we got enough of a look at the picture perfect life Piglet was supposedly living before she started to tear it down. This was amusing and satisfying at times though, and could definitely work for the right person.½

Piglet (we don't learn her real name until the very end of the book) is a product of middle class parents from the hinterlands of England, who has created a successful life for herself in London as an assistant cookbook editor. She has a well-to-do fiance, a nice circle of friends, a beautiful new house, and an opulent wedding in two weeks. But what happens when the life one has created is essentially hollow and its fragility is revealed in one crushing blow?

I had trouble connecting with Piglet as a character. I found her exasperating. And since it's a very internal novel, not having that connection hindered my enjoyment of it. That said, the essential themes Hazlett is addressing are interesting ones, and I appreciated her approach to them. Also, the descriptions of food were marvelous and evocative and never failed to make me hungry.

At heart, this is a sad story. I think I was expecting something a bit more light-hearted. [[Jennifer Weiner]], writing in The New York Times, said it should be classified as horror, if only for one particular scene that was excruciating to read. It wasn't a bad book, and I wouldn't discourage anyone from reading it. It just didn't fully work for me.

3.75 stars½

Some people eat to live and others live to eat. Unfortunately I am one of those that live to eat. With that being said, it was easy for me to relate to this book. "Piglet" (a nickname given by her family) feels like her life is spinning out of control when she is divulged some upsetting information. This knowledge generates the understanding that the life she has been living has been a farce. Because she does not know what to do with the information, she turns to food. The food not only gives her a sense of comfort, it also gives her a sense of control. There were times I felt like I was reading a cook book as there are many pages dedicated to specifically detailing her making recipes. I found this to be a little tedious and monotonous. However, if you are someone that has a love for cooking and new recipes, you would probably love this part of the book. This book is humorous and affable as it probes into the topic of women and food. It shines a spotlight on expectations of weight for a woman, social class and food, using food as a coping mechanism and how women who eat abundantly are viewed. "Piglet" is definitely worth reading. 3.5 out of 5 stars Thank you Lottie Hazell and Henry Holt & Company for the advanced reader's copy.½

The breakdown of this woman’s life and her mental state was excruciating in how evocatively it was written. It had the feeling of a slow drag through mud and filth but done so well. It is uncomfortable and I enjoyed that. I couldn’t help but feel the shame and the discomfort along with the character. First it was from the grating differences between Piglet’s family and Kit’s in terms of class and culture along with the ways her parents could guilelessly poke at old wounds. Then, with Kit’s confession, it was the stress of having this life-ruining secret boiling inside her while for everyone else nothing had changed and the date of the wedding fast approached, followed by the repeated hits of having so many people dismiss her fiancé’s betrayal and thus compound the betrayal. Even in the mundane, the tension could ratchet up.
Piglet’s grasping for control through binge eating and food preparation for her own wedding made sense with her character’s relationship to food and her downward spiral. I felt for her as these coping mechanisms inevitably left her agonizingly ashamed and feeling more out of control than ever.

I will say, I didn’t understand the choice to keep what Kit had done a secret throughout. At first, I thought it would be revealed at a significant point in the story to add more context to Piglet’s state of mind. Then, I thought it was a choice to keep the focus on Piglet and her response to her life being upended rather than whether she’s justified based off what he did. But it got a little distracting. It felt strange and took me out of the story a bit for no character to ever mention The Act even as they get deep into their feelings on it and what they thought Piglet should do. This choice didn’t work for me.

Piglet is the eponymous character in this book. It's a nickname of course, but one which has negative connotations, especially when her family casually and familiarly shorten it to Pig. From a humble background, Piglet feels that she has risen up. I didn't see her as a snob, but she's certainly embarrassed by her beginnings and now she's marrying Kit, who is from rather more moneyed roots. The perfect home, job, marriage, life beckons but when Kit tells her of his indiscretion two weeks before the wedding it derails everything and Piglet goes into a downward spiral.

The tagline of this book is "her life is so full, so why is she hungry?". That hunger I guess is a metaphor for Piglet's life in which she has so much but it's not quite enough. The hunger manifests itself in the book as real hunger for food, and sometimes Piglet is gluttonous as her insatiable desires tip over into inexorable greed. There were many occasions where I cringed at what was occurring but I couldn't look away. I was fascinated and a bit horrified by it.

It's a relatable story in many ways and I didn't want to put it down. This is an intelligent and brilliantly observed book, and such an amazing debut from Lottie Hazell. I loved all the descriptions of Piglet's cooking and the feasts she consumed, so delectably described that I felt like eating foods I don't even like. There's such a lot to take away from this novel, a lot that is inferred which means it really got me thinking, some wry and uncomfortable humour, and some real squirm-inducing moments about class and the façade we present to others. Scrumptious!