Alternatingly euphoric and devastating, this read slams as fast as a sugar rush and hard as a gut punch. Written in a poetic South Yorkshire dialect, you hit the streets, schools and nightclubs of late nineties/early noughties Doncaster with three best mates - Kel, Shaz and Rach - as they grow together and fall apart. A coming of age story of working-class adolescence and friendship, the smack of authenticity makes this a vital, visceral read.
Kel wa still eleven, but all day she'd rehearsed her date of birth as if she wa twelve, because you had to be twelve to gerrin Karisma on Nappy Night. She said it again in a whisper, to mek sure she hadn't forgot: 'First of February 1986'. One third of an inward-facing triangle, Kel huddled wi Shaz and Rach, halfway down a queue that spanned length ut nightclub's corrugated-steel wall. It wa nearly Christmas holidays, but none of them wore a coat. Their feet vibrated between toe and heel in their platform shoes. Their ponytails bounced. Motion wa part shiver, part nerves, and part, for Kel, to tek her mind off her bare midriff, which she wa trying to keep sucked in.
