I enjoyed this book but I felt that there should have been so much to it, I felt this book gave us what should have been the first 15% of a story rather than the whole story. 
Our main character is 18 or so and is pregnant and quite frankly she's disinterested in her pregnancy and her life, she has a wonderful boyfriend but she just can't seem to talk to him and she has a caring mother. She is also grieving her father, even if he wasn't really a great father. Her fixation on a customer who calls and asks for a specific pizza and then also invites her to a mother and baby group is interesting to read about, but her fixation and obsession and the final scene it leads to felt to sped up and I feel, lacked the action, I was looking for. However, I do think it was true to the character. 
I love that our character was of mixed ethnicity but I would have liked so much more about the impact of that, she touches on it briefly with her mother and how she quickly assimilated to being American but I wanted to know more about how this affected the two. Regardless this isn't a terrible book, I just wish there was more of it, it definitely felt incomplete.

The beginning chapters were intriguing enough to hook me even though I had no idea what was going on. But curiosity takes you places and I ended up reading the book in a day. Weird, but comfortably so - I felt this really explored that listless, empty and lost feeling many 18 year olds get, and the delicate, difficult mental space that can put you in. The imagery in this is powerful, Pizza Girl is observant and the descriptions suck you in and make you live the world she's living in. I'm really looking forward to seeing what else Jean Kyoung Frazier writes in the future.

Jane is young. She has just finished high school. She works in a pizza restaurant. She is pregnant. That is about as much as you can say about Jane on the surface. We don’t begin to understand her or her motivation in life until she gets a random pizza request from a lonely woman called Jenny. It is then that her world goes a little off kilter.

Pizza Girl, for me, was essentially the story of being a little bit lost. Jane seems lost on a strangely pre-determined path that Jane couldn’t seem to get off. Jane doesn’t seem to be comfortable with her pregnancy or her relationship with the baby’s father. Nor does she seem happy to believe that this is it, her life. When she meets Jenny it is almost like Jane finally finds someone to be a beacon of adulthood and what it is all about – not a perfect version of adulthood but with Jane being young and impressionable it seems better than what she has. 

I will say that Pizza Girl is a very quirky and unique novel. It is not one that intends to make the reader feel comfortable. It skirts the edge of unusual indie read with no real resolution. However, it does leave you feeling strangely optimistic.

Pizza Girl by Jean Kyoung Frazier is available from 06th September 2020.

For more information regarding Jean Kyoung Frazier (@gojeanfraziergo) please visit www.gojeanfraziergo.com.

For more information regarding HQ (@HQstories) please visit www.hqstories.co.uk.

At just over 200 pages long this short but snappy novel sure packs a punch. Plot wise, there isn't a huge amount going on here, it's the well rounded relatable character push the novel along. I read this one over 2 evenings and found it such an enjoyable little gem of a book that centers around a pregnant teenager - named just 'Pizza Girl' - trying to make sense of her situation and those around her. In parts poignant and melancholy with a good dash of strength and hope. I found the book echoed well the feelings of teen despair and the general feeling of being lost in the world and disconnected from other people, 

A truly remarkable little novel that kept me engaged right until the end, a pleasure to read.

“The queer slacker pizza delivery novel we’ve been waiting for”, as one blog described it, perfectly. A gorgeous short and bittersweet debut novel, narrated in the first person by the disconnected, soon-to-be teenage mother pizza girl of the title, with classic teenage ennui. She becomes smitten with a customer, an older married woman, and things go from just-about-keeping-it-together to pretty messy.

Along with a uniquely memorable main character, there’s real emotional complexity lurking beneath the deceptively zippy narrative - loss and need drive her increasingly erratic actions, along with conflicted feelings around identity and belonging, all subtly brought into play as dark undercurrents. The banality of pizza girl’s life contrasts with the surreal imaginings and flights of fantasy that are her inner world, while in uncomfortably believable denial about the reality of her baby. You veer between wanting to wrap your arms around her, and wanting to give her a good shake.

The author has a lovely skilful touch with imagery: pizza girl’s glimpses into lives of others, always outside looking in, waiting on doorsteps, pizza box in hand; the home of her beloved with the immaculate front entrance concealing domestic chaos beyond; flicking tv channels with her iPod on, disconnected as ever; drunk in the cocoon of in her (useless, dead) dad’s shed, or driving aimlessly around LA in his old car at night, life passing her by. She picks out sensory details perfectly - the object of the obsession’s buoyant ponytail, her worn shirt, greasy food - and her eye for detail and ear for dialogue are just superb.

There’s so much to unpack from this small but perfectly formed novel, and I could go on - a lot. Jean Kyoung Frazier writes with perfect control and confidence, and has every reason to be confident; she’s seriously gifted. Suffice to say, 'Pizza girl' is a gem: buy it, and tell your friends.

I have found this novel very honest and pure. It is the modern representation emotional struggles at it’s best.

This is the story of a young 18-year-old girl who works in a pizza shop, who’s pregnant, who lives with her boyfriend and her mum and who is unhappy, suffocating and a little dysfunctional. 

I enjoy how Jean Kyoung Frazier writes about how the protagonist feels in the moment, however twisted and dark her thoughts can be, they are so real and raw. The story covered many topics such as fragility, mental health, depression, anger, the power of desire and idealisation, alcoholism , loss, grief, and so much more.

I do understand that this novel isn’t for everybody, some might say it lacks ambition, there isn’t really a story and it is true, but it so much more than that. If you can’t relate to that story or the way she thinks, I think it even more beneficial for you to read it because I do believe that it will expand your mind . It is a realistic depiction of the millennial and newer generations mindset, the constant emotional struggles with identity, sexuality, expectations and trauma. 

I think this is a brilliant debut. Thank you NetGalley, the publisher and the author for letting me read an advanced copy in exchange for an honest review.

A new addition to my list of recommendations when customers tell me they want "something unexpected" !!

I loved this book, it made me feel nostalgic for my own mess of a self at 18. Someone so young and "shapeless", fairly indistinguishable from my peers at that age but still feeling like I was under-performing compared to everyone else.

This was weird and wacky but with surprising level of depth and a lot of heart. Pizza Girl will absolutely go down a treat with fans of Eleanor Oliphant or The Convenience Store Woman.

This is about a damaged young girl who is grieving for her alcoholic father and pregnant by her boyfriend, who is standing by her, as is her mother. Despite the support she is confused and unhappy and drinks a lot. She has quit her education and works in a pizza takeaway. She starts delivering to Jenny, whose young son likes pickles on his pizza. She develops a crush on Jenny, who is twice her age and happily married. Nothing very much happens in this novel and there is no revelatory ending.

I really struggled writing this review.
Firstly it’s hard to give a synopsis of the story without giving too much away, secondly it was so hard to get in to and thirdly it covers mental health and I think that’s hard to write about in a fictional novel - I’m not sure the author was able to do it justice.
Not sure what else to say other than I found it hard going and wondering what the hype was all about

Thank you to the Author, Publisher and NetGalley for gifting me this ARC in exchange for an honest review.

At first I found it quite difficult to read, it just felt a little disjointed but after a few chapters I was engrossed, reading the book in one day!  Once ‘Pizza Girl’ meets customer Jenny that’s when the story gets interesting. At times it was so weird, the feelings ‘Pizza Girl’ was having and the thoughts she had but I think that helped me really get into the dysfunctional mind of this girl. It made me connect to her and you could really appreciate just how lost she felt.

It’s hard to go into too much detail without giving too much away. But overall I enjoyed it, it wasn’t my usual read but I’m glad I took the plunge and gave it a go. Even if it did leave me feeling exhausted after reading it!

Thanks to @netgalley and @harpercollinsuk for letting me read Pizza Girl by Jean Kyoung Frazier in advance. It was described as a most anticipated book by some big publications and - despite seeing literally nothing about it on Instagram until that point - I have seen one person describing it as incredibly hyped, so I thought I would join in. 

The pizza girl of this book is a mixed-race, Los Angeles-dwelling, pregnant eighteen year old girl. This is quite a hard book to describe beyond that - it was a little too weird for my tastes, full of impulses and desires that I didn't quite understand. Aside from the weirdness (which I don't normally enjoy in books anyway), I feel like there were things I wanted from this book and didn't get: more LA, more backstory, more depiction of her relationship with her boyfriend Billy. On the whole, I enjoyed this quirky, intelligent read - I wasn't always impressed with the writing, but the world inhabited by the pizza girl was certainly one that I wanted to read about, and the author has a talent for creating some of the most memorable opening lines of chapters I've read. There's plenty of interesting observations and characterisations here - like her convincing portrayal of various mental health problems - but I'd agree with other readers that Pizza Girl felt like a snapshot of a bigger story, one that I would have been more intrigued to delve into. 3 🌟

I read this in two sittings and was super happy to put everything on hold to finish it. My complaint is it's too short. More, please. Thanks to Netgalley and the publisher for the chance to read this.

HER NAME WAS JENNY HAUSER and every Wednesday I put pickles on her pizza.”

It is with these words that “Pizza Girl”, named a most anticipated book of 2020 by Vogue, Elle, Marie Claire and Time, hooks you in!


Being a teenager is not easy,we can all agree on that, but when you are pregnant and you have just lost your dad it’s even harder.

It is for these reasons that the heroine of this book becomes completely lost and in denial of reality.

She becomes obsessed with Jenny, a beautiful woman in the late 30’s that every Wednesdays orders a pizza delivery.

Straight after their first encounter, the relationship between the two women will morph into something strange, complicated and heartbreaking... that will lead the unnamed protagonist to take a desperate decision...

Do not be fooled by the title,this book will be a complete surprise and like nothing you have read before!

Provoking, deep, dark but also witty and full of emphaty.

It made me reflect on the fragility of the human mind and how easy it is to lose touch with reality.

Pizza Girl is an interesting book - it's not my usual genre and initially, I found it quite difficult to get into - the text seemed disjointed and I wasn't quite sure what was going on with the characters. It's not until later in the novel that we actually find out the main characters name and how and why her boyfriend Billy calls Pizza Girls Mom-Mom.
The plot picks up pace towards the latter part of the novel and it becomes easier to read and digest.

Any comparison with Sally Rooney's phenomenally successful 'Normal People' is likely to grab would-be readers' attention - it certainly did mine. 'Pizza Girl' is original, heartfelt, funny, serious, tragic... I could continue. Essentially, it is in a league of its own and even though I love 'Normal People' and Rooney's spare writing style, I think 'Pizza Girl' is quite different.

Pizza Girl is the narrator - and it isn't until much later in the novel that readers find out her name: Jane. She lives with her mum, a Korean immigrant, and her boyfriend, Billy, in their Los Angeles home. She works at Eddie's, a pizza parlour, and in some ways, her life is drifting away from her. That's when she meets Jenny Hauser, a customer who is new to the area (from Nebraska) who is desperate for a pickle-topped pizza for her awkward son, Adam. Pizza Girl agrees to deliver and this begins the chain of events in the novel.

Jane's father died - he was an alcoholic. Billy's parents were killed in a car accident in Costa Rica. And to top it all, Pizza Girl is pregnant. The couple are still in their teens and very much devoted to each other. What I really loved was the way Billy is portrayed as a kind, sensitive young man - not the typical 'I've got her pregnant now I will head off'. He cares about Jane and wants her to be happy. Even though she does reciprocate, it is the arrival of Jenny Hauser that sends events askew.

Jane and Jenny strike up a relationship - quite intimate at times - and this leads to Jenny leaving Adam in Jane's care for the evening. Evidently, both women are on the edge of suffering with mental anxiety and the writer deals with this in a sensitive and thoughtful way. When Jenny tells Jane that she is moving to Bakersfield with Adam and her husband (who is very distant in the novel), Jane goes off the rails - her obsession and lifeline has come to a head.

'Pizza Girl' deals with mental illness, relationships and life's minutiae in meticulous ways. I empathised so much with Billy - who doesn't have an easy ride - but towards the end, he manages to get his life back on track, as done Jane, to an extent. I feel sure that this novel will do brilliantly when it is published. It certainly deserves to be a big hit.

I raced through Pizza Girl, pulled along by the writing (which flows like you're sitting and having a chat with a(n admittedly very young) friend) and the quiet tension. Simmering underneath the seeming mundanity of the protagonist's day-to-day life, dark undertones bubble just below the surface throughout and deepen as the book goes on. I found myself quite anxious at points as to where the story was going.
Alongside the conversational tone, there are plenty of beautiful turns of phrase - I highlighted so many sections. It may be a cliche to say it, but in this case it's a true one - this book made me laugh and cry.
Everything about Pizza Girl felt new and fresh, and I'm very keen to see what Jean Kyoung Frazier writes next!

I’m not really sure what I made of this book, to be honest. It’s a lot deeper and darker than I had anticipated - but it’s also very well written and some of passages really made me think. 

I found it quite difficult to get in to, but by the end I was quite gripped. I think I found it hard to relate to the nameless protagonist. 

A bit of a mixed bag for me, but that may have been because I hadn’t expected the darker tone. 

I’m really grateful for the review copy. Thank you.

A fantastic, thought-provoking read! Whilst I wish it had been longer, with the characters more developed, it still drew me in. An exploration of unresolved feelings and apathy towards your life and an obsession with something external to you, in order to make sense of your life. Very insightful.

A very short book with a very frustrating main character! My feelings towards her fluctuated from sheer frustration to sympathy - and I think the fact the author managed to make me feel this way is testament to her good writing.
There is something a little sad and hopeless about the story - you can't really see a way out for the protagonist who doesn't really see a future for herself. But the story does feel fresh and honest, and I would definitely read more from this author.

A short but punchy read, Pizza Girl was witty, dark and different. Following the story of a pregnant teen who is struggling with a mixture of grief, acceptance and finding her true self. I found it interesting to see her mental health changing as her obsession with new customer Jenny progresses. This was very well written, easy to see the almost delusional thoughts becoming stronger and stronger leading to climatic scenes towards the end of the book. As flawed as Jane (Pizza Girl) is it hard not to like her ,she does a lot wrong in the story yet you definitely feel left wanting to fight her corner. The slight dark humour adds another aspect to the book and takes the edge off the hard hitting topics. A great little read.