Reviews tagging 'Grief'

Pizza Girl by Jean Kyoung Frazier

58 reviews

pucksandpaperbacks's review against another edition

slow-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? No
• Loveable characters? It's complicated
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Alcohol, Car accident, Vomit, Alcoholism, Domestic abuse, and Grief

Moderate: Gun violence

death of a parent, fatphobic and ableist language, depression, drinking liquor while pregnant,

dhritigupta's review against another edition

dark emotional mysterious reflective sad slow-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? It's complicated
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.0

as much as i’m a milf luvr and supporter of women’s wrongs this was a lil slow moving for me :(

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Addiction, Grief, Death of parent, Death, and Pregnancy

Minor: Domestic abuse

rynicolereads's review against another edition

dark emotional reflective medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.5

Pizza Girl was such a strange, unique coming-of-age novel. It takes place in a suburb of Los Angeles and follows a pregnant teenager who works as a pizza delivery driver and finds herself oddly fixated on a new customer who orders a pepperoni and pickles pizza. Even though the majority of pizza girl's choices made me cringe, it was somehow easy to root for her. If you like a messy main character, this book is for you. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Alcoholism, Death of parent, and Pregnancy

Moderate: Grief

sydneybedell's review against another edition

dark funny reflective medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? It's complicated
• Loveable characters? It's complicated
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

2.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Alcohol, Death of parent, and Pregnancy

Moderate: Grief, Alcoholism, and Vomit

Minor: Stalking and Gun violence

saldre's review against another edition

dark emotional sad tense medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? It's complicated
• Loveable characters? No
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.0

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Addiction, Alcohol, Alcoholism, Death of parent, Dysphoria, Grief, Mental illness, Pregnancy, Stalking, and Toxic friendship

lipstickitotheman's review against another edition

emotional funny reflective fast-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0

Brilliant from cover to word to phrase to sentence to paragraph. 

After wanting to smooth out her face lines in the previous page: "She laughed and her eyes got squinty, crinkled at the edges. I didn't want to smooth out all her lines." Chapter 2

"The folks at Vlasic are serious about keeping their shir airtight fresh!" Chapter 5

"We'd never sat next to each other before. She'd hugged me twice, but there was something more intimate about being close to someone and not touching. I could've counted the number of hairs on her arm if I'd wanted to and I kind of did." Chapter 6

Screams: "Jenny grabbed my hands again and this time didn't let go. I felt warmth and calluses. I wondered how she got them, what actions she'd committed to repeatedly that there was physical proof of them on her palms." Chapter 6

"Because the reality is, I've been to so many places and not a single one has saved me. And I need Los Angeles to save me." Chapter 6

"I could never understand how people were able to start conversations out of thin air and keep them moving and breathing." Chapter 7

"this simple fact made me ache in a place deep enough inside me that I wasn't sure how to claw it out without mangling other parts of me in the process" Chapter 8

".........  I realized how avoidance was the most attention you could give something." Epilogue 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Alcohol, Pregnancy, and Alcoholism

Moderate: Death of parent, Grief, Gun violence, Medical content, and Stalking

ecn's review

dark emotional mysterious sad fast-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? It's complicated
• Loveable characters? It's complicated
• Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Alcohol, Death of parent, Grief, Addiction, Alcoholism, Death, and Pregnancy

Moderate: Vomit, Stalking, and Gun violence

ryanlee's review against another edition

dark funny sad fast-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? It's complicated
• Loveable characters? It's complicated
• Diverse cast of characters? No
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.5

This book is beautifully written and compulsively readable. Plus, I really felt Jane’s malaise and aimlessness and grief, and I admire the author’s ability to convey Jane’s complicated, mixed-up desires for Jenny. There’s so much to love about this book! I get all the rave reviews.

With that said, I don’t feel like book has a resolution, and it leaves readers dangling. I don’t mean that the characters’ lives have to be neat and clean, their futures rosy with possibility. But when a dark and sudden twist

(a gun, with all the Chekovian implications that has)

is introduced late in the third act, it ratchets up the stakes and deepens the book’s darkness considerably. As I reader, I needed more than a short epilogue to bring me down from that episode.

If you’re in for a dark read—darker even than the premise of a pregnant, fledgling alcoholic teenager who’s grieving the death of her alcoholic father and becomes a stalker—I highly recommend it. The book is funny, and despite the content, it does feel “light” in some ways, at least until the end. But I’ve seen it described as fun and light-hearted and a romp—and those, it certainly is not.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Alcoholism, Grief, Pregnancy, and Vomit

Moderate: Adult/minor relationship, Death of parent, Stalking, Suicidal thoughts, and Suicide attempt

librariangeorgia's review against another edition

dark emotional medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? It's complicated
• Loveable characters? No
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Alcoholism, Pregnancy, and Death of parent

Moderate: Vomit and Grief

Minor: Car accident and Gun violence

skylaturner's review against another edition

dark reflective sad medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? It's complicated
• Loveable characters? No
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

2.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Addiction, Alcohol, Alcoholism, Death of parent, Domestic abuse, Grief, Panic attacks/disorders, Pregnancy, Stalking, and Toxic relationship