Piglet is a difficult book to review, if not to read.
The premise is that Piglet, an agent at a culinary book publisher, is about to get married. Her fiancée, Kit, comes from a wealthy Oxford family who have helped them buy their first home. Piglet is from Derby and seems eager to distance herself from her family and background. 13 days before the wedding Kit reveals an awful secret that cracks apart the whole facade that Piglet has built around herself.
Piglet is beautifully written and the descriptions of food in particular are a work of art. We watch as Piglet slides into a breakdown, unable to call off the wedding, but unable to deal with what Kit has told her.
However, nothing really happens. She keeps going and, though she tells some people what has happened, as we the reader don’t know (and never know) his secret, it’s difficult to understand the various reactions, let alone react ourselves. It’s a strangely distancing move that leaves the reader unable to make a personal judgement on the situation. We know it’s bad, but how bad? The final chapters as the wedding plays out feel like they need some sort of reveal to finally understand Piglet and her dilemma.
In conclusion, do read ( but not if you are hungry!) but be prepared to be frustrated.

I received this book from Netgalley in exchange for an honest, independent review.

With a childhood nickname like Piglet, it's no surprise that our protagonist has a deep love for food.

As a cookbook editor who judges others based on their culinary choices, Piglet leads a content domestic life. Engaged to Kit who is from the most perfect, upper-class family, she finds herself in a new home, the perfect hostess.

However, a bombshell revelation from Kit just thirteen days before their wedding day shatters Piglet's fairy-tale existence, leaving her torn about proceeding with the ceremony.

In her debut novel, Lottie Hazell expertly intertwines themes of food, perfectionism and intrigue, gradually revealing background information to heighten tension. The vivid, mouth-watering descriptions of food will leave readers hungry for more, wishing to delve deeper into Piglet's world.

While Piglet may appear overly critical and unlikeable at times, her complexity adds depth and mystery to the storyline, making it a truly compelling read.

What a bold and brilliant new voice. This book was engrossing from the very start. I loved the characters, the slow reveal, the careful plotting and pacing. Highly recommended.

The descriptions of food and eating were quite over the top at times, but I couldn't stop reading. This was a very tense and uncomfortable reading experience - yet not necessarily unenjoyable.

Overall, Piglet is a solid addition to the "terrible millennial woman on the verge of a mental breakdown" genre.

Piglet’s life is full to the brim, however, she is always hungry for more.

She lives in Oxford with her fiance, Kit, and works in a publishing house. Piglet’s counting down the days to when she gets married to Kit, but two weeks before their wedding, he confesses to something…

Will the wedding go ahead?

I read this book in two sittings – I loved it from the start to finish.

Piglet is quite a complex character. She earned the nickname during her childhood years, where she was always hungry and finishing other people’s food. This hasn’t changed, as now she loves to cook and feed people.

There was quite a contrast between Kit’s and Piglet’s families. He was from a posh and prominent background whereas Piglet was from a working class family in Derby.

She tried really hard to move up the social hierarchy ladder and when she got there, she still wasn’t happy. She was always hungry for more: whether it was food or material possessions.

Piglet’s relationship with food was quite an issue. She would go to a restaurant and order enough food to feed four people, and then eat it.

This book raises an important issue of never being satisfied in life and always wanting more.

Thanks to Doubleday for approving my NetGalley request to read and review this title.

I love reading foodie themed books of any genre and you only have to look at the cover to make you want to read!
Piglet is essentially a tale of a woman's love and need for food in times of crisis . It's a story of which many can relate to I'm sure and we all turn to food in one way or another when things go wrong or well, that can be both positive and negative . Piglet is a character I liked but i just didnt feel that we got to know her well enough. We have no image of her which made it sometimes hard to understand her thought process. We know little of her background or of how she met her husband and we NEVER find out what Kit actually did!!
I felt we got a better image of Margot her best friend and I loved all the side characters . The descriptions of food and cooking are also very well done .
It's a nice easy reading book , i felt there was room for a lot more depth but nevertheless i enjoyed it and would love to see a sequel to see what Piglet does next ....

This is a book that I would never normally pick up,but when I read the synopsis of this novel I was intrigued and needed to reading. I found some parts really emotional and others extremely and yet darkly funny. I have never read a book quite like this one. Worth a read!!

A very descriptive book just don’t read it if your hungry! Fun book which is quirky.

Thank you NetGalley for my complimentary copy in return for my honest review.

This is a novel that I would never normally pick up, I usually like thrillers but when I read the blurb of this novel I was intrigued.

We meet main character Piglet, she was given this awful name whilst she was younger and she has never managed to shake it off. She is set to marry Kit and 2 weeks before their marriage, Kit comes clean about something.

Piglet and Kit decide to carry on with the wedding and this is when we really sort of get to know Piglet. She is an assistant to a cookbook editor and the novel is filled with delicious foods that will make you want to go and grab a snack...or three.

There is so much going on within this novel and I think author Lottie Hazell weaved a very good and interesting novel.

I found some aspects really emotional and others extremely and yet darkly funny. I have never read a book quite like this one.

Thanks to the author, publisher and Netgalley for my ARC in exchange for my honest review.

There are quite a lot of novels published these days that tell their stories in different ways. This book is told through dialogue, and descriptions of food that "piglet", her childhood nickname, is planning on cooking. The food writing is outstanding. I have never read step by step instructions on the construction of elaborate feasts that come so alive on the page. Every morsel Piglet was planning to make, I wanted to eat. The story is good - and compelling, but it is the food that turns this into a page turner.

A young woman battles to gain a sense of control when faced with a major life disruption. The book flits along the edges fairy tale and body horror but doesn't cross the line. I expected a more intense experience. Instead, it is a more about descending into disordered eating as a way of exploring unsatisfied desires. I think it could have been bolder in examining that internal chaos but it was solidly written.

What a tense, gripping read. It was easy to get sucked into Piglet’s mania and self-destruction once her fiancé reveals an unforgiveable secret (one that the reader never finds out which just adds to the tension as the reader’s imagination can imagine the worst possible act that he has committed without ever having it revealed). The descriptions of food started to make me feel queasy in the end once Piglet started to lose control on what was happening to her wedding and marriage plans, it was incredibly well written, and the pacing was great.
Thank you to the publisher and NetGalley for the opportunity to read this ARC.

I read the whole thing and in the end was disappointed. I kept thinking I'd missed something along the way and went back to check a few times but still didn't get it. I enjoyed the croquembouche scenarios and the waiter and waitress in the marquee were the best characters.

Utterly unputdownable wedding-food-family drama.

This was fascinating, horrific, tense and made me very, very hungry.

I don't have the best relationship with food, I'm aware of this. As many of us find, food can be used to console us, to heighten moments of joy, be a shared or lonely experience, make us feel our worst selves, be a crutch or an obsession.

This skilfully weaves one woman's love and need for food with a life crisis. Piglet (real name only mentioned once) is a young woman on the cusp of achieving everyone's dream - a successful job (in the food industry), a new home with her partner, and an upcoming wedding day with a wealthy, handsome fiancé. She's even planning on making her own wedding cake.

But it all begins to unravel when Piglet's fiancé Kit reveals to her a dark secret mere days before the nuptials. Will Piglet carry on and still marry him?

This novel is SO TENSE as our protagonist and author holds this secret to their narratorial chests. Piglet pours her energy and despair into cooking and eating. The wedding day approaches but the reader just simply does not know how it is going to end.

For a book about a never-revealed secret and a wedding cake, this is unbelievably hard to put down. As the time ticks down to the wedding, and Piglet's heavily pregnant best friend is told, as she loses control at work, as her family arrive... the cake and the marriage dangle before our eyes.

And the cake is amazing. I'm not a cook myself but adored the descriptions of Piglet baking, of the meals she makes, it's at the heart of both the book and Piglet herself. There is so much metaphor in her dress fitting, her need to fill herself, her desire to create exquisite delicacies for herself and others to gorge on.

I want to read this again. Though I felt such frustration at not knowing exactly what Kit had done, it didn't take away from our unusual story, heroine and conclusion. Deeper than I was expecting.

With excellent side characters - Piglet's parents and sister, her best friend, Kit's family - this was a great drama that felt visual as well as olfactory.

With thanks to Netgalley for providing a sample reading copy.

This is a strange but beautifully written story that I felt left me with more questions than answers. It's a story of "Piglet" a young woman who is striving to find her place in the world - she thinks she has found it with her Fiance, escaping her working class family to his richer family. 13 days before their wedding he confesses something to her that throws her world upside down and she then has to decide if the life she thinks she wants is worth it.

Definitely worth reading.

Thanks to NetGalley and the publishers for allowing me to read Piglet.

Happy publication day to Piglet!!🐷🍩

We join Piglet in the run up to her wedding - everything is going great, her job is looking at promoting her, her soon-to-be-husband seems fantastic, they’ve just bought a house together. Honestly, it’s easy to feel a little jealous of her at the start. She’s an Editor for cookery books and the entire novel is filled with all her fantastic cooking and hosting. The premise seems simple: Piglet will marry, get promoted, and be content.

A few weeks before thier wedding, Kit tells Piglet something life-changing. The nature of his confession is never revealed to us - we assume it’s an affair, but we can’t be sure. We see Piglet fall apart in the run up to her wedding, question her support systems, and turn to her comfort, food.

The entire novel is narrated almost entirely through descriptions of food and dialogue - it’s not something I think I would normally enjoy, but Piglet is the most lovable character. I think you get an immediate sense of her struggles, her faltering support system and the choices she has to make to keep her life on track. We watch her crumble but there is so much hope in her crumbling - the novel leaves Piglet at a point of uncertainty after her wedding, and how she will patch herself up isn’t something we’re sure of. I love how small details of relationships creep into this novel, how so much is left unsaid but it doesn’t matter. I personally think that even if Kit hadn’t made his confession, Piglet would’ve still been broken by the pressures she’d been putting on herself, she just had an unfortunate drive toward that eventual break.

I’d love to know your thoughts on Piglet, what do you think Kit’s confession was? An affair, or something much more sinister?

I was sent a copy of Piglet by Lottie Hazell to read and review by NetGalley. I wasn’t totally sure about this novel to begin with. I’m not sure what I was expecting and it took a while to get into, with a little bit of confusion in the early chapters. Once I got settled into reading I could hardly put it down. The further into the book I got the more invested I became and the story really picked up pace. I would advise any reader with doubts about continuing to the end of the book to do so, it is well worth it in the end!

This is a fast read and a promising debut, but I couldn't totally believe in the story. I understand Piglet's class, body and food issues, but her struggle about her coming marriage didn't really convince me. I would be interested in reading Hazell's next novel though.
Thank you Transworld and Netgalley for the ARC.

The book starts the summer before Piglet is due to marry Kit. Piglet is a childhood nickname (and one we use for our own kids!) and you don’t find out her real name until the very end. Piglet has escaped her suburban upbringing in Derby (she is very disparaging about Derby – which made me quite defensive, as I like it!) to move to Oxford (via London) to marry ‘upwards’. Kit and her future in laws are definitely a few rungs up the social mobility ladder than Piglet’s folks – and she is fully embracing her new life (where Vienetta would only be served ironically!)

Each chapter is counting down to the wedding – and just less than a fortnight to go before the wedding, Kit reveals a secret to Piglet. However, you don’t know what this secret is. I kept expecting it to be revealed – but it isn’t – and thus it’s really difficult to know how to process Piglet’s reaction. Is she over or under reacting??

The writing of the book is excellent – particularly the cooking and food aspects – they were incredibly evocative – and made me very hungry!! As well as the wedding – there are other things discussed – disordered eating, body image, friendships, family shame, keeping up appearances etc etc. But I’m still not really sure what I felt about the book. I didn’t particularly warm to Piglet or Kit – so was neither ‘team’. It just left more questions than answers. But it is very original – and the questions it generates will no doubt make it a winner for book club discussions!

A thank you to the publishers and Net Galley for my ARC. Piglet is out on the 25th January 2024

I really enjoyed Lottie Hazell’s writing style in particular her descriptions and I managed to finish this book in two sittings.

However, the actual story was a bit flat for me and I can’t lie, it was frustrating never finding out what Kit had done.

A solid book but one I will probably forget quite quickly unfortunately!