Thank you to Colwill Brown and NetGalley for my ARC!

I am absolutely gobsmacked that this is a debut. This book has all the confidence (and use of dialect) as Irvine Welsh’s Trainspotting, combined with a genuine representation of the weight and expectation placed on women in the 90s, especially those from a northern working-class background.

My fiancé was raised near Lakeside in Doncaster, and this is the first ARC that he was actively asking me for updates on and getting excited hearing even a slight representation of his childhood. He’s actively excited to pick it up and read it when it releases. Absolutely loved it!

What an immense debut title and such a feat to write it all in a Yorkshire dialect. I did get a little confused every now and again with the sharp change in scene/time/POV but it all worked towards the overall novel.

I was lucky enough to receive an ARC through NetGalley for this book.

This book captures growing up in a small northern town in the 90s/00s so well. I am a couple of years younger than the girls but their experiences were so relatable and it made me feel such nostalgia. It’s a brutal look at growing up and growing apart from your friends, the complex and weird friendships you have in your teens, body image, self esteem, those early teen relationships. I really enjoyed it. The writing style, especially the fact it’s written in a Doncaster dialect made me slow down and really think about what was written which I liked as I normally race through books.

A future coming of age classic? I think so, yeah.

‘We Pretty Pieces of Flesh’ follows three friends, Shaz, Rach and Kel, at different points throughout their lives from their pre-teen years to their early thirties. We see them form their trio for the first time, and follow through the eyes of each in turn as they grapple with adolescent jealousies, queerness, eating disorders, sexual assault and drifting apart. The novel explores class and living in poverty in post-Brexit England through incredibly powerful and moving prose, while simultaneously being a genuinely funny and relatable story of growing up. It’s perfectly balanced, and a really brilliant debut novel.

I can see this being a massive hit and when it’s released in February and completely deservedly so.

I really struggled with this one! I’ve read accent and dialect focused books before, and I’m not far from speaking the same Yorkshire/Midlands dialect as these girls, but the writing was so hard to get into. I had to really think and focus on every single word and what it meant, plus the plot itself moved very slowly. I did enjoy the characters and their development as they grew and their friendship changed, I just wish the writing was easier to digest.