A tale of two sisters on a road trip & a nostalgic look at their lives as teenagers in the 90’s. I enjoyed the narration but it was difficult to stay engaged, would probably get on better with reading it.

We follow Sarah and Juliette as adults off on a caravan holiday for Juliette’s birthday. As they travel they allow us small and gentle insights into their teenage hood and the ups and downs and traumas they went through.

This book is so wonderfully written. The dual timeline is really effective and engaging. You’re completely interested in both storylines and I felt that the reader is given just the right amount of insight into their past each time that you remain keen to engage in more but aren’t told too much that it’s predictable.

The potentially triggering aspects of the book are delicately handles and the sisters act as excellent foils to deeper discussions about womanhood, adolescence and intimacy.

Also the setting of Manchester was so lovely to read! The audiobook narrator did an excellent job and it was a beautiful depiction of a wonderful city.

I loved this book and have already recommended it to a friend!

There were some really nice touches of nostalgia dotted throughout this book (I love you, Hanson) and the obsession around a random boy band was written spot on. On the whole though, I didn’t connect with or like either of the main characters, and didn’t resonate with any part of the journey we went on together.

This was an enjoyable read but I didn’t find myself connecting with it. There were some passages that were amazing but overall it wasn’t a favourite for me.

A funny, sometimes dark, always emotional novel from Emma Jane Unsworth. Sarah is a 47 yo woman, who takes her sister, Juliette, on a Scottish road trip for her birthday. Through intermittent flashbacks, we find out about Sarah's life as a teen, with their chaotic family. The teen years set in the 90's had me smiling in recognition, as well as cringing! Loved the book, highly recommend.

A better title for this book would be ‘Sisters’ but perhaps then it wouldn’t have the same impact. It’s mostly about two sisters, Sarah and Juliette, on a road trip to the Scottish Highlands to celebrate Juliette’s 40th birthday. As they slowly start to unpack their relationship and their memories, there’s a real insight into the nature of siblings with Sarah being the older and guilty big sister and Juliette being more streetwise and, somehow, now, more adult in many ways. The interplay between them shifts from their childhood roles of big sister keeping an eye on the kid to a more complex relationship where Sarah is trapped in the past.

That is where the ‘slags’ of the title come in, through the voice of the 15 year old Sarah soon to leave school, fantasising about her English teacher, and hanging out with her friends who are obsessively thinking about their favourite boy bands. The trouble with the plot is that none of this is really authentically slaggy! It comes to a kind of head where Sarah and her mate blag their way into a dressing room at a rock concert, followed disconcertingly by the even younger Juliette but, after a lot of agonising and some convenient vomiting, nothing happens. Nothing happens with the English teacher either, and it turns out in passing that the school is fee-paying and not the bad end of Grange Hill!

Part of Sarah’s excuse for being a slag is that her mother is a drunk, but a drunk who tries at some level to do her best for her children. It’s not very authentic either!

However, the continuing portrait of Sarah as an adult rings true. The way she struggles to make relationships and to, even simply, relate to people, as well as a series of failed sexual relationships is a convincing portrait of a struggling adult slightly traumatised by childhood and something weird that happened on the bus. She is carrying a lot of baggage when she and Juliette set off on the trip!

Juliette has developed in another direction as a suburban mother with a dull husband, two children and a feeling that life has passed her by. She admits to a torrid affair and some sexual exploration. She has a more honest opinion of herself and where she sits in the world.

At the end, the road trip turns out slightly silly with the pursuit of the teenage boy band member, now in paunchy middle-age playing the pubs. Somehow, Sarah blames him for her troubles but, frankly, it is not his fault, and things then go from bad to worse!

So, in the end, this is a bit of a mixed up book. Some reviewers find the slag chapters authentic but they didn’t do it for me. However, the relationship between the sisters is well explored even if the ending is a bit daft. Should you read it? Probably yes if you have a sister, especially a younger one who you felt, or were made to be, a bit responsible for!

I liked the narrators voice but lost a bit track of the story. I ended up not finishing the audiobook (i made it to 55% before any desire to hit play again left me). For what I've listened to the book feels like a mix of Derry Girls and Bridget Jones what should have been right up my alley. I do think reading the book would have been a better option for me and I might give it a go in the future.

Well sadly this took me quite a while to get through as I had to listen to it in parts due to finding it rather difficult to engage with at all! This really is not anything like the synopsis insinuation imo as in the dual timeline aspect from Sarah pov particularly being 15 to her 40s!

I fully anticipated a lot of humour within this type of book admittedly it raised the odd smirk and maybe one or two slight smiles but that was it and this was at comments such as facial gymnastics silly things but they made me laugh!

The story itself of when they were 15 begins ok if a little slow but it starts off with potential however when Sarah and Juliette begin their trip and during this birthday tour it seems to get a bit lost as they are now in their 40s and we are going between timelines. Both timelines just don’t seem to merge well at all.

Although Juliette is married with children and Sarah pretty much admits she hasn’t changed enough etc it’s just rather uninspiring, flat and dull. Some of it was even a bit cringe worthy to be honest; I appreciate this may seem harsh however the point of the review is honest constructive criticism where necessary.

The narration was done well enough in that you could envisage two teenage girls although again maybe there was a little difficulty in timeline split determination as no change in pitch or tone etc for age difference so it all blended making it another slight sticking point for me!

I appreciate the opportunity to listen to this ELC in return for an honest review with thanks to Harper Collins UK Audio and NetGalley 📚🎧❤️🙏🏽

Slags is a darkly funny and emotionally raw deep-dive into sisterhood, rage, and midlife reckoning. Emma Jane Unsworth brings her signature bite to this story of two sisters navigating the chaos of adulthood while reckoning with unresolved tensions from their past.

The book moves between two timelines - the gritty, awkward intensity of being 15 in the 1990s, and the messier, more fractured reality of midlife in the present. The flashbacks are brilliantly nostalgic, filled with alcopops, dodgy eyeliner, and emotional landmines that still echo decades later.

I was a teenager in the 1990s, so loved this timeline in particular. Unsworth’s representation of being this age in that era (the awkwardness, the obsessions, the naïvity) are so sharp and insightful, I felt at times as though it could have been my diary I was reading. I especially loved the repartee between the sisters. The brilliant jokes and back-and-forths made me heartily laugh out loud.

The audiobook is narrated by Chloe Massey (who also narrates Unsworth’s other audiobooks) and her solid performance adds a layer of intimacy and immediacy to the story. You can hear the frustration, the humour, the heartbreak - all the jagged edges that make the characters feel human. Her voice captures the raw emotional charge of both timelines and makes the tonal shifts feel cohesive.

That said, the novel does start to spiral a little toward the end. What begins as sharp and insightful storytelling veers into something more chaotic and unhinged. This was likely intentional but, for me, it lost some of its emotional weight in the process.

Still, it’s a compelling, original read that doesn’t hold back - especially for those who enjoy their fiction with bite, boldness, and a heavy dose of nostalgia. I bought the hardback of this book and look forward to revisiting it again one day 🧡

Thank you very much to NetGalley and HarperCollins UK Audio for gifting me a copy of the audiobook. All opinions in this review are my own.

i was optimistic about what this book might have 'brought' for me - the title intrigued me, re. what topics might be going to come up throughout the book, the description mentioned (northern) english culture in the 1990s which is a time period i love reading about, and the whole thing was relatively short at just under 300 pages. sadly, this is not how i'm feeling having just finished it. i felt the title was slightly misleading, only revolving around one small plot point, rather than an overarching theme, and the fmc didn't seem to mature enough in the later timeline for me to tell when we were switching back to 15-year-old sarah. i think this book's main issue was that it all felt a bit performative, that some things were only included just so the author could make it 'more relatable,' or 'edgier.'

thank you to netgalley and harper collins uk audio for an advanced reader's copy in exchange for an honest review.

I absolutely loved this book. The nostalgia factor alone had me grinning as a woman who grew up in the 90s.

Despite being a southerner through and through I loved how rooted this novel was in Manchester. Listening to the audiobook only increased this deep rooted sense of space as the narrator’s gorgeous voice led us through the plot. It was also incredibly funny and again the narrator had a wonderful tone that suited the dry wit.

I found the relationship between the sisters really relatable and both characters were also very relatable. They felt like real women with faults, personalities and lives. They were messy in a glorious way and I just wanted to join them on their road trip.

A nostalgic tale of 90's growing up and female likes, dislikes and trends. As i am older than the story line some of it was hard to relate to, like dancing a teacher? was that really a thing back then? It should have been very funny but it was sad at times however isn't that living. The girls who are sisters go on a road trip to Scotland in a camper van and reconnect with truthful conversations which was nice. It would make a nice little TV drama with some music of the times. Thank you #NetGalley for the audiobook to review.

The writing is really good and fun and the narrator is amazing. I just don’t think it’s a book for me unfortunately. I might give it another try in the future but right now it’s not really for me. I got 34% in. But it’s not a bad book at all so please don’t take it the wrong way. I really hope I one day will be enjoy this book.

I’ll give it a 5 star review because it doesn’t deserve me giving it a bad rating just because it wasn’t for me.

Sarah and Juliette are two very different sisters. Sarah is a workaholic who works hard and parties harder. Though she's beginning to wonder if she needs to stop with her party days. Juliette is a mother of two who also deals with their parents who live close by and a husband that Sarah hates. Sarah decides to whisk Juliette off in an old school camper van for a road trip around Scotland. Being this close to her sister brings back so many teenage memories for Sarah. Will this trip a chance for the sisters to bond or will it drive a bigger wedge between them?

The story has a split narrative, the current road trip storyline and flashbacks to when Sarah was 15. The latter storyline focuses on her best friend Nessa, their obsession with the band 4Princes and Sarah's English teach Mr Keaveney. I felt the book was slow moving at times, probably because just as I was getting invested in one of the timelines, we jumped to the other. But once we got over the half way mark, it did pick up the pace slightly. With such a provocative title, I thought it would be slightly more extreme. I think the split timeline doesn't help this.

The sisters do feel like very different people and characters, the audiobook narrator does a great job at making them sound different, but I felt like I wanted more from their interactions. We don't see much of them together in the flashback but we're to believe they were close after this but drifted apart. Also Sarah has a bit of a weird thing against Juliette being a millennial but she isn't. Sarah is probably at the cusp of being a Xennial, but her sister is only 2 years younger than her. She'd probably be classified the same or at the very least, Sarah would have a lot of the Millennial traits too. There isn't a big enough age gap between them to have a generational divide.

Overall, while I found it slow paced to begin with, I did enjoy how it all came together. It is witty, despite some heavier themes throughout, in particular siblings and your relationships with them. And the flashback timeline is very nostalgic at times. If you liked the nostalgia of I Love You, I Love You, I Love You by Laura Dockrill but not the romance side of it, then this may appeal to you!

3.5 stars

Really good fun, with some poignancy too. Very nostalgic and funny. Excellent narrator for the audiobook - perfectly encapsulated the tone and balanced the two narratives with ease.

Thank you for the arc of this audiobook.

Slags follows Sarah and her sister Juliette as they go on a camper van trip for Juliettes 40th birthday. We also follow them at 15 in the 90’s when they were obsessed with boybands, getting drunk and their fit teacher.

I wanted to love this but I really just felt a bit meh! I don’t really get what the point of the book was? Parts of it I found quite funny but overall I just don’t really have many thoughts. It was fine.

Firstly, the title, so quintessentially 90s and British. Sets it up straight away what to expect, some 90s working class British nostalgia. I knew these girls. Knew the experiences and as an adult looking in, I want to protect them so bad. Not to mention, also be in that caravan trying to put things right.
I just love Emma Jane Unsworth's writing. She handles such heavy topics in a relatable, funny and heart breaking way.
Highly recommend.

“Slags” by Emma Jane Unsworth, narrated beautifully by Chloe Massey, left me with mixed feelings about it. The story follows Sarah, a woman in her forties, who decides to take a wild, whisky-fuelled campervan trip across Scotland with her younger sister Juliette. What starts as a boozy adventure quickly turns into a raw, often hilarious exploration of their complicated relationship and the memories that shape them.
Chloe Massey did a fantastic job bringing the sisters to life — her tone perfectly captured their contrasting personalities, and her humour really added punch to the dialogue. I especially appreciated how she differentiated their voices, making it easy to follow the shifting perspectives.
The dynamic between Sarah and Juliette felt authentic and painfully real. Their banter, frustrations, love, and exasperation shimmered through the narration, making their sisterly bond feel both messy and profound. I found myself relating to Sarah quite a bit, especially her nostalgia for her teenage years and the ways those formative experiences linger into adulthood.
However, I did find the book a bit slow at times, with some sections feeling dull and causing me to tune out. The humour, which reminded me of “Derry Girls” in its sharpness, sometimes fell flat for me—probably because the themes and tone lean more adult and gritty, which isn’t quite my usual cup of tea. While there were plenty of funny anecdotes, I felt the overall story lacked a certain spark, and I struggled to remember it afterwards.
The book also tackles some heavy topics—family trauma, identity, societal expectations on women—and I thought Unsworth handled these with care. That said, I wasn’t entirely sold on the exploration of the “life with kids versus no kids” debate; it felt a bit stereotypical and underdeveloped for my taste.
The ending felt abrupt, almost like the story was cut short, which left me a little disappointed. There were also some inconsistencies that, with more editing, might have been ironed out. Despite these flaws, I appreciated the honesty and grit of the narrative, as well as the raw honesty about women’s lives, friendships, and self-discovery.
Overall, “Slags” is a gritty, nostalgic, and occasionally hilarious read that captures the messy beauty of sisterhood and the struggles of figuring out who we are. Chloe Massey’s narration made it easy to listen to, even if the pacing and some themes didn’t fully resonate with me. I think fans of Emma Jane Unsworth’s sharp wit and stories about women’s lives will find a lot to enjoy here, especially if they appreciate humour that’s a little dark and unfiltered.

Emma Jane Unsworth captures the voice of a generation brilliantly. It's truly like having a friend telling you a long story. Chloe Massey narrates well, her intonation and emphases really bring the character of Sarah to life.

I sometimes find it hard to follow audiobooks with multiple timelines but Unsworth has written the starts of each chapter in a way that it was immediately obvious which point in time we were now in. Having the same narrator for Sarah at both ages worked really well. Despite Sarah not seeming to have become much more responsible by the age of 41 she did clearly have a different tone from her teenage self.

I would definitely recommend Slags to friends and the audiobook specifically to those who already listen to audiobooks and wouldn't be confused by the dual timeline.

A very nostalgic book for any woman growing up in the 90s. I enjoyed all the universal experiences that teenage girls have. It made me relate to the characters all that much more.

The story focuses on 2 sisters travelling round Scotland in a campervan in present day while the second time line takes us back to when they were in their early teens and we slowly learn about the traumatic experiences they had and how they ultimately overcome any misunderstandings and bond more as sisters by the end of the camping holiday.