This debut novel follows three adolescent girls coming of age in a gritty post-industrial Yorkshire town in the ‘90s.

This isn't the usual kind of book I would review here but I’m so glad I did. I’ve never seen so much of my own childhood reflected in a book before. I was highlighting passages left, right and centre because so much rang true. The girls in the book start secondary school in ‘98, while I was just a year behind and 50 miles up the M62.

𝘞𝘦 𝘗𝘳𝘦𝘵𝘵𝘺 𝘗𝘪𝘦𝘤𝘦𝘴 𝘰𝘧 𝘍𝘭𝘦𝘴𝘩 is written entirely in Donny (that's Doncaster, South Yorkshire) vernacular and it was a joy to see words like 𝘴𝘰𝘻𝘻𝘢𝘳𝘥 and 𝘱𝘭𝘢𝘨𝘨𝘺 𝘣𝘢𝘨 in print. At times, it made the novel feel a little long, but I also didn’t want it to end.

Get ready to meet bezzies Rach, Kel and Shaz, as the novel shifts between their perspectives, from childhood into their thirties. You’ll follow them through under-18s club nights, trying to get into Gatecrasher, how to survive big school and blend in, threats of being banged out, comparing relationships and what's expected of them and when, pints of Diesel, trips to family planning, the pill and its effects on their bodies – this is such an accurate depiction of life in the North as a teenage girl in the ‘90s.

Raw, funny and heartbreakingly real. If you grew up in the North in the ‘90s, I’d be shocked if you don’t see either yourself or the lasses and lads from school in it.

Thank you Vintage Books for the ARC.

This was an enjoyable debut novel which felt very nostalgic at points. I felt myself relating to the girls in this book and the struggles they faced growing up. Although heartbreaking at points, the book feels very real and it gave me anxiety to ever have a daughter lol. But, I also loved how messy and carefree the characters came across, they’re real teenagers trying to navigate the world of growing up whilst not having the support system that is needed. I feel like the author perfectly portrayed the intensity and complications of young female friendships.

One thing I did struggle with was the dialect, I found myself having to re-read quite a few sections to try and understand. But, if you like messy characters and dark themes I think this will be up your street! Thanks to NetGalley for this ARC!

Colwill Brown's "We Pretty Pieces of Fresh" is a gorgeous and hilarious look at a group of Yorkshire girls. We follow them and their stories as they mature into womanhood. The novel is written in the Yorkshire dialect which only adds authenticity to the story, and makes us connect to the girls (Rach, Shaz, and Kel) even more. Brown does such an expert job of bringing us back to 2000's Doncaster. There's an empathy in Brown's writing that is often absent when writers look back at teenagers. She does not belittle or mythologise them. She seeks to understand and explore where they were at that time in their lives. As a result, the reader grows to care about them because we know we are in such good hands with Brown as our guide. This novel is highly recommended.

Wow this book was such a whirlwind. I'll start off by saying in the beginning the book being written entirely in this Doncaster dialect was REALLY off putting, and it took me so long and so many attempts to get into it.
That said, I'm so glad I persevered. This book is a gorgeous rendition of girlhood that I found so deeply relatable (especially considering I grew up on a northern council estate myself) The characters were so unbelievably well done and distinct. I loved how this book touched on other topics too such as chronic illness/fatigue, it really made me feel seen. Overall this was an absolute pleasure of a book, with its real northern grit, and I'll be happy to see the world love it as much as I did.

This is not just a novel, not just a story. This is a wild ride back through your own past if you're the right audience. This is 330-and-some pages of unlocking old memories and opening old wounds. If you were a young girl headed for teenagerdom in the late 1990s, We Pretty Pieces of Flesh will punch you in the gut, smack you in the face and kiss you right on the lips. It is an incredible - and painful, at times - walk down memory lane and it'll leave you feeling all the emotions you went through in your formative years, wondering what kind of magic Colwill Brown's found to encapsulate it all. Her personal experience as an elder millennial from Doncaster who became sick due to a viral infection in early adulthood can only go so far in finding a way to write these three characters so perfectly. There is some serious literary craft at work here.

We Pretty Pieces of Flesh tells the tale of three Doncaster "bezzies" from age 11 until into their thirties, sometime after the Brexit vote. The focus is on their school years, ending at about age 16. Those five intense years of trying to be an adult, specifically a woman, a foreign entity nobody ever explains well enough - if at all - how to be. The second half of the novel gives room to more reflection and distance from the adult point of view, still weaving in and out of those harsh and unbridled teen years but adding the weight of the cumulative effect of consequences and of trauma (including rape and disordered eating, trigger warning). Absent fathers, class division, binge drinking, trying to shed childhood too quickly and too early, wanting to be desired at any cost by boys to prove your worth, scabs and blood, love and jealousy, and all the other raw things that make up the lawless years of growing up constitut the thematic fabric of We Pretty Pieces of Flesh.
Brown uses the three different narrative voices to carve out both the effects of passing time and different characters' perspectives (Kel, the peacekeeper of the trio, often stuck between the two bolder and often quarrelling friends, is treated with the third voice narrative, for example) and displays in these choices her talent. This is no debut of a novice. This is the first published novel of someone who's done a lot of writing, accumulated a lot of knowledge of the literary art.

As raw and deeply moving as We Pretty Pieces of Flesh is, it isn't intended for all. Like a niche perfume with a particular scent profile, this will be appreciated by those who find some recognition in the female trio's tumultuous upbringing, either having been one of them or having witnessed from the periphery such girls and having been at the very least fascinated with some aspects of their lives. The other layer of difficulty is the language used, particularly in the first half of the novel where it is particularly prominent in the teenage girls' loud and unfiltered mouths. Brown chose to write her novel in the Yorkshire dialect for added realism. I applaud and support this choice though must admit that as a non-native English speaker, the used vernacular made it a significantly harder book to read. I spent paragraphs, pages reading out loud to myself, whispering out the phonetic spelling to grasp exactly what was being said in the first half. By the second half, I had grown used to most of the vernacular, fortunately. I was spellbound by the too familiar story and refused to give up on this in the first pages due to the language barrier. I'm so glad I didn't. The reward of getting to enjoy the full ride was more than worth it. I thus feel the need to caution my fellow non-native English readers who have not lived in Northern England that my average reading speed was probably three times slower for We Pretty Pieces of Flesh. This may be crucial information in selecting this as your next read. I went back and forth between the 4 and 5-star rating because of the dialect, mostly, but decided that one cannot and should not punish an author for making the right linguistic choice although it may be determining criteria for some readers.

"We couldn't have been more than eleven when we realised it weren't alreyt to have girl bodies. We couldn't tell you how we knew this, all we can remember is that we wa itchy and restless in us girl skins. We needed woman bodies, bleeding bodies, and we needed them fast."

* Many thanks to NetGalley & Random House UK, Vintage for an advanced reader copy in exchange for an honest review. *

We Pretty Pieces of Flesh follows three adolescent girls growing up in Doncaster in the nineties, amidst relationships, secrets and trauma. The entire book is written in Yorkshire dialect which was something I initially struggled with, despite being from Yorkshire. Sometimes this felt like too much and I would have to reread a line, but it also brought Doncaster to life, with the language adding to the vivid atmosphere created. All three characters felt very different to one another, and I loved how this switched from perspective to perspective, chronicling past and present to build a picture of a splintered friendship and the reasons for their distance.

I loved the commentary around being a working class girl in the nineties, when toxic diet culture was prevalent and talked about by everyone. When the internet wasn’t there in its current form to advise on things like sex and consent, and you had to rely on often embellished accounts from friends as reference. Their teenage lives were created so vividly that I felt their anxiety as they tried to fit in, hitting milestones too early, wanting to do what everyone else was doing and wanting be just like their coolest friend (but not realising that they all wanted to be like each other). It reminded me of high school in the best and worst possible ways, with the Yorkshire-specific references making this such a captivating and relatable novel.

Following the characters into adulthood was so emotional, as they distanced themselves from each other due to past trauma and secrets. I love a book that spans decades and this did it so brilliantly, moving around in time to build on the narrative piece by piece, fitting fragmented memories together to show the moments that left a mark. It was so beautifully done, heartbreaking in its execution, and is a book that I’ll think about for years to come.

Thank you so much to Vintage Books and NetGalley for the chance to read this early.

*I was gifted a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review. All thoughts and opinions are my own.*

Following three girls growing up in South Yorkshire in the 90s, this story follows their ups and downs as they navigate life. Sharp writing and written in the local dialect, I did struggle at times to convert to ‘plain English’, relying on vintage Coronation Street to sound out the words. One word that I didn’t get and found rather irritating was ‘ut’. I tried to visualise Vera Duckworth saying this but to no avail.

Great debut novel, very well written of the time, I’d recommend anyone struggling with the dialect to persevere.

Phenomenal! I can’t believe it is a debut

Thank you to the publisher and NetGalley for the opportunity to review

Told in an unwaveringly South Yorkshire dialect, We Pretty Pieces of Flesh is a coming-of-age story in the truest, grittiest sense. The friendship between young women is often a complex affair, and Colwill Brown captures it with an honesty that is rare to see. She translates the intensity, contradiction, and overall messiness of girlhood in a compelling and raw way.

We Pretty Pieces of Flesh captures a certain zeitgeist. Brown certainly chose a singular place and period to capture, and she does it masterfully. Exploring class, coming of age and social conformity is not an easy task, but Brown excels.

Told throughout in South Yorkshire dialect, which is rendered so sensitively that it poses no particular problems for a non-speaker to read it, this is the resonant story of three young women who become friends at secondary school. Moving backwards and forwards in time to cover both some primary school days and their later lives, their rivalries, fault lines and secrets come clear, leading eventually to a moment of truth-telling and a genuine reckoning. Imagine the intensity and ferocity and precise capturing of the love girls have for their friends in Tana French's The Secret Place, then cross it with the pop-cultural nous and the enraging revelation of personal vulnerability that you get in Eliza Clark's Penance. This is a great book—well-written, very funny, entirely engrossing, and moving—but it's also an important one, one dealing with moments in time that have either been memory-holed or not narrated in mainstream publishing from this perspective before: those '90s-'00s years when everyone thought they didn't need feminism anymore; the post-crash implosion of the high street that ruined already-decimated communities; the post-Brexit crumbling of what trust in the social fabric remained. (There are surprises here meant to rebuke London-centric readerly assumptions: Shaz, the most working-class and stereotypically "chavvy" of the three girls—promiscuous, hard-drinking, prone to scrapping on nights out—votes Remain, because she understands perfectly well that her communities are kept on life support by EU funds; Rach, the one who gets out and goes to university, is suspected to have voted Leave, to have turned credulous when faced with slogans.) Effortlessly engaging and full of soul.

I knew I liked the sound of this one and absolutely fancied it, but I don’t think I realised just how much it would blow me away. And it’s a debut?! Honestly, incredible.

The fact that it’s written in the Yorkshire dialect of Doncaster adds such a unique feel and an extra layer of authenticity. It took me a minute to fully settle into the rhythm of it, but once I did - unreal. It brings the characters and their world to life in a way standard prose just wouldn’t.

The story itself is hard hitting, raw and as gritty as they come. It’s not an easy read by any means, but it’s the kind of book that will hit home for a lot of people - myself included. I’ve never read a coming-of-age novel quite like this. It perfectly balances the stark realities of growing up in a working-class environment with moments of warmth and tenderness that catch you off guard.

The writing style is sharp, almost poetic in places, and the way the narrative shifts between the three girls adds so much depth to their individual journeys. Each perspective feels distinct, letting their voices shine while weaving together a bigger picture of girlhood, friendship and survival.

One of the things that struck me most was how vividly it captures the experience of being a working-class teenage girl in the nineties. A time when toxic diet culture was everywhere - on TV, in magazines, in casual conversations, shaping how girls saw themselves before they even had a chance to figure it out for themselves. When sex and consent weren’t things you learned about properly, but instead picked up in whispered stories from friends, each one exaggerated or half-understood. The author absolutely nails that era, making the girls’ experiences feel so real and tangible. The pressure to fit in, to hit milestones too early, to be just like your coolest friend - without realising they were all trying to be like each other. It brought back memories of high school in both the best and worst ways.

This novel tackles class, societal pressures, and the messiness of teenage girlhood with such an unflinching yet tender approach that it’s impossible not to feel the weight of it. I devoured it, and I don’t think I’ll be forgetting it any time soon.

Colwill Brown’s debut novel follows three girls from Doncaster (Donny) and their friendship through adolescence, and is written entirely in Yorkshire dialect. This won't be for everyone because of this.

I am a working class Yorkshire girl so the choice of writing style was a selling point and while I admittedly grew up a decade earlier, went into this book looking for the nostalgia.

The story is set in a very specific time and place and it captures it well. It's raw, messy, and tackles difficult topics. The misogyny of this time and place in particular hit home.

Unfortunately it turns out the nostalgia of this world didn't turn out to be a pleasant trip down memory lane, it stirred up some negative emotions for me. Alongside the repetitiveness of naïve girls and bad choices (intentionally so I'm sure) for a good portion of the story it became a bit of a chore to read.

Despite my negatives, if a dialect written story doesn't put you off then Brown has a distinctive voice and worth checking out.

Incredible for a debut, really memorable and relatable. The dialect may be a little difficult initially for those not from yorkshire, but I think it gets easier as you go and it's well worth sticking with.

As a South Yorkshire lass, I was really excited about this book - and it absolutely didn’t disappoint.

Firstly, I loved the writing style. It’s written in South Yorkshire dialect, which made it feel so natural and immersive for me. Not sure how it reads for people who aren’t familiar with the vernacular, but I personally eased into it straight away. The writing itself was fast-paced and descriptive, and I loved how the perspective changed depending on the character - first person for Rach, second for Shaz, third for Kel. It made each character feel so distinct and really shaped how you connected with them.

This book beautifully captured what it was like growing up in South Yorkshire in the early 2000s - the social rules of “big school,” the feeling of trying to fit in just to survive, the buzz of town centres and music venues, and that slow decline of the city centre. It felt like stepping back in time.

The story itself was intense, raw, and completely unfiltered. It didn’t romanticize girlhood - it showed it exactly as it is: messy, scrappy, sometimes brutal, but also full of deep, complicated friendships. It tackled class, societal pressures, and hard-hitting topics in a way that stuck with me long after the last page.

I devoured this book and can’t stop thinking about it. I read the e-copy, but I’ll be buying a physical version as soon as it’s out. A fantastic novel by a really talented author.

Thank you to NetGalley for the ARC!

Colwin Brown's We Pretty Pieces of Flesh is a bold and exciting debut, written in an authentic Yorkshire dialect. It centres on the lives of three local girls as they shoulder the trials of life together. It spans quite a large period in their lives and also moves to the US at one point. It was brave, honest and powerful. Can't wait to see what Colwin Brown does next. Recommended.

I reached the end of this book last night and just found myself feeling touched by the story of these three young women.

It was not an easy read by any stretch of the imagination, both because of the subject matter (please read content warnings) and the writing itself - which, my bad, I did not realise the entire book is written in Yorkshire speak/dialect. However, there is tenderness behind every "hard" action of the girls. Every secret shared, each misadventure recounted, all the countless choices that shaped their lives.
Their lives might not reflect every reader's reality, but there is something for everyone to recognise themselves in and give themselves grace.

This book is brilliant. An unputdownable account of three teenage lasses from Doncaster. Moving, brutal, funny and visceral, We Pretty Pieces of Flesh gives an unsentimental voice to these working class girls in a depressed northern town and shows us their pain, their humanity and their life force. I will be recommending this to everyone.

I’d heard such good things about this and it did not disappoint.

I don’t love books written in a particular vernacular but I can see why it was used here and it was effective. It was just tricky when you’re already reading an unedited proof with the formatting!

I was 18 in 2008 so while these girls were a little bit older than me it wasn’t by much. I could relate to so much of their young going-out experiences though mine were much, much more tame!

Of the 3 girls I found Shaz the most clearly defined and well-rounded. A few times I got myself mixed up between Kel and Rach but that might have been a me-problem!

This was beautiful depiction of young working class life. I loved it.

We Pretty Pieces of Flesh by Colwill Brown is a bold and vibrant coming-of-age book that immerses readers in the gritty, raw world of three adolescent girls growing up in a post-industrial Yorkshire town during the 1990s. The story captures the highs and lows of their inseparable friendship—Rach, Kel, and Shaz—whose lives are filled with youthful rebellion, shared secrets, and the kind of mischief that comes with growing up in a working-class environment.

Brown's writing is steeped in a thick Yorkshire dialect, giving the characters and their world an authenticity and charm that bring the story to life. The girls navigate everything from first kisses to sneaking alcohol into school, to supporting one another through pregnancy scares, embodying the toughness and tenderness of their friendship. However, as they grow older and their paths diverge, a long-buried secret threatens to shatter the bond they share.

The book's portrayal of girlhood is unapologetically honest, confronting the difficult and often uncomfortable truths of growing up in a town that many would overlook. We Pretty Pieces of Flesh is as much about friendship as it is about survival, offering a fierce and tender exploration of loyalty, loss, and the complexities of growing up. Like Trainspotting and Shuggie Bain, Brown brings the lives of her characters into sharp focus, giving voice to a place and people too often forgotten. A unique and captivating read, it’s impossible not to get swept up in the raw energy of the story.

Read more at The Secret Book Review.

We Pretty Pieces of Flesh has easily become one of my favourite reads of the year. I really liked the way this book was written as if the narrator was speaking in a Yorkshire dialect which was strange at first but didn't take long to get used to. I enjoyed how the reader got to see how the characters navigated their teenage years, learning about different topics and trying to fit in along the way. I also liked how each chapter changed perspective between Shaz, Rach and Kel at different points in their lives. The chapters themselves are very long but that doesn't stop me rating it 5*. I thoroughly enjoyed reading this book from start to finish and will definitely be checking out more of Colwill Brown's work in the future!