Pig is one of those books that's very difficult to review. Not because the book isn't brilliant; it is. And not because it's a difficult read; it is, in spots, but that's because it's so well done that the subject matter becomes uncomfortable. The subject matter - an abusive relationship - is so well drawn that I had to keep putting the book down and coming back to it. But I did keep coming back; I badly wanted to know what would happen to Vale in the end.

Domestic abuse is a tricky subject and sensitive for many, but Vale is never treated like a victim. Clara's gradual abuse is shown for exactly what it is, and Vale's friends are clearly doing their best to help. I'm finding it very difficult to say much about this as I don't want to give away the twists!

This isn't an easy read, and I did have to put it down and come back to it a few times, but it's really worth it. Give it a try.


Book Recommendation: If you were drawn to Vale’s quiet strength and the slow, careful journey toward reclaiming her life, you might enjoy Eleanor Oliphant Is Completely Fine by Gail Honeyman. Eleanor’s story also explores the challenges of living with past trauma and finding unexpected hope in human connection.

TV/Movie Recommendation: For a more intense but thematically resonant watch, Room (2015) directed by Lenny Abrahamson captures the psychological toll of captivity and control, and the fierce determination it takes to survive and begin again.

I feel like I read the final 20% of Pig by Matilde Pratesi in one breath—eyes wide, breath held, whispering to myself, this is it, this is when she realises what’s been going on. With every page, the urgency tightened in my chest... but the main character didn’t seem to catch up. Not until the very end. And when she did—it was devastatingly, brilliantly earned.

Yes, this novel is beautifully written. Yes, it’s masterfully crafted. But more than that: it’s a story. A real one. It unfolds like memory—slippery, selective, tender, and dangerous. One you don’t just read, but absorb.

Valentina is the kind of character who slips under your skin. She doesn’t fit in at school, doesn’t quite know how to be, and seeks out comfort in pigs—yes, pigs—where everything is simpler, quieter. Then comes Clara. Gorgeous, magnetic Clara, who sees her. And for a little while, the world shifts. Vale can breathe.

But then Clara leaves. And Valentina has to decide who she is without her. You think this is the arc. But no—Clara returns. This time more intense, more consuming, and she’s not letting go.

Pig is a slow-burn psychological unraveling disguised as coming-of-age. It’s about isolation, obsession, belonging, and the haunting pull of someone who once made you feel alive. It's tender. It’s unsettling. It’s the kind of book you want to crawl out of and back into again, just to make sure you really saw what you think you saw.

Definitely check the trigger warnings before diving in—this one goes deep. But if you’re willing to sit with the discomfort, Pig is unforgettable.

An interesting and contemporary, on-point topic, that I wanted to love but found a little laborious. At times, the repetitious nature of the narrative was a surprise, and I think the plot itself began to feel exhausted and exhausting. It's a good idea, for sure, and it'll be very interesting to see what the feedback from everyone is once it's published. Thanks very much to Netgalley and to the publisher for the ARC.

This was a slow one, but gosh did it get under my skin and make me furious! The non-romantic relationship we see in the novel is brutal, raw and upsetting, and I very much got invested in the story. I found myself hoping for the absolute best outcome for our main character, Vale, and despising her ‘best friend’.

If you’re looking for a slow-paced but well-worth-it book focusing on a toxic female friendship, this is the book for you.

Thank you Little Brown Book Group UK & NetGalley for the ARC in exchange for an honest review.

Due for publication in May 2025, Pig is a deeply unsettling and uncomfortable read. It took some time to get under the skin of the main character Vale, but the more we learned about her the more frustrated I got with those who stood by and allowed this toxic relationship to go on as long as it did.
Vale is working in a bookshop in London. When stressed or nervous she takes to reciting pig facts to calm herself down. Right at the outset we sense she is in a coercive relationship - running to get home on time because you fear the reaction of the person you live with is not right. So, why does Vale not see this?
The answer is not straightforward.
As I read the opening chapter I felt I was reading about an abusive relationship between two romantic partners. So it shocked me rather when I realised that Vale is living with Clara, her best friend from when she was a teenager in Rome, and that there is no physical intimacy between them. This made it even more incomprehensible to understand why Vale bathes Clara, and why Clara writes her daily notes telling her what to wear and what to eat. I’m not naive enough to not recognise that many of the signs of a toxic relationship can creep up on people, but these were so glaring that I wondered whether we were going to have an unexpected twist that would challenge my evident assumptions.
The story unpicks their early friendship, and in the beginning Vale certainly seemed rather obsessive in her overtures of friendship. Vale’s comments about these early years, and her general ways of managing life, suggested strongly that she may be on the autistic spectrum. Without anyone else’s view of these early years it’s hard to say to what extent we trust Vale’s viewpoint.
The story is not particularly fast-paced, and nothing much actually happens for a long time. An unexpected meeting during work results in Vale being commissioned to write a book about her specialist interest, pigs. Hiding this from her flatmate, even though it brings her such joy, is deeply troubling to read about. As Vale begins to trust those around her she starts to make decisions that are about her, and about her desires.
It was not entirely unexpected to read about the selfish behaviour of Clara once the book is published. However, as little chinks in the relationship appear I wanted to give a cheer as Vale begins those crucial small steps in gaining the autonomy so many of us take for granted.
A discomfiting read, and though I can’t say I enjoyed it the experience was certainly one that I feel I benefitted from. Huge thanks to the author and NetGalley for granting me access to this in exchange for my honest review. I shall certainly recommend it to some and look forward to hearing their thoughts.

unfortunately, while the premise of pig had me excited to get stuck in, the book as a whole didn’t quite work for me in a few ways. the writing style, narrative structure, characterisation and representation are all areas in which i feel it needed some reworking to make it shine. on the face of it, i think this could have been quite amazing, but in its current state i do think these areas keep it from hitting the mark.

let me try and take this step by step, and parse through my thoughts as clearly as possible. to start, the writing style was fine. i didn’t fall in love with it, but it worked for what the story was, and did capture the main character, valentina’s, internal voice pretty well. it was simplistic, but i think too simplistic to capture some of the emotions on the page, which i think left it feeling a little lacking. for a story covering such dark themes and heavy emotions, it would have been nice to have writing that was more evocative.

i think the narrative structure was a really odd choice. the story is split into three parts, with parts one and three taking place in the present timeline (2019-2020), and part two acting as backstory, taking place in 2012. i have to say, i don’t think this structure served the narrative well at all. it was really disengaging to be taken out of the present timeline for a massive context dump. the first part does a decent job of building up some tension, and we are removed from that. and then by part three there’s little left to discover, other than how the remainder of the story will unfold. it would have made far more sense to drop pieces of backstory throughout the narrative, allowing us to slowly piece together how vale and clara’s relationship came to be the way it is.

in terms of the characters, i liked the supporting characters much more than the main two, vale and clara. ollie and kai were great, and i loved seeing the supportive friendship they gave to vale. i wish we’d gotten a little more of kai! the glimpses we saw of edo were interesting as well. as for clara and vale, i had a harder time reading them. i feel like clara had potential for a far more nuanced take on her character. what made her the way she was, and why did she do what she did? i feel like she was a compulsive liar and a narcissist, but that’s just my conclusion. still, we didn’t really dig deep into her character, and therefore she felt surface-level and almost like a stock antagonist. the look into the origins of her relationship with vale in part two don’t do much to clear this up. why did she single out vale in the first place? did she just want an easy target? she is actually very consistent throughout the story - the growth, or building, of her character between the past and present timelines doesn’t really exist. she’s pretty much just the same, but more intense. as a result, she doesn’t make for a compelling character - she’s just a very horrible person.

when it comes to vale, my thoughts are more complex. i found it really, really difficult to sympathise with her character. and this was made all the more difficult by the ambiguity around whether or not she was neurodivergent. i’ll come back to that, but taking her character at face value, i didn’t enjoy reading her. as a potential disclaimer, i have a hard time reading characters with very low self-esteem, and vale’s is cripplingly so. i can say straight up that that did no favours with how much i liked the character. but on top of that, her thoughts are very repetitive, and quite juvenile. sometimes her decisions came across as nonsensical or poorly thought through. i think the characters were meant to be in their late 20s but she didn’t come across that way.

and the alluded to neurodivergence made it difficult to tell if my thoughts on her character were justified. vale is hyper-fixated on pigs, and she sometimes struggles with understanding social cues. it’s never explicitly stated that she is perhaps somewhere on the spectrum, but it is alluded to. but, i feel like this is a weak characterisation if so? if she is on the spectrum, i feel like i would have appreciated the character more if this was developed in a deeper way. it feels like the two most stereotypical symptoms of autism were picked out and used to base her personality around, and if she was truly supposed to represent a character on the spectrum then it was a bit wishy washy. i just think a lot more could have been done if this was approached better. and it may be a continuation of the issue of poor characterisation that clara suffered from. was what i didn’t like about her character a result of a poorly written neurodiverse character, or was she just a badly written character? i am not on the spectrum, or closely know anyone who is, but it just didn’t feel quite right, considering neurodiverse viewpoints are lacking in literature.

so, all in all, pig didn’t work for me unfortunately. it was a good premise, with some moments of lovely writing and a great supporting cast, but i felt it needed some restructuring and stronger characters. massive thanks to Corsair and NetGalley for providing me with an advanced digital copy in exchange for an honest review!

Pigs are a source of comfort for Valentina, helping her calm her mind when overwhelmed by listing different breeds. She thrives on order and relies on the notes her flatmate, Clara, pins on the fridge to dictate her daily routine, including what to wear and eat. Though occasionally invited out by her colleagues, Vale avoids socializing, knowing Clara disapproves and values her company for her quirky pig facts. However, a chance encounter at the bookshop offers Vale a new opportunity, pushing her into unfamiliar social territory. Meanwhile, Clara grows more possessive, reluctant to let go of her control over Vale.

I really liked the concept of this book. Something new and weird and different. However, the execution did not live up to the concept at all sadly. It felt repetitive, overdone, and dull. It was a difficult book to get through.

Thank you to the publishers and NetGalley for this ARC and I'm sad it wasn't for me!

I wanted to like this. I was hooked in the beginning, and I enjoyed Part II. But overall, I was disappointed. After so much build up, I felt that we deserved a less abrupt ending. The book just kind of stops. In terms of characters, Clara basically has no redeeming qualities—it seems as though she did something nice one time and Vale is indebted permanently. I would have liked to have known more about Edo’s journey. Vale herself is underdeveloped. It seems as though Ollie and Kai see positive qualities in her, but honestly, through her narration, she’s mostly sad and frustrating. I’m ambivalent about the ending—I’m glad she started to see things more clearly, but I’m not sure it’s fair or reasonable to expect that everyone she cut off will (or, in Ollie’s case, could) just be waiting for her. Maybe this is why the book ends so abruptly.

Valentia feels awkward and anxious around people, for this reason she finds it difficult to maintain relationships and friendships. Clara is her only friend, she is cruel, controlling, and abusive towards Valentina.The only thing that really makes Vale happy and calm is her fascination with pigs. A chance meeting with a publisher in a book shop slowly changes the way that Vale sees herself, her self worth, her value, her self esteem, her position in the world, is it enough to escape the toxic environment of her one and only friend. A story about female friendship, mental ill health, and neuro divergence, ....Read it!

Thank you NetGalley and the publisher for the ARC!

I loved this so much. The main protagonist was so relatable, and I think the exploration of toxic friendships were so accurate.

I would highly recommend this!

In Pig, Matilde Pratesi does a great job of making you question the main character and her best friend over and over and over again. Her ability to make a character insidious through anticipation alone is outstanding.

I found myself both rooting for and disappointed by Vale, hating and fearing Clara.

Definitely pick this book up if you see it however I would not recommend going into it without checking the content warnings beforehand. It can be tough in parts.

I appreciate part two for the context it provides, though it wasn't as engaging to me - I found myself wondering what would happen in the storyline told in part one rather than always being fully engaged in part two.

This was an interesting book, exploring the toxic and controlling friendship between two young women.

Vale is clearly neurodivergent, although that’s never explicitly stated, but at times it almost felt like a caricature. She lacks social skills, doesn’t understand social cues or relate well to other people. She has an obsessive interest with pigs. Her character also seems emotionally immature, although perhaps that can be explained by her relationship with Clara.

The toxicity of their friendship is immediately obvious. This was a frustrating read, in many ways, because Vale can’t see how controlling and abusive Clara is. I did find I lacked empathy as the book went on, especially when Vale began to see that she could have friends and the kind of life she wanted, but then started to throw it all away.

It did feel repetitive after a while, although I enjoyed the flashback to Vale and Clara’s teenage years. The ending felt abrupt and odd, a little out of place with the rest of the book.

3.75 stars, rounded up.

A beautiful and disturbing story of love and the desperate need for connection that can blind some people from the reality of their situation.

Vale is a wonderful character with a core of vulnerability running through her. It's a terrifying tale of how abusers can take advantage of someone's innocence and naivety especially if they are neurodiverse. It made me so scared for Vale's Future and well being.

Well observed prose and fully fledged characters- this was a beautifully explored book.

Pig

I recently read Roisin O’Donnell’s Nesting which was all about a marriage under coercive control and this book felt similar in a lot of ways with Clara controlling Vale’s abilities to function as a normal human being by telling Vale what to wear, what to eat, and forcing those bizarre bathing rituals… but these two books are completely different in the way that they portray that control with Pig relaying it in an almost dark comedic way..

Whilst the book doesn’t explicitly state so, you get the impression that Vale is on the autistic spectrum in some capacity, so could do with help in some capacity and Clara obviously helps her in that capacity but as shown in the way that Vale interacts with the other characters in the books illustrates that Vale only needs a modicum of help to be an upstanding member of the public…

Vale obviously over-obsesses with her interests, especially with Pigs, and this benefits her hugely throughout her life and is almost like a comfort blanket at times of stresses.. which fits in with her adhd / autism nature and it was certainly an interesting topic of the book which I knew very little about and I certainly learnt a thing or two!

BUT Clara is a bully, a persecutor, a tormentor who loves nothing better than controlling everything that Vale does and gets incredibly upset when Vale does anything out of turn and/or interferes with her own routines and her behaviour in this book just made you pent up with anger at her getting away with it time and time again with Vale actually justifying those actions even though she knew it was wrong and made her not enjoy life as she could – and to go back to allow this to happen again and again just frustrated you so much…

I liked this book – it was quite heavy and intense at times and deeply frustrating (because of the inability for Vale to see what was happening to herself), and there were elements that you had to suspend – namely the odd chance of bumping into an editor who just so happened to be into “new farming” and suddenly having a book published with no evidence of being capable of such beforehand.. but it was a very enjoyable read… especially learning all the pig facts along the way!

Many thanks to the publishers and NetGalley for the opportunity to read this ARC

I was intrigued by the title, cover and premise of Matilde Pratesi's Pig but unfortunately, I thought it was full of issues.

Pig follows Vale, an Italian bookseller in London living with her 'best friend' Clara. It becomes clear fairly early on that Clara is no friend at all; she is an abuser who has taken advantage of and manipulated our narrator, who is clearly autistic.

On the face of things, I would expect to get a lot out of a book exploring this dynamic. However, I felt that the characters in this book were one-dimensional and the depiction of ASD/neurodivergence was at best a caricature and at worst relied on dangerous and offensive stereotypes.

I found Pig overly long, repetitive, and in desperate need of a good edit. I also think there is a structural issue in the middle of the novel, when we go back to Vale's childhood and explore the origin of her relationship with Clara. In my opinion, it would be better to intersperse these 'flashbacks' throughout the narrative rather than clunkily dropping them in just as the reader has become invested in the present-day narrative.

Lastly, I found it impossible to suspend my disbelief surrounding Vale's book. Everything about the publication process was absurd.

Thanks to NetGalley and Little, Brown Book Group UK for an e-ARC in exchange for an honest review.

A difficult novel to read as this is a very dysfunctional and toxic relationship between someone with ASD and an old friend who sees her chance. Loved the pig bits, found some parts too long but lots to talk about.

With thanks to Netgalley and the publisher for allowing me to read this book.
I really enjoyed living briefly in Vale’s world, I loved it so much. Clara was a horrible toxic character. I loved learning about pigs courtesy of Valentina. I loved her, she was very relatable in the way she described her hyper fixation on pigs.

Many thanks to NetGalley and Little, Brown Book Group UK for a digital copy of Pig by Matilde Pratesi in return for an honest review.

I was intrigued and gripped from the first chapter of this book about a toxic female friendship. Basically, Vale is a bit of an oddball with her obsession with pigs and her lack of social skills and she is so grateful for her friendship with Clara and she is also so scared of losing her. Clara is fully aware of this and uses this power to control, manipulate and abuse Vale to the extreme.

This book is dark and disturbing and I found it quite suspenseful. I did want to shake Vale many times while reading this book, but this is how people are groomed and manipulated; slowly, insidiously and with passive aggression and emotional explosions.

An Interesting fact that I learnt is that we share 98% of our DNA with pigs!

The blurb: “Pigs are Valentina's safe place. When she's feeling overwhelmed, she lists the breeds until her mind becomes quiet again.

Vale struggles to live life without order. Every morning, she reads the note that her flatmate Clara has pinned on the fridge telling her what to wear and what to eat, before leaving for her job at a bookshop.

Sometimes Vale's colleagues invite her to drinks, but she never goes. She knows that Clara wouldn't be happy if Vale socialised with others. As Clara's told her plenty of times - who else would put up with her weird pig facts?

But a chance encounter at the bookshop leads to an exciting opportunity. As Vale steps into the world of other people, Clara tightens her grip: she isn't yet ready to let go of her favourite prey.”

Reviewed on NetGalley and Fable.

i could sob, this was brilliant😭 i relate to vale so deeply & the people she’s found in ollie and kai. heaaaaaavy fuck clara🤨

actual perfection, the ending had me tearing up🥹

if you read & adored eleanor oliphant is completely fine, or my year of rest and relaxation THIS is the read for you

A really sad story of coercive control inflicted on a young woman who appears to register on the autistic spectrum. Her tormentor claims to be her friend, but is ruining her life. You become invested in Vale and want her to escape her tormentor.