Pizza Girl plot summary
Pizza Girl is eighteen, she’s pregnant, and she’s struggling. When she meets Jenny over an unexpected order, something about the middle-aged mum really captures her imagination. And she needs a distraction right now. While her boyfriend and mum plan eagerly for the arrival of the baby, Pizza Girl is spiralling into ever more obsessive and self-destructive behaviour.
Content warnings:
- Pregnancy
- Death of a parent
- Alcohol abuse
My thoughts on Pizza Girl
Pizza Girl is Jean Kyoung Frazier’s debut novel, and I warn you now: it’s quite a ride! Our protagonist (the titular Pizza Girl) and her boyfriend (father of the baby) are living with her mum.
Her boyfriend Billy is a good guy, determined to support Pizza Girl and their kid. Her mum seems sweet as well, loving and supportive. Pizza Girl’s father, we learn pretty swiftly, is dead. We also learn that she has some complicated feelings about him. He drank a lot, and could be unpredictable when drunk. I’ll let Pizza Girl herself explain.
“Some nights, I was the best thing that ever happened to him, his pride, his joy… On other nights, I was a dumb bitch, a waste of space; sometimes he’d throw his empties at me.”
I wanted so badly to give Pizza Girl a hug
I felt intensely protective of the protagonist while reading. On her first phone call with Jenny, Pizza Girl has the thought, “I remember shivering, wanting to wrap this woman in a blanket and make her a hot chocolate, fuck up anyone that even looked at her funny.” And that’s how I felt about her.
This is a character whose name isn’t actually stated for the overwhelming majority of the book. She clearly feels deeply conflicted about her pregnancy, while her mum and boyfriend seem delighted. She’s lost, she’s stuck, she’s almost certainly depressed.
To be fair, she’s also pretty dysfunctional. She’s sneaking around at night to drink beer in her dead father’s shed, and slowly but surely pushing away the people who love her most.
Enter Jenny…
Jenny calls the pizza shop where the protagonist works with a particular request. She wants a pepperoni pizza with pickles on. It’s not on the menu but, struck by Jenny’s desperation, Pizza Girl decides to help her out.
It’s love at first sight, or something like it. Pizza Girl is in awe of Jenny, either in spite of or because of the older woman’s strangeness. She seems offbeat, chaotic, her house is a mess. Perhaps most importantly, she seems to be the first person to spot that Pizza Girl isn’t excited about her pregnancy. Not only does she notice that, but she basically tells her it’s okay. Understandable, even.
It’s no wonder it sparks an obsession in Pizza Girl. She soon comes to rely on her weekly delivery of pepperoni-and-pickle pizza at least as much as Jenny does.
The book is almost definitely about identity, but it doesn’t beat you over the head with it
I mean, Pizza Girl’s actual name isn’t provided until virtually the end of the book. This is a character who is reduced to a role in all areas of her life: daughter, girlfriend, mother… Pizza Girl. She rarely reflects on this explicitly, but there’s an awareness of it woven through the story for sure.
It also feels important to note that Pizza Girl’s mother is Korean, but obsessed with American life. Pizza Girl herself Korean-American. It’s not a major feature of the story, and not something the main character thinks about all that much, so it’s hard to know whether that’s contributing to Pizza Girl’s feeling of lostness.
What she thinks about most is her dad. The ways in which she’s like him, or worries she is. Despite the fact that she and her mum both lived with him, her mum doesn’t seem to remember the man in the same way Pizza Girl does. It leaves her feeling isolated in the strangeness of grieving for somebody who was obviously desperately difficult to live with. Not to mention leaving her alone with her concerns about how she might follow in his footsteps.
The writing is subtle, and completely drew me into the story
I liked the writing, felt like there was a nice level of detail without being too much. There was an element of dark humour to it that I enjoyed, and kept the book as a whole from feeling too heavy, even when it was dealing with some major stuff.
It definitely felt like more character study than plot, and I can see this being a divisive book because of it. To reiterate, the main character is a mess. And I know some people will feel really strongly that the way she’s behaving is unforgivable. If you don’t have a plot, and you don’t like the main character, you’re not left with much!
Personally, I did like the main character. I felt like she was really going through it, and just didn’t know how to talk to the people she loves. The main character is obviously flawed, nobody is arguing otherwise, but she’s grieving and she’s confused and she’s so lost. And all I wanted was the best for her.
Pizza Girl is witty, thoughtful and layered. It has some difficult moments to read, for sure, but it approaches everything with a clarity of writing and an emotional honesty that I found increadibly compelling. Basically, I thought the book was great, and I’d definitely recommend it.
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