Piglet
The must-read literary debut for 2024 that readers can’t stop talking about
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3.6 • 30 Ratings
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- £7.99
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- £7.99
Publisher Description
Discover a deliciously dark and piercing story of food and secrets, a Stylist Best Debut Novel of 2024.
‘A sharp, dark, must-read story about appetite, ambition, secrecy and shame’ Daily Mail
‘If I owned a bookstore, I’d hand-sell Piglet to everyone’ New York Times Book Review
‘A dark, weird, satisfying tale about greed and desire’ i News
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Her life is so full, so why is she hungry?
For Piglet – an unshakable childhood nickname – getting married is her opportunity to reinvent. Together, Kit and Piglet are the picture of domestic bliss – effortless hosts, planning a covetable wedding...
But if a life looks too good to be true, it probably is.
Thirteen days before they are due to be married, Kit reveals an awful truth, cracking the façade Piglet has created. It has the power to strip her of the life she has so carefully built, so smugly shared.
To do something about it would be to self-destruct.
But what will it cost her to do nothing?
As the hours count down to their wedding, Piglet is torn between a growing appetite and the desire to follow the recipe, follow the rules. Surely, with her husband, she could be herself again. Wouldn’t it be a waste for everything to curdle now?
Piglet is a searing, unforgettable and original debut which is taking readers by storm in 2024.
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‘Compulsively readable... Delicious, in every sense of the word.’ Elle US
‘An insightful, stomach-churning debut novel about the corrosive power of secrets’ Mail on Sunday
‘A cunning critique of the expectations that society continues to heap on young women.’ Financial Times
‘A debut that needs to be on your radar… A rich, vibrant, visceral book, that is brimming with acerbic wit and mouth-watering food, this is dark, witty and explores societal pressure and body image in an unforgettable way’ - Glamour
‘Delicious, dark and thought-provoking’ Hello!
‘Satirical and funny… Hazell has much to say about our food-obsessed snobbery and she plates up a deliciously-written narrative, generously peppered with lethal ground glass’ Irish Independent
‘A food-filled debut of class and ambition’ Guardian
APPLE BOOKS REVIEW
Indulgence, cravings and the difference between being full and being satisfied are the main themes of Piglet, Lottie Hazell’s striking debut novel. The action centres on the titular protagonist (who is referred to until the last by her childhood nickname), and her husband-to be, Kit, who we find in the opening pages serving up roast chicken—somewhat smugly—at a dinner party they have thrown on the first weekend in their new home. Piglet thrives on the feeling of an evening well hosted, even as the engaged couple and their friends dine amid unpacked boxes and an absence of furniture, and the sense that she and Kit have a picture-perfect future ahead of them is palpable. As the wedding date approaches, however, a revelation from Kit corrupts their projection of happiness and Piglet is forced to confront her life as it is, not how she hopes it will be. There are a myriad of relatable issues to sort through and overcome: Piglet’s feelings of inadequacy in the face of her comfortably well-off future in-laws, the friction burn of her new, upwardly mobile life rubbing against her unsophisticated roots, impending motherhood introducing a sudden distance between Piglet and her very pregnant best friend and maid-of-honour, to name but a few. And lingering, ever present beneath them, is Piglet’s fraught relationship with her body; never a main meal, always a tense, anxious aftertaste to each of the delectable feasts she serves up or consumes. Hazell is imaginative in her presentation of food as an emotional balm and even-handed in using it as a metaphor, keeping this exploration of self-worth, desire and aspiration in balance. Some of the scenes in Piglet are not easy to swallow, the flavours not always pleasant, but the sense of nourishment as the story concludes makes it worth chewing on.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Hazell debuts with the delicious narrative of a disastrous wedding. The bride is a London cookbook editor known by her childhood nickname, Piglet. Thirteen days before the ceremony, her fiancé, Kit, confesses that he's cheated on her, and the ensuing stress leads her to relapse into binge-eating, something she's struggled with since childhood. She's also fallen out with her pregnant best friend Margot over the decision to move ahead with the wedding despite Kit's unfaithfulness, and she becomes obsessed with making the wedding cake, an elaborate croquem bouche. Margot, before their falling out, warned Piglet that "counting down to events in days makes you sound like a serial killer," and though there's no violence, Margot's words echo unsettlingly as Piglet withdraws emotionally from Kit and begins dodging her coworkers to arrange sessions of binge-eating. Hazell occasionally slips into stereotypes, as when she describes Piglet's family members trying to stuff her into her wedding dress, but she also offers unflinching depictions of disordered eating, including a scene in which Piglet devours a pile of burgers in a chain restaurant and her fingers fuse together from the mess, causing her hand to look more like a hoof. When the big date finally arrives, Piglet finally resists the old-fashioned notions of the perfect bride. It's an appealing cautionary tale.
