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.

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.

As a Yorkshire girl born & bred this hit real close to home actually. Whilst I didn't have this exact experience growing up I do know a lot of people that did and the way the author describes the events even got me reminiscing on everything I did as a teenager. It's kind of crazy this is her first ever book honestly.

The dialect I can imagine might be a bit difficult for people not from Yorkshire but I found it incredibly easy to get on with and I think had it been written out of dialect it wouldn't have hit so emotionally for me. I really did have an emotional reaction to the events and the characters and the vibe of the entire thing.

So cool to read about Yorkshire!!

We Pretty Pieces of Flesh is a book that really grows on you. The combination of its literary title, the striking juxtaposition of a muted image with bold text on the cover, and the strong Yorkshire dialect of the prose all make it difficult to place at first. It takes a while to work out what’s going on and to situate the story in early-2000s Doncaster, but once you’ve got to grips with the three interchanging voices, the story really gets into your heart.

The novel follows three best friends—Rach, Shaz, and Kel—from the age of eleven to thirty, revealing their shared memories through their distinct perspectives. There are early sexual experiences, first boyfriends and wild nights out, as well as darker moments of addiction, loneliness and struggles to make ends meet. The girls’ personalities are sharply defined: Shaz is the confident troublemaker, leading the more cautious Kel and Rach astray; Kel, who dreams of being a teacher, struggles to take a firm stance on anything; and Rach is torn between wanting to be like Shaz and mistrusting her exaggerated stories. This is a story about best friends on the cusp of adulthood, enjoying their last moments of innocence before their bodies become “pretty pieces of flesh”, their paths begin to diverge and terrible secrets threaten to come between them.

We Pretty Pieces of Flesh doesn’t read like a debut. The writing is so assured and the structure is skilfully conceived, with the tension building towards a nostalgic night out in Donny after several years apart. I’d recommend it for fans of Shuggie Bain and Trainspotting, who like gritty, voice-led stories with strong sense of place. While some readers may find the dialect-heavy prose and the intertwining voices challenging to navigate, it’s right up my street, and I can’t wait to see how it will be received when it’s published in February 2025.

We Pretty Pieces of Flesh follows three childhood friends (Rach, Kel and Shaz) from their first days at secondary school in Doncaster, through their teenage years together and later years apart, culminating in a reunion night out when potentially explosive secrets simmer under the surface. It’s written in impressively well-rendered local dialect, and is at heart a coming of age story, depicting the ups and downs of the teenage trio, and reflecting on where those years have led them - examining the bonds of friendship and as well as the forces that can tear them apart. The book seems initially to have Rach as its central character, the slightly better-off member of the trio, but gradually shifts its focus between the three, with our sympathies shifting somewhat in the process. Rach begins seeming like a relative outsider in the school years, but ends up drifting into a life of local normality, remaining in the area as a school teacher, marrying a dubious teenage dropout and (allegedly) voting for Brexit. Kel is the quieter of the bunch in school years, but ends up studying in the US, detached from her home and finding herself struggling with relationships and a fatigue based syndrome that seems to be ME. Shaz starts out as the cockiest of the bunch, popular with the lads and developing a reputation for herself in the process. In a trajectory that seems somewhat fated throughout, she ends up skipping college and struggling through a succession of dead-end jobs in Donny. Her relationship with the others is burdened in later years by a secret that she feels she cannot tell. But she ends up feeling like the heart of the novel, and increasingly becomes the central figure in the later part of the novel. I wondered at first whether the dialect might prove a little off-putting to some readers, especially those who are unfamiliar with the almost street-by-street nuances in the pronunciation of certain words in South Yorkshire and the surrounding areas. Even as someone who grew up speaking a version of this dialect (now sadly lost, to my eternal regret) it initially took a bit of getting used to. But once you’re in, it lends the whole thing a real momentum and energy. It’s also true to life, clearly written by a local and not by someone who thinks Yorkshire dialect consists entirely of adding 't’ in front of every second word. And there’s considerable fun to be had with it for those attuned to the micro-variations in usage - whether you’re right, reyt or reet says rather a lot about your background!

At times it feels claustrophobically focused on Doncaster (in a good way), and in those teenage years the characters see a trip to the next town as something akin to a lunar voyage. But their horizons slowly broaden, notably Kel’s, although it’s with some irony that her big departure to the US ends in her being mostly housebound due to her illness. I enjoyed this section though, as it suddenly felt like we were thrown into the world of an entirely different novel, making the whole so much richer-feeling as a result. But I also loved the narrowness of focus in much of the rest of the book. I’m not truly attuned to the detail of Donny, but some of the bars and clubs were familiar, as of course is the good old Donny Dome; and more broadly it felt like the world pictured was a very familiar one from my own youth (helped along by the fact that the characters are just a few years younger than me). It is, quite correctly, a book riddled with the stench of Bacardi Breezers and various other favourite sticky alcopop concoctions of the era.

I found a lot to enjoy in this one overall. It’s an incredibly rich book: thematically, aside from its central focus on friendship, it touches on sex, sexuality, class, drugs, friendship, illness, eating disorders, abuse, post-industrial decline, and myriad other topics. It does this with a lightness of touch, as well as an emotional warmth that means it’s never an overly grim read, in spite of that foreboding subject list. Its characters are memorable and relatable, and each develop more layers as the book develops. Its depictions of teenage drama of all stripes is constantly engaging: even as it covers ground we’ve often seen in coming of age novels, it does so with a fresh energy.

Another really strong debut that I’m very happy to have stumbled across. I hope this gets the attention it deserves next year. (9/10)

The debut of this author was quite an explosion, showcasing a style that felt refreshingly original, particularly due to its use of a Yorkshire dialect. While this choice presented some challenges, I found it to be an intriguing and rewarding reading experience. I thoroughly enjoyed following the journey of three friends as their story unfolded. Although there were moments when the shifts in the timeline and points of view felt a bit abrupt, these instances did not detract from my overall enjoyment of the book. Its a solid 5 stars for Me since I was thinking about this book all the time and really enjoy It.

I fell in love with this book almost immediately. At first I found the Yorkshire dialect a bit daunting but really quickly picked it up and felt it added so much character to the story. The characters were so well developed and I loved each of them for their strengths and their flaws. This felt such an honest depiction of the complexities of female friendships throughout the years. I was so surprised to read that this was a debut novel as it was just perfect. Really look forward to reading more from this author.

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!

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.

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.

What an absolutely INCREDIBLE debut - I can't believe this is a first novel. Telling the story of three girls from Doncaster in their own dialect, this is a coming-of-age par excellence, full of wonderful characters and heartbreaking details. The dialect means it will not be for every reader - and may be difficult to adjust to at first - but it is extremely rewarding as you are completely immersed in the characters' world. I am so glad I requested this, I will be recommending it widely and hope it wins awards. The best 2025 title I have read so far. Can't wait to read more from Colwill Brown!

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!

Phenomenal! I can’t believe it is a debut

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

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.

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.

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.*