Mary Liza Hartong

This was cute! Some of it were weird cliches and tropes that came out of nowhere, but okay. Something to fill the pages in between the silly but fun beauty pageant and the lovely budding romance. I'm surprised they all started out not talking to one another and being in their own little worlds. I work in food service and retail in a major city with a small town vibe, and people are chatty to coworkers they're friends with. I hope to read more works by this author, though, and I appreciated -how- queer women were written about.… (meer)

Grief, a sprinkling of Sapphic romance, a silly pageant, and a whole lot of introspection wrapped up in Southern small town comfort make this the best recipe for hot chicken.

After PJ's daddy dies, she heads back to her small hometown of Pennywhistle to deal with her grief and work at the Chickie Shak. After the Chickie Shak owner announces the mandatory Hot Chicken Pageant, PJ allows herself to fall for her co-worker Boof, who came to town searching for her birth mother.

Just like PJ, I lost my daddy a few months ago, and her story was super relatable. I loved how homophobia wasn't even a thing and how every single character had their own life going on. You really get the vibe of a Southern small town while dealing with some big topics like grief, abandonment, and not feeling good enough. This is such an incredible debut, and I can't wait to see what else this author writes.… (meer)

This debut novel took me into a genre that I don't usually read but I'm sure glad that I gave it a chance. It's a story about life in small town Tennessee. It's about a gay girl looking for love with an attitude toward life that will make you laugh out loud especially at her descriptions of her mother and the people in the small town.

PJ Spoon has left her PhD program at Vanderbilt to return home for her father's funeral. She decides to stay in her small town indefinitely and gets a job at the local Chickie Shak - a very popular restaurant with red clapboard walls, thriving wasp population, yard-toilets resplendent with sunflowers. She begins to notice the waitress Boof who is an aspiring songwriter. When the management of Chickie Shak announces a contest for the best employee -- complete with a talent competition - the semi friendship of the two women who work with PJ begins to fray. Will PJ and Boof fall in love and who will win the pageant??

I never really connected with the main character but she consistently made me laugh out loud. I loved the depiction of life in a small town where everyone knows what's going on in everyone's lives and wants to gossip about it. This was a debut novel for this author and I look forward to see what she'll come up with next.… (meer)