Thank you so much to the publishers, I was really grateful to receive an eArc on NetGalley for an honest review, so I feel like I should be completely transparent. The novel left me with more questions than answers, and not in a good way. I can't obviously go into detail with my questioning, as that would reveal massive spoilers. 

I think I'll start with what I did like. Lottie had an unusual way of writing the story and letting the events unfold, which I actually really enjoyed. It created a lot of suspense. I also liked that the information was withheld throughout, so it kept you wanting to read more and more to find out what was going on. The opening scenes were great, and I loved the attention to detail that was put into the food and cooking (sometimes).

I think the main parts that let it down for me, without revealing anything, is the nickname, Piglet. I get it's a family nickname due to them constantly pointing out Piglet's greed, but this was obviously uncomfortable for Piglet, so I'm not sure why it was necessary to use it throughout the whole novel. Another weird thing was the binge eating, it was never actual said, but it was obvious that that's what was happening, however, in some scenes it felt so far fetched and exaggerated, which I felt didn't do the ED justice. I would have liked more internal dialogue from Piglet to understand why she needed to gorge: Was it punishment, pleasure, guilt, greed, all of these? I just felt like the whole novel was lacking emotion, really, and Piglet never actually spoke about anything, which made her quite an unlikeable character. I actually didn't feel any empathy towards her at all, and in fact, it made me feel sorry for all those around her. 

The final scene was strange, in my opinion, too. I did, and I didn't get it. It was a little bit of a letdown, and I just wanted some clarification on a few things, but it wasn't given. Instead, I read how to cook linguine. 

Sometimes, I feel like I just don't GET a book, and this is probably the case in this instance.

This was such a clever story, told largely through (mouth watering) descriptions of food. I really felt for Piglet throughout - for her feeling stuck in her relationship and wanting the perfect life, to seeing her interactions with her family, and how keeping her sister's secret led to her parents having an incorrect negative view of her.
I was gripped throughout, wondering if she was actually going to go through with the wedding.
A fantastic debut.

Loved the way the story unfolds through an unusual narrative choice, with characters developing alongside increasingly intense descriptions of food. Hard to read in some parts (in a good way), I’m absolutely traumatised by the croquembouche…

A great novel filled with musings about betrayal and greed and sprinkled with subtle commentary on social class told through tantalising descriptions of food. Couldn’t think of a more perfect book for me! I devoured this in one sitting. Definite must read.

Thank you to the publishers and NetGalley for the ARC :)

Different - definitely different!

Piglet is a young woman engaged to be married and looking forward to wedded bliss with Kit, her fiance. 13 days before the wedding he decides to 'fess up' and tell Piglet a secret which has obviously been bugging him. And still she keeps going, working towards her dream wedding day. A lover of good food, she walks a tightrope between creating veritable feasts and being incapable of stopping herself indulging in them. As the wedding day approaches, will she go through with it?

This is a well-written book which kept me glued to the pages but the one question which kept bugging me was never answered! While I realise that the answer to it wasn't really the focus point of the story, I would have liked to know. Things like that irritate me, and it definitely took the shine off. However, this is very readable. Poor Piglet - I don't think we ever got to know her real name; families can be so cruel, can't they? I'd be lying if I didn't say that this has prompted some considerable thought on my part and I agree that it would be a good book club read, but the missing answer definitely let it down for me. 4*.

My thanks to the publisher for my copy via NetGalley; this is - as always - my honest, original and unbiased review.

I was so looking forward to this book, ever since I saw the tagline "Her life is so full, so why is she hungry?"

I was hungry for a good book and here's how the meal went.

Starter:

It's tasty so far, a well described setting and there are lavish descriptions of food which will continue throughout the book. We're straight away immersed in Piglets world as part of a young couple about to get married. We meet all the main people in her life quickly as well as start to understand the different dynamics within each relationship. We also find out that her childhood nickname Piglet has quite an upsetting back story.

Main:

Something is confessed, Kit (Piglets future husband) has done something or kept something from Piglet but decides he wants to tell her before they are married. What then happens is her deciding what she wants to do about the revelation while also continuing with her preparations for the wedding and having some moments where her hunger overtakes her and she has to sate it. She confides in her friends and family and we start to understand more about the complexity of those relationships too.

Dessert:

After not finding out what Kits revelation was, seeing Piglet make her decision and how the story unfolds felt quite frustrating. I wanted to know what had Kit had confessed! I thought maybe we're not told because the whole point of the story is that it's about Piglet finding her fulfilment within herself and not about the external sources of happiness etc so it's sort of irrelevant what Kit told her. But for that to really work I felt I needed to know Piglet more than I did. I actually feel that considering she's the MC I hardly knew her at all, perhaps that's because she didn't really know herself yet and just knew how she fitted in to other people's perceptions of her.

Digestif:

I would recommend this book but with a pinch of salt, as you may still feel hungry afterwards.

Thanks to #doubleday for my review copy.

This book was a true feast. I read it front to back in less than a day, I couldn't put it down!

The story pulls us through Piglet's life from the run up to her wedding to its aftermath, and wow. What a whirlwind. I won't say much more as I don't want to give the whole plot away - you'll just have to read it for yourself.

This is the sort of book that had me highlighting passage after passage, considering my own greedy behaviours and the encouragement of capitalism on our daily lives. I think that fans of Sally Rooney would really enjoy this, also Ottessa Moshfegh too! There were moments that really made me think of Meg Mason's Sorrow and Bliss, where you couldn't help but ache for Piglet on her path of self destruction and subsequent rebirth. Exhillerating writing.

Piglet appears to lead the perfect life… lovely home , great job on a food magazine and handsome fiancé. But 98 days before the wedding her fiancé admits to a terrible betrayal and Piglets world falls apart. Agreeing to go ahead with the wedding Piglet turns to food for comfort as she has done all her life. The food descriptions within this novel are wonderful but the character’s relationship with food I found rather problematic. The disparity between Kits and Piglets family was rather formulaic.. the salt of the earth working class( although what parent would use and continue to use the nickname Piglet for their child) verses the uncaring image conscious upper class. The wedding scene did have me chucking and cheering for Piglet. Overall an engaging read. Many thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for the ARC of this book in return for an honest review.

I found this an incredibly tense and moving read. As the wedding gets closer and closer and Piglet is unravelling the tension was almost unbareable. I was depserate for someone to notice what was happening to her and stop the car crash wedding from happening. I liked that the reader never learns what the terrible secret Kit confesses to Piglet is, we dont need to know, the fact that it shatters the illusion she has created around their relationship is enough. I really felt for Piglet and hated that everyone called her that, she is the ultimate people pleaser turning herself into whatever they want her to be, to the point that she no longer knows who she is. Food is a very central character in the book, it offers comfort, fear, class and intimidation. This was a really interesting read that I could not put down having to read it in one sitting much like Piglet would. The book offers a look at the different social classes, complicated family dynamics and the importance of friendship and self love.

Such an interesting, clever read. Told through the medium of food – and dialogue – this is the story of Piglet, whose wedding day to Kit is almost there. Food is important: Piglet, a childhood name, will have a nosey in your trolley when at the supermarket. Her upcoming wedding is something about which she delights, it giving her the chance to reinvent herself, almost as if what had previously happened was just in her imagination. However, she finds out an awful truth about Kit and things begin to crumble. Will she follow the rules, just as she would a recipe, or divert from what is expected? I love books where the main characters aren’t particularly likeable, and Piglet is that. On the surface, it’s a relationship-based novel, and it is, but it equally deals with relationships around food and body image.

I found this bizarre and uncomfortable.
Piglet, the wife-to-be, discovers her future husband has done something unforgivable. Nevertheless, her insecurities about class, money and social standing seem to push her to continue the pursuit of the wedding and marriage to this man.

Piglet was a great idea and very well executed.

The book is laid out as a countdown to Piglet and Kit's wedding day. They are very much in love and sickeningly smug with it, fully aware of their luck and how they must appear to their friends and family. The book opens with them moving into their new home, planning a dinner party for their closest friends, utterly secure and confident in their life choices.

Kit comes from a comfortable middle class academic background, his family live in a big house in Oxford, shop at Waitrose, his mum has a personal trainer - and Piglet has worked hard to fit in with her new in-laws.

Her own family in Derby is more working class and very unlike Kit's family in almost every way. Piglet feels the difference between the two so keenly.

One of the stand-out elements of the book is the way in which Piglet tries to negotiate the chasm between the two families as well as working out her own status and how she feels about everything. Her thoughts and dilemmas are exquisitely handled with the quiet embarrassment Piglet feels towards her family shining off the page, whilst they are trying to show their love and support as best they can, albeit clumsily. At the same time, Kit's family are making decisions for everyone, confidently assured in their right to do so.

Piglet is so happy to be getting married to Kit; she is going to make the wedding cake (croquembouche for everyone); the wedding plans are all in hand, literally nothing can derail this. Until something derails it... Kit confesses to something a fortnight before their wedding; is it going to be the end of everything that Piglet has worked so hard for or can they move past it together.

The tension between Piglet and Kit was palpable and painful, she has invested everything into their lives together and stands to lose it all if she loses faith in Kit and their future together. I loved how the author made us feel everything that Piglet was feeling, we stood in her shoes and felt the anguish with her.

Piglet is an assured debut novel which will appeal widely. Lottie Hazell is a skilful and talented author with a bright future ahead of her and I am glad to have read her first novel so that I can follow her journey.

I’ve seen enough episodes of Bake Off The Professionals to know that the moment the word croquembouche was mentioned, everything was headed for disaster in this book.



Sometimes there are incredibly vivid passages, while other details are purposely left hazy. But like a good sauce, everything is well balanced in this book.

The tension of inevitably collapsing cakes and culinary disasters are the draw behind a whole host of TV shows and, in the same way, you can’t tear yourself away from watching everything fall apart in slow motion.



For me, Piglet was a fable about the obsessive pursuit of perfection and the complex relationships of family, friendships and, of course, food.

I found this to be really rather strange, but oddly compelling. I loved reading the culinary descriptions, they were extremely visceral and hunger invoking. This is probably not a book I’d recommend to anyone on a diet.
But the character of Piglet was a difficult one for me to understand, apart from our mutual love of food. I should probably count myself lucky.
I think this is going to be a really popular book, but it wasn’t really my taste.

“There were some things you could not tell your family. She knew that truths, once spoken, had the power to return her to them.”

Lottie Hazell’s debut is based on a women who has answered to her childhood name of Piglet her entire life. She is an up and coming cookbook editor at a London publishing house, she has close friends, loyal family and a handsome fiancé Kit. His family are upper class and despite the obvious divide Kit adores Piglet. However two weeks before their wedding Kit confesses to a betrayal that sets things in motion that can’t be changed. Piglet finds herself hungry. They decide to move forward with he wedding, the closer they get to date the more Piglet’s hunger grows and she begins to spiral and question everything.

This was such an unusual novel. It paints the picture in a clever way of when a person sticks with pressures and expectations to please everyone else meanwhile living a miserable life behind closed doors.

The betrayal although told to Piglet by Kit, it’s never voiced in an obvious way. Once its revealed the reader through Piglet’s point of view pieces together the enormity of the betrayal and the affect it’s having on her.

I liked this unusual point of view. As Piglet is a cook book editor, the story is mostly told with very descriptive paragraphs on recipes and food. It sounds odd but it works in telling this tale. There is one particular scene that hits the nail on the head regarding the pressures Piglet is under about a life she had planned that is spiralling into something else, it’s told through the assembly of a dessert which is unusual but perfect metaphor for a ticking time bomb.

This was an unusual but interesting read.

When I first saw this book advertised, the title attracted me to the blurb and that was enough to have me clicking 'request'. I like books that are set very much in the real world with real people problems waiting to be solved.

When I started reading it, the plot engaged me straight away (the 'he told her on the 13th day before the wedding' was such a good hook - and isn't a spoiler as it comes very early on in the story) but I had an issue with the naming of the main character. It was clearly done with great clarity of thought by the author and it wasn't Hazell I had a problem with, it was the characters themselves. It was such a horrible nickname to bestow upon someone they supposedly cared for that I found it quite disturbing and it turned me against Piglet's family from the beginning. We then discover the origins of the name and it is heartbreaking for so many reasons. Later on in the book comes the scene in the wedding shop and I was apoplectic. There is no wonder that Piglet is the way she is and makes (what I consider to be) all the wrong decisions in her life.

Her response to stress is extreme and might come across to some as completely unrealistic, but I could completely relate to it. I haven't had a healthy relationship with food since becoming anorexic in my mid-teens and I swing between wanting to eat nothing and everything. Losing weight is a constant battle trying to balance my natural reaction to just stop eating with the awareness that isn't healthy for me and is a poor example to my children. When life gets stressful, eating is the one thing I can definitely control and whichever direction I go in, I have had to train myself to listen to the voice in my head telling me not to go to extremes. Therefore, I completely sympathised with Piglet in this. The pressure she is under from her family and herself would overwhelm anyone, let alone someone already trying to plan a wedding and then when a relationship crisis is thrown into the mix, there's no wonder she struggles to cope!

At times, this isn't an easy read because Piglet deserves so much better from life than she believes she does. Thank goodness for her friend, Margot and in the end, even her family had redeemed themselves slightly in my eyes.

Thank you to the publisher and to NetGalley for the ARC.

This started off well but I sadly got bored about the 40-50% mark. I was kept invested by the premise that we would find out what Kit had done but when I passed 50%, 60%, 70% and we still hadn't been told, I lost interest. There was no real plot apart from the lead up and day of the wedding. I thought more focus would have been put on the eating disorder element but this was only a sideline in the end.

There also seemed to be ridiculously lengthy descriptions of things - around 5 pages of Piglet putting together the cake in the morning and about the same amount of detail when putting on the dress which I thought was too much. Sorry unfortunately this book wasn't for me!

I’m sorry to say, this one, unfortunately wasn’t for me. I really don’t like leaving negative feedback as the author has put their heart and soul into writing - I would never be able to do what they do . I found this to be an uncomfortable read and I found I didn’t really care about piglet and ended up skim reading till I gave up in the end.
Just because it wasn’t for me, doesn’t mean it’s not somebody else’s cup of tea.

This started OK but I had more and more issues with it as the story unfolded. Piglet, so-called because she ate a lot when she was younger to cover up her sister‘s eating disorder, is still a binge-eater but the book skims over this. Her fiancé reveals a terrible secret just days before their wedding but we never find out what it is.

All of the characters are obnoxious (other than the best friend) and sometimes this works in books but in this case it didn‘t. I‘m sure I‘m not the target market for another #millennialsnotcommunicating book though!

2.5 stars rounded up to 3

Loved the writing in this one, sparse but so evocative and the tension ramps up making for a fantastic read.