Description

Shortlisted for the Dylan Thomas Prize and the Goldsmiths Prize

Longlisted for the Gordon Burn Prize

From the winner of the BBC National Short Story Award

The lives of three teenage girls are torn apart by a secret in this gut-punch of a novel – for fans of Eliza Clark and Megan Nolan

‘It feels essential. You will read nothing else like it this year’ GUARDIAN

‘Blistering, brilliant, savage and smart’ EIMEAR McBRIDE

Ask anyone non-Northern, they’ll only know Donny as punch line of a joke or place they changed trains once ont way to London.

But Doncaster’s also the home of Rach, Shaz and Kel, bezzies since childhood and Donny lasses through and through. They share everything, from blagging their way into nightclubs to trips to the Family Planning clinic when they are late. Never mind that Rach is skeptical of Shaz’s bolder plots; or that Shaz, who comes from a rougher end of town, feels left behind when the others begin charting a course to uni; or that Kel sometimes feels split in two trying to keep the peace – their friendship is as indestructible as they are. But as they grow up and away from one another, a long-festering secret threatens to rip the trio apart.

‘An astonishing polyphonic debut’ Irish Times, Books of the Year

‘Sublime’ Roisin O’Donnell

‘Brilliant and original on every level… she is a writer like nobody else’ Elizabeth McCracken

‘Electrifying… Written in what feels like a new and utterly distinctive female voice, it is very hard to put down’ Mark Haddon

Publisher Review

[A] lacerating, exhilarating debut novel... It manages to be both boisterous and bleak, life-enhancing and life-denying, familiar and yet wholly original. It feels essential. You will read nothing else like it this year -- Catherine Taylor * Guardian * [A] blistering account of girlhood in deprived 00s Doncaster * Guardian, *Books of the Year* * Blistering, brilliant, savage and smart. This is a superb debut and Colwill Brown is the real thing -- EIMEAR McBRIDE, author of A Girl is a Half-Formed Thing Tender and raucous, Shaz, Kel, and Rach's friendship is brilliantly realized. We Pretty Pieces of Flesh is a novel brimming with rough poetry, heart, and mischief -- FERDIA LENNON, author of Glorious Exploits An astonishing polyphonic debut * Irish Times * Its gloriously individual voice makes this standout first novel glow with vigor and hope * Wall Street Journal * Dazzling... We don't know the last book that captured teenage girlhood and female friendship this deftly * Oprah Daily * With this debut, Colwill Brown announces herself as unforgettable... a wondrous, luminous novel -- NANA KWAME ADJEI-BRENYAH, author of Chain-Gang All-Stars Colwill Brown is, simply, brilliant and original on every level... We Pretty Pieces of Flesh is astonishing, as hilarious and wrenching as life itself -- ELIZABETH McCRACKEN, author of The Hero of This Book A brilliant portrait of female friendship, nearly the equal in honesty and subtlety to Elena Ferrante's Neapolitan novels * Kirkus (starred review) *