Piglet by Lottie Hazell

I read the book review in the New York Times and was immediately interested to read the book. I put it on hold at the library and it took a while to come in, so others were as intrigued as I was.

It was not an easy read for me - but I really enjoyed it. This is a debut novel for this writer and in reading some of the reviews, there were people who thought that the ending was weak. I did not.  And it did not bother me that the reader never learns Kit's "secret" (what he reveals just a few days before the wedding.  We can guess, and really, does it matter?!?)

From Amazon:

An elegant, razor-sharp debut about women's ambitions and appetites—and the truth about having it all

Outside of a childhood nickname she can’t shake, Piglet’s rather pleased with how her life’s turned out. An up-and-coming cookbook editor at a London publishing house, she’s got lovely, loyal friends and a handsome fiancé, Kit, whose rarefied family she actually, most of the time, likes, despite their upper-class eccentricities. One of the many, many things Kit loves about Piglet is the delicious, unfathomably elaborate meals she’s always cooking.

But when Kit confesses a horrible betrayal two weeks before they’re set to be married, Piglet finds herself suddenly…hungry. The couple decides to move forward with the wedding as planned, but as it nears and Piglet balances family expectations, pressure at work, and her quest to make the perfect cake, she finds herself increasingly unsettled, behaving in ways even she can’t explain. Torn between a life she’s always wanted and the ravenousness that comes with not getting what she knows she deserves, Piglet is, by the day of her wedding, undone, but also ready to look beyond the lies we sometimes tell ourselves to get by.

A stylish, uncommonly clever novel about the things we want and the things we think we want, Piglet is both an examination of women’s often complicated relationship with food and a celebration of the messes life sometimes makes for us.

The Island of Missing Trees by Elif Safak

I really enjoyed this book that we read in Book Club.  It taught me a lot about history and about trees and the whole plant/insect world.  Very good read!

From Amazon:

Two teenagers, a Greek Cypriot and a Turkish Cypriot, meet at a taverna on the island they both call home. In the taverna, hidden beneath garlands of garlic, chili peppers and creeping honeysuckle, Kostas and Defne grow in their forbidden love for each other. A fig tree stretches through a cavity in the roof, and this tree bears witness to their hushed, happy meetings and eventually, to their silent, surreptitious departures. The tree is there when war breaks out, when the capital is reduced to ashes and rubble, and when the teenagers vanish. Decades later, Kostas returns. He is a botanist looking for native species, but really, he's searching for lost love.
Years later a Ficus carica grows in the back garden of a house in London where Ada Kazantzakis lives. This tree is her only connection to an island she has never visited--- her only connection to her family's troubled history and her complex identity as she seeks to untangle years of secrets to find her place in the world.

A moving, beautifully written, and delicately constructed story of love, division, transcendence, history, and eco-consciousness,

Good Material by Dolly Alderrton

I really enjoyed this book and especially the final 20 pages, which really took a turn.  It was funny and told from Andy's point of view until the end, and then Jen took over the first-person narrative.  I had thought all along, up to that point, how odd it was that this female author was telling the story from the man's point of view.  

There's some real stuff to ponder in here about being female, having children, being in a relationship, etc.  Food for thought that many women think about but don't necessarily talk about.  At least not in my circles.