Jean Kyoung Frazier

I devoured this scrumptious coming-of-age novel in two sittings. On the level of voice, character development, and humor it struck all the right chords. It's Catcher in the Rye with a female lead, more modern, more swear words, and just more adult. Easily a cult classic, it was one of the most memorable and enjoyable books I read all year.

I will gladly read anything else the author puts out. For a first novel, it sizzles. It never stumbles, falters or cowers. From the gorgeous cover to the show more immersive rhythm, the pages flew by. Who doesn't love a saucy narrator? Taking the first person internal monologue to new heights, JKF lathers each chapter with alluring, intimate details, enough to overwhelm anyone's emotional arteries. The novel explores love, in all of its myriad forms, friendship, commitment, lassitude, drudgery, modern ennui, and the angst that has become inescapable in our culture.

A thrilling, bold, timeless literary statement, not a junk food entertainment. show less

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

Our narrator, the titular Pizza Girl, is a confused, pregnant 18 year old. She spends her days driving through LA dropping off pizzas and trying not to think too much... Not about her dead alcoholic father, her supportive (coddling) Korean mother, and her overly attentive (bordering on smothering) boyfriend.

Her secret late night excursions to her dad's shed where she drinks beer and watches infomercials are her only show more escape until a customer calls in with desperation in her voice requesting a pepperoni pizza with pickles.

In this way Pizza Girl meets Jenny, a 30-something stay at home mom unlike anyone Pizza Girl has met before. Behind the front door on her large house with the neat lawn in her upscale neighbourhood, Jenny is a mess... But she's an show less

For the last few years, literary fiction has been inundated with short books about young, angsty women pouring out a witty stream of consciousness as they stumble through lives where evidently nothing plot-worthy happens. A lot of these books have been very good--think Normal People, My Year of Rest and Relaxation--and Jean Kyoung Frazier’s debut novel, Pizza Girl, fits right in. Our young woman in this novel is 18, pregnant, and struggling with the baggage of her dead alcoholic father and show more the hopes of her seemingly perfect boyfriend and down-trodden mother. Frazier captures her main character’s voice in a way that is believable, painful, and funny--but there’s not a lot going on outside of her thoughts. Readers who enjoy these small, introspective novels have another well-written one to add to their TBR pile. show less

This caught my eye very randomly on the shelves at the bookstore. Both the amazing cover and the pickle pizza delivery promise were too much for me to resist. While I did like this, it really wasn't what I expected. The back cover copy promised "wry humor" and the cover illustration promised fun nostalgia vibes, but what I got was a very bleak dissociated coming-of-age. I found it compelling and was rooting for Pizza Girl all the way. but I spent a lot of time wondering if it was MY vibes show more that were off, or if the marketing tem was just aiming for more sales and less accurate description of the book.

To be fair, there were a couple of issues that were hang-ups for me that may have bothered other people less or not at all. First, Pizza Girl is pregnant. And she drinks. A LOT. It makes sense why she does, but other than one very brief moment where it is acknowledged that there are special risks for drinking while pregnant. I felt like the story never really grappled with the potential consequences. Second. and this is probably more just a me thing. late in the story there is the unexpected introduction of a gun. Surprise guns are a nope from me. but like I said, it was late in the story and I was invested, but it definitely put some extra distance between the story and me after that point.

Now that the complaints are out of the way, let me tell you what I did like. My college job was delivering pizza, and her depiction of that was familiar in a good way. Pizza Girl had strong compulsory-heterosexuality bi girl vibes that I liked (and were also familiar.) I liked the complicated depictions of motherhood — from Pizza Girl's near dissociation from her pregnancy to Jenny's swings between devotion and desperation with her family, to Pizza Girl's relationship with her mom. I liked the Korean-American diaspora story, the non-linear experience of grief. But probably most of all, the random nature of what we suddenly seize on when we feel like we are drowning — the thing we are suddenly sure will save us, whether it's pickles on pizza or a mom with a long ponytail. show less