Made it to 35% before deciding to not finish the book. I’m slightly confused by the hype this book is receiving on Instagram and Goodreads at the minute. Not entirely sure if the book just wasn’t for me but there was no plot, no character development, just no substance whatsoever. Even though it’s a short book I felt like I was reading for ages and it just wasn’t going anywhere. It’s a shame as the synopsis sounded great and there was so much potential for this book but it just felt messy. Also not a fan of the drinking most nights while she’s pregnant?! It was just very strange, that’s really the best way I can describe this book.

Quirky, funny and refreshing with a dark and gritty edge, this is a coming-of-age story with a difference. The narrator, who we know only as Pizza Girl, is an eighteen-year-old Korean-American who lives in Los Angeles with her mum and boyfriend and is eleven weeks pregnant. When Jenny Hauser calls in a panic requesting a pickle covered pizza that isn't on their menu, saying it's the only one her son Adam will eat, it sparks an unexpected chain of events.

Pizza Girl is immediately fascinated by Jenny and finds herself enamoured by the thirty-something mum as soon as they meet. The pair strike up an unusual friendship but Pizza Girl finds herself becoming increasingly obsessed with Jenny. And when lines are crossed things begin to spiral out of control.

This was an outstanding debut. The author is a fabulous storyteller, the writing atmospheric, pacy and immersive, pulling me into Pizza Girl's world and taking me on an emotional journey alongside her. The characters are richly drawn and achingly real, their pain, loneliness, disappointment, love and joy radiating from the pages.

I quickly fell in love with Pizza Girl. Her inner monologue is laced with both humour and despair. She's a lost soul who is full of questions and doesn't know where her life is going; she's just plodding along and internalising her feelings. She brought out all my maternal instincts and I just wanted to wrap my arms around her and comfort her. To listen to the things running through her mind. I loved the decision to only tell the story from her perspective as it reinforces the sense of isolation that surrounds her. I also liked that the author made her so deeply flawed. She was a far cry from your stereotypical likeable character, which made me love her all the more.

A truly original and memorable debut, Pizza Girl is a warm, tender and moving story about obsession, loss, motherhood, and finding your place in the world. I may have devoured it in a few short hours, but she will stay with me for a long time. Don't miss this book.

In fairness I think perhaps I am the wrong generation to appreciate this book fully. I did feel sorry for this teenager suddenly facing motherhood, sharing a house with her mother and her boyfriend who seem to have a very close relationship. Pizza Girl almost becomes an outsider in her own home. She is obviously out of her depth and looking for a relationship elsewhere.
Many thanks to Netgalley/Jean Kyoung Frazier/HQ for a digital copy of this title. All opinions expressed are my own.

Being pregnant is not easy; the changes in you and around you are constant and some of them stay forever; this is one of the important topics of this book. The main character, a young pregnant woman who is working in a pizza delivery service but becomes obsessed with one of her customers.
I didn't have an easy pregnancy, so I could understand her fears of the future and her need to not think about the baby inside her; she has enough problems with her parents and boyfriend, so her only way to survive is to disconnect. And the only way she finds to have a little spark in her life is to become obsessed with a new woman in the neighborhood and her son. As you can imagine things will take a dark twist, making the reader wanting to know more about the characters, the situations and how everything will end.
I found quite easy to understand the feelings of the main character, the need to be another person and have another family, she knows deep down that
she will have to face the reality, but she needs more the escapism than to face reality. Let's be honest, who has not been scared of what will happen once the baby arrives? So, imagine being a 18 year old woman! There was only one thing that I didn't like much, the way she treats her boyfriend because he seems to want to take care of her, but again, I think that the situation overcomes her reality making it impossible to face the truth.
This is a quirky read, maybe not for everyone, but the topics that covers are interesting and the perspective fresh and original. Pizza Girl is a fiction story, but I felt it more realistic than some other books I've read, you can feel the characters emotions in your own skin.
Ready to discover the "Pizza Girl"?

I absolutely loved this book! Just like a pepperoni pizza, it's gooey, spicy and leaves you with a lingering aftertaste. I found it to be a deeply compelling story looking at themes of female love and friendship, depression, grief and feeling lost and unsure of your place in the world.

I also enjoyed this novel that didn't deify pregnancy and motherhood - Pizza Girl is completely ambivalent about her pregnancy, maybe because she's only 18 but possibly because she is still grieving the death of her father. I liked how this is contrasted with Jenny, who comes into her life ordering a pepperoni and pickle pizza for her young son and is a devoted (if slightly chaotic) mother. It's almost as though Pizza Girl transfers the feelings that you might expect for a baby into this woman; she thinks about her all the time at work and drives past her house at the end of her shift just to try and catch a glimpse of her.

Her boyfriend was lovely and that made a refreshing change to have a decent man supporting his girlfriend and trying to help her! This was a tale of a young woman's loneliness and ennui and could be compared to a modern, female version of a coming of age tale like The Catcher in the Rye but I really didn't like that book and loved this one! I could relate to her feelings of not knowing what is going to happen next in your life and making some bad decisions in the hope that a solution will reveal themselves (I found the conclusion of the friendship with Jenny surprising and dramatic!).

I was highlighting passages in my Kindle all the way through this book, I just devoured it and think it's great - recommend!

I had high hopes for this read, but was ultimately left underwhelmed. I found the protagonist very unlikeable which made it hard to stay interested in the prose, and the general storyline seemed quite disjointed? As it is a short read it lacked a lot of depth (understandably) but because of this there isn’t really time to connect with any of the characters and so I found myself not really caring about where the story went..

I chose this book because the write-up sounded very interesting, however, I could not finish this book and I won’t go back to try and finish it.

This is the story of an 18 year old girl who is pregnant and working at a pizza shop. She becomes obsessed with a customer who is struggling with her son.

This book just bored me. I found myself dreading picking up my kindle to finish it, however, I was trying to work to the review deadline (which I have now seen was moved back).

Pizza girl, who I believe remains unnamed throughout the novel, is a typical self-obsessed 18 year old. However, instead of having no responsibilities, she is pregnant with her boyfriend’s baby. She is annoyed with her mother and her boyfriend, who are both trying to look after her and the baby. She drinks alcohol to cope, despite being pregnant.

I don’t know why she becomes obsessed with Jenny, the stay-at-home mum and, because I didn’t finish the novel, I guess I never will (although I have no idea if this was explained).

Despite getting 36% of the way through the novel (according to my Kindle), I found that nothing had happened. There was no character development, no plot line, no direction.

I am obviously in the minority, having seen the Goodread’s average rating for this book, so it clearly just wasn’t for me.

It took me a while to get into this book and how American it was, but once I got into the pace and that the author was speaking universal truths I loved it. A snapshot into the life of a pregnant 18 year old who is loved by her boyfriend and mother but searches for more is very bleak at times but with glimpses of positive things to come
thank you to netgalley and HQ for an advance copy of this book

Pizza Girl by Jean Kyoung Frazieris about a pregnant 18 year old, who works as a pizza delivery person.  Her alcoholic father died a year ago, she lives with her mom and her boyfriend, and she's feeling lost and alone.  She's worried she'll end up like her father, but still drinks alcohol whilst pregnant, whilst knowing she's doing a horrible thing.

Then she answers the phone to a weird request, a pepperoni pizza with pickles on it, requested by a woman for her homesick son, and life changes for pizza girl as she starts to obsess over this woman, Jenny.

This was bleak, funny, heartwarming and addresses how lonely you can be even when surrounded by loved ones.  Maybe especially so.  It is a good read, but sad, and reminded me a lot of how I felt when reading  Eleanor Oliphant is Completely Fine .

 Pizza Girl  is released in the UK on 17th September 2020, and is available to buy from  Amazon ,  Waterstones , and your  local independent bookshop .

You can follow Jean Kyoung Frazier on her  website ,  Instagram  and  Twitter .

I was given this book in exchange for an unbiased review, and so my thanks to NetGalley and to  HQ .

This novel depicts a short period of time in a young woman’s life, a time when she is going through a significant crisis. Pregnant at eighteen and working as pizza delivery girl, she meets a woman experiencing a crisis of her own and becomes obsessed with her. I found this to be an engrossing read examining someone unravelling; revealing that the person unravelling may not be aware of what is happening as they focus on the subject of their obsession, and certainly not be in a position to either want or be able reflect on why they are feeling the way they do. This novel is raw and honest and I enjoyed reading it, really rooting for Pizza Girl to come through her crisis, recognise and accept the support and love of those close to her.

The rating and review for Pizza Girl is really difficult for me.
Firstly, I cannot recommend this book, because the main character, the 18 year old Pizza Girl drinks alcohol throughout her pregnancy and the real possibility of her child being born with Foetal Alcohol Syndrome or Foetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorder, is not addressed, save for one brief mention by a doctor towards the end of the book. I find this completely unforgivable. Although this book is not aimed at the young adult market, I think due to the age of the main character, subject matter and the style of writing, it will inevitably appeal to this market and will be read by this audience. This issue should have been properly addressed. FAS is a real and horrendous condition which is wholly preventable if women just stop drinking during pregnancy.
If this issue had been properly addressed I would have rated this book much more highly, as I really enjoyed the rest of the book. The Pizza Girl is original, a different writing style and demonstrates the problems of family dynamics.
Thanks to NetGalley for a Kindle copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.

Eighteen years old and pregnant, a pizza delivery girl develops an unhealthy obsession with Jenny, a stay-at-home mother who starts ordering pepperoni and pickle pizzas for her young son. Seemingly lonely and unhappy herself, Jenny invites Pizza Girl along to a new and expecting mothers’ support group, and the boundaries between their friendship begin to blur in complicated ways.

Full of messy emotions, Pizza Girl is an unexpected gem. I didn’t really like the protagonist at all, but she’s emotionally damaged and it isn’t supposed to be a comfortable read. The infatuation with Jenny did develop in quite a natural-feeling way, and I did sympathise with our heroine as she spiralled, despite not liking her.

I didn’t love the book, mainly because it is quite bleak and not very much actually happens with the plot, making it rather anti-climactic, but it is a proper coming-of-age novel and uncompromising in its portrayal of a young woman coming to grips with her reality.

This book is very experimental and very very interesting conceptually. Much like convenience store the characters and the plot cover very fragile and violent themes. At times the characters are so emotionally charged it can be difficult to like them, I’m honestly unsure what I think!

I picked up Pizza Girl by Jean Kyoung Frazier partly because it has been likened to Sally Rooney’s Normal People, which I really enjoyed. While I can sort of see where this comparison has come from, I have to say I certainly don’t think that it’s a given that if you loved Rooney’s novel you’ll also enjoy this one; they are very different books!

Pizza Girl is very much a character-driven novel, about a pregnant 18 year old that has just left school. She is working as a pizza delivery driver while trying to deal with the death of her alcoholic father as well as an overbearing mother and over-attentive boyfriend. She becomes very attached to one of her regular customers, Jenny, and they strike up a kind of strange friendship.

I did have a lot of sympathy for Pizza Girl, clearly inhabiting a life that she’s not entirely satisfied with but isn’t sure how to get out of. She’s overwhelmed and has no idea who or what she wants to be, turning to alcohol to help her cope. This is something that becomes more marked as she develops a growing obsession with Jenny.

While I could sympathise though, I’m not sure I actually liked her very much. She’s pretty horrible to Billy, her boyfriend, and as her actions become more and more unpredictable I became frustrated. But I suppose that’s partially the point: it shows the lasting and far-reaching damage caused by addiction, and the confusion and frustration involved sometimes in being aged 18.

At 208 pages this is a very short book, but it does manage to pack an emotional punch. There are moments of wit and wry humour, and moments that had me reading through my fingers. It won’t be for everyone but I’d say that if you have read and enjoyed The Catcher in the Rye then you should give Pizza Girl a go.

With thanks to HQ for gifting me a digital copy for review.

Didn't get quite what I thought I would with this. Found it pretty bleak. Was also quite frustrated at the main character. Not one for me in the end.

'Pizza Girl' follows a young woman who works in a Pizza Takeaway and becomes obsessed with a customer, Jenny, as a distraction from her pregnancy.

I didn't fully engage with this book, as I felt that whilst there were moments where the Pizza Girl's thoughts and feelings were undeniably thought-provoking, as a whole the book was quite monotone, staying at the same level and pace throughout. I feel that the novel would have been more enjoyable for me if the author had delved further into the character development and relationships of the Pizza Girl's boyfriend and mother, as this would have perhaps padded the story out and given it that more 'coming-of-age' feel that I think the author was hoping for.

A book with promise and moments of absolute gold, however, for me, the execution wasn't quite there.

Thank you to Net Galley and the publisher for the advance copy in exchange for an honest review.

I reviewed this titles as part of my What I Read in August video on my YouTube channel: https://youtu.be/wwtPnuDv2ps

It has also featured in a book haul video.

Overall I thought this book was written fantastically. It was engaging and the characters were interesting, and it offered a perspective I don't often see depicted in literature. Unfortunately I had some issues with the bisexual representation in this book which lowered my rating.

I think I’m the wrong demographic for this one as I was deeply impatient and irritated by pregnant teenager Jane, throughout, and though the novel is very well-written and throbs with life and feeling, if I don’t like or empathise with the main characters, I can’t really enjoy the experience. It’s also quite an ‘American’ book, it will certainly resonate with many people: issues of familial loss, cultural upheaval, motherhood, depression, search for identity.

Pizza Girl tells the story of a young woman, working at Eddie's pizza parlour, pregnant and feeling lost and hopeless. She has a supportive Mum, a loving boyfriend and yet she feels disconnected from them both. Her father, an alcoholic and sometimes cruel man has recently died and she worries that she is following the same path as him as she secretly drinks at night in his shed.

When she gets a phone call from a customer, Jenny, who is also feeling adrift, she feels an instant connection and becomes obsessed with her. Every Wednesday she delivers a pepperoni and pickle pizza to her house, and they form a strange connection, Jenny even leaving her young son Adam with Pizza Girl while she escapes for a while. Pizza Girl starts to picture the world without her in it, she has no hopes or dreams and she isn't excited about becoming a Mum. Only with Jenny can she share these fears.

Then Jenny announces she is leaving the next day, as her husband is being relocated for work. Giving Pizza Girl her address so they can write, she has no way of knowing what is about to happen. Believing she is going to rescue Jenny from a life she doesn't want, Pizza Girl drinks, and drives to her new house, with a gun. But what she finds when she gets there is not what she expects.

When she returns home after a brief stay in hospital, she has a conversation with her Mum that is the most beautiful scene in this book and a moment of light for this complex and damaged young woman.

Not a book to uplift or escape into, but a very real and very thought-provoking portrayal of how our own thoughts can hold us prisoner.

Set in LA this debut novel charts a period in the protagonist’s life as she struggles to find her place in the world, grieving for her father and in denial of her pregnancy. Pizza Girl is only eighteen, working at Eddie’s, living at home with her boyfriend Billy and Korean mum Kayla. A phone call one day from a woman in the neighbourhood,Jenny Hauser, requesting pizza with pickles for her son Adam kickstarts an obsession for Pizza Girl that I found difficult to comprehend.

Whether or not it’s because I’m middle aged, I simply couldn’t relate to the protagonist at all, unable to identify with her emotional state. Her obsession with Jenny to me was unfathomable and frankly weird, an instantaneous connection that’s almost creepy. I kept asking myself if Pizza Girl (whose name we don’t know until near the very end) was experimenting with her sexuality, or simply looking for a connection with someone who could recognise a fellow human being who is unsure of her place in the world. Pizza Girl’s disassociation with her pregnancy which is evident from the beginning and her disengagement from both her boyfriend Billy and mother Kayla highlight how adrift in this world she has become. Also her fears that she is a mirror image of her dead alcoholic father, drinking heavily at a time when she really shouldn’t is both an example of her immaturity and her anxiety for the future but unfortunately I couldn’t summon any sympathy for Pizza Girl. She certainly isn’t worthy of Billy’s love or even co worker Darryl’s friendship. Her world weariness, given she is only eighteen, made me question her age as her voice in many ways suggests someone much older. I can only presume losing her father, finding herself pregnant and working a mundane low end job is the reason for her seeming older than her years. The only occasion I could begin to relate to this girl is when there is a discussion with Jenny over motherhood, the fear such responsibility for another person induces, how that fear, that need to protect never ever diminishes, how you wonder if you can ever be good enough for your children. Those are the passages that made some kind of sense, voicing sentiments all mothers can identify with. However hard I tried though, for the most part,I just couldn’t tune into this author’s wavelength.

Is there any humour at all in this novel? I suppose there is in some of the interactions Pizza Girl has with some of her more regular customers, and with her co worker Darryl but it’s subtle and intermittent. No way is it hilarious! I would perhaps have appreciated more in depth characterisation in terms of Billy and Pizza Girl’s mum but given the length of the novel I can understand why the author has chosen to keep these two on the periphery of events.

Sometimes we make mistakes choosing a book and sometimes the blurb can be misleading. In this case both are true! I love to discover new authors, venturing outside of my comfort zones but sadly on this occasion the gamble didn’t pay off. This is by no means a hilarious novel, instead it’s probably the most misery inducing piece of fiction I’ve read this year. Yes, I accept some parts are heartbreaking and I did find there was a turning point three quarters of the way through where I did make a tentative connection with the storyline. Mercifully, this is a short novel, otherwise I may have just given up. I can’t imagine that this debut will appeal to a wide audience as I think it’s the kind of novel you’ll either love or hate. Clearly I fall into the latter camp and I won’t feel inclined to recommend.
My thanks as always to the publisher and Netgalley for giving me the opportunity to read in exchange for an honest review.