Piglet

Piglet (2025) is the debut novel of British writer and literary scholar Lottie Hazell. The novel follows a young cookbook editor, nicknamed “Piglet,” in the weeks leading up to her wedding. When her fiancé, Kit, reveals a shocking betrayal, Piglet is forced to face her deepest fears. Major themes in the novel include Food and Class in Great Britain, Body Image and the Pressure to Be Thin, and The Pressure to Build a Perfect Life.

This guide refers to the 2025 Henry Holt e-book edition.

Content Warning: The source material and guide feature depictions of disordered eating.

Plot Summary

Ninety-eight days before her wedding, cookbook junior editor Piglet and her fiancé, Kit Edwards, host an elaborate dinner in their new home in Oxford, England, for their friends, including pregnant Margot and her wife, Sasha, who goads Kit into a political debate. Newly engaged Sophie complains about the richness of the food, while her fiancé, Seb, asks Piglet for her dessert recipe. Several months later, Piglet prepares freezer-ready food for Margot ahead of her baby’s arrival. When she delivers the food to Margot’s home, she is keenly aware of the distance between them as they each prepare for major life changes.

Sixteen days before the wedding, Piglet prepares to pitch a new cookbook to her boss, Sandra. Sandra reveals that she is looking to hire a new editor and encourages Piglet to apply for the job. Piglet attends personal training sessions with her future mother-in-law, Cecelia, who paid for the classes as a wedding gift. As Margot’s due date approaches, Piglet feels increasingly unable to communicate with her. Piglet hosts an elaborate dinner for her parents; her sister, Franny; and her sister’s boyfriend, Darren, who are visiting her and Kit’s Oxford home for the first time. Piglet’s father explains the origin of her nickname: a childhood tendency to eat her sister’s leftovers. Privately, Piglet recalls that she did so to avoid drawing attention to her sister’s disordered eating.

Thirteen days before the wedding, Kit reveals that he has betrayed Piglet’s trust, although the novel does not reveal what he did. Piglet goes to work as normal the next day, ignoring Kit’s apologies. That night, she asks how their relationship can progress; when Kit doesn’t respond, she realizes that the choice is hers. The stress of the situation causes Piglet to begin to overeat. Nine days before the wedding, she leaves work early to have lunch alone in a nearby Indian restaurant. Imagining that she is a food critic, she orders everything on the menu and finishes it all. Despite feeling uncomfortably full, she eats the dinner that Kit has prepared when she arrives home.

Piglet has her final dress fitting one week before the wedding. When the dress barely fits, the tailor encourages Piglet to fast in order to lose weight. Margot goes into labor at the dress shop, and Piglet takes her home to wait for her midwife. When Margot asks for a distraction, Piglet tells her about Kit’s betrayal. 

Piglet’s admission of Kit’s guilt causes her uneasy alliance with him to break, and they begin to fight more often. After an awkward lunch at Kit’s parents’ house, Piglet vomits at the sight of roast pork. Kit comforts her, but the tension between them does not go away. Piglet begins to ignore text messages from Margot and Franny. She realizes that she has shaped her whole life around Kit and reaffirms her decision to marry him despite his betrayal.

As the wedding approaches, Piglet’s binge eating becomes more severe. She begins having visual and auditory hallucinations, including strangers calling her Piglet and her feet turning into hooves. Margot says that she will not attend the wedding, given Kit’s betrayal. Piglet begins baking her wedding cake, an elaborate croquembouche. The night before the wedding, Piglet’s parents take her to dinner. Piglet reveals Kit’s betrayal to her father, whose response implies that he also had an affair. He tells Piglet that it is too late to call off the wedding.

On the morning of the wedding, Piglet panics as she runs out of crème patisserie and one of her three croquembouche towers falls to pieces. Franny offers to glue it back together, promising that no one will actually eat the cake. When Piglet’s mother and sister struggle to get her into her wedding dress, her father calls her greedy and storms out of the house. Piglet feels nauseous and terrified as they ride to the church, and she can only whisper her vows. As she and Kit seal their marriage with a kiss, she realizes that she has made a terrible mistake. Piglet’s mood worsens as they arrive at the reception and she realizes that Kit has not noticed her mood. She tells him that she isn’t sure if she wants to be married, and he begs her not to reveal his betrayal. Before joining the reception, Piglet eats a sample meal in the kitchen.

Disappointed by the reception, which seems like a farce of the perfect day she planned, Piglet begins to eat all the food on her table with her hands. She interrupts Kit’s speech to reveal his betrayal to their assembled guests. As she raises a mocking toast to Kit, the side seam of her dress rips open, exposing her lingerie. Piglet flees the wedding with the largest croquembouche and drives Darren’s car to Margot’s house. Although her baby is only a week old, Margot takes Piglet in and cares for her. Margot encourages Piglet to smash the stolen croquembouche in her yard.

The next morning, Piglet reluctantly leaves Margot’s house. She stops at a Waitrose grocery store, gathering the ingredients for pasta puttanesca. She meets Kit at their house, and although he implies that he’d be willing to stay together, she ends the relationship. Alone in the house, she cooks the pasta and eats until she is finally satisfied.