A Review of Piglettes

Piglettes is a book by Clementine Beauvais, translated by Clementine Beauvais. Mireille, Astrid and Hakima have been voted the ugliest girls in school on a Facebook page. The girls make friends, and find themselves cycling around the French countryside on a trip to Paris.

I think overall, this reads a little younger than some YA, but I wouldn't recommend it to a younger set because of some of the topics covered. I didn't hate it, but I didn't love it either.

Translated YA needs to have a day. I want more books where I read about countries written by someone from that country that I can read in English. My poorly remembered school French did help me with pronunciation of some of the words here, but I wouldn't be able to read the whole book. I also feel like sometimes with translations, some of the nuance gets lost, but this one was translated by Beauvais herself.

Mireille is flawed, and it's fantastic to see flawed main characters in YA. She's not always nice. She's funny, but she sometimes doesn't think through what she's going to say. She's also so flippant that it's hard to know when she is joking. Having to deal with the comments she gets seems to have given her a thick skin and a laughing personality. I'd say immature, but thinking of how I was at 15... I don't think she's that far off.

I also loved Astrid, who likes video games! I can count on one hand the amount of YA I've read with a major female character who plays video games. Beauvais uses fictional examples of games, but they are ones I could see working as real games. Airport Manager reminded me of a game I used to have, called Airline Tycoon, and I could see Kitchen Rush as a game on Steam - she also discusses a farming game, and those have always been popular and not just through Facebook.

Hakima was definitely interesting. She's younger than a lot of main characters in YA, but the age when some people start reading YA is about 12. It would be good, at that age, to read about a character going through the same problems you are having, such as first period. I got mine on a school trip to France, so I know all about the bad timing of first periods. And shout-out to this book for discussing periods, too.

The whole idea of the contest left a bad taste in my mouth. I mean, I feel like it was probably meant to, but it also wasn't dealt with? The school proved completely useless at doing anything about it. The best you can do is lecture the student, and not suspend him? I'm sorry, and even if it takes place on the internet, it involves the school. Tell his parents, who I'm sure didn't raise their son to act like this. The only person who seems against it is Mireille's mother - even a media article took both sides of the story. Why not get the students to report it, en masse to Facebook? I'm sure some would join in a protest, or even if it was just Mireille, Astrid and Hakima, it must violate terms of service. (right? right?)

Also, I can see the logic behind their parents allowing them to cycle to Paris. They were accompanied by Hakima's brother Kadar, who is 26 and a war hero. It's also a good experience for them, with already planned stops along the way. My parents let me take train trips alone at 16, and some children are sailing across the world at that age.

So I didn't like Mireille referring to a war-torn Middle Eastern nation as 'Problemistan' - it groups all the countries out there, with their own unique cultures and histories, under one stroke. They are all different, and not all of them have problems of the type she was referring to. There are also a few comments about lesbians that were incorrect, but they do make sense coming from 15-year olds with a limited view of the world.

While 15 to 26 isn't an age difference in a romance I would normally like to read about, here I think it works. The major reason for that is because it isn't really a romance - Mireille's feelings towards Kadar aren't anything more than a schoolgirl crush. It also develops into a sibling-ish relationship, and one thing I feel YA needs more of is male/female friendships.

It's far more food-focused than I expected, although I don't know why I didn't expect that from a book set in France! Mireille's grandparents run a two Michelin starred restaurant, and they sell sausages on the trip. There's also descriptions of French pastries and cheeses, and my mouth was watering. Read with snacks, is all I can say.

In conclusion - yay for translations and food, boo to ugliness contests. Would recommend to fans of France and especially food. Definitely a summer read, being set in summer and involving a trip.