Slug

No one blends honesty, humour and humanity quite like poet and author Hollie McNish . . . Mixing prose and poetry, it's an insight into McNish's mind, spanning topics from motherhood to masturbation. We love this reminder to stuff our lives full of joy while we can; a tribute to life itself

Red Magazine

Funny, true, loving and lethal, Hollie McNish's new collection Slug is a total joy

Stylist

As I read every few pages of Hollie McNish's delightful new book, I was smiling, teeth out . . . . Slug is a sparkling mix of memoir, poetry, essays and short stories . . . Reading her feels like the relief you get when somebody else hears your most private worries and says: me too. She backs it all up with science, intimate confessions and wicked one-liners

Telegraph

I've loved her work for years

Jo Brand

A new collection from the exciting and divisive Ted Hughes Award winning poet and author of Nobody Told Me. This time she's tackling birth, death and female body parts with her characteristic confrontational gaze

Metro (Ten gripping books to look out for in 2021)

For everyday pick-me-ups, rages, frustrations, joy and belly laughs, Hollie McNish's books of poetry and essays are best kept on your bedside table to break open as required . . . Laugh-out-loud funny - keep it close

Stylist

Gloriously earthy and accessible, McNish's mash-up of prose and poetry covers the modern female condition with lashings of wit, intelligence and irreverent wisdom

Waterstones (blog)

Hollie is a total wordsmith. She makes me howl with laughter one moment and burst into tears the next

Paapa Essiedu

Gorgeous fingering poems

Bryony Gordon, author of Mad Girl and The Wrong Knickers

Hollie always articulates exactly how I feel, like she lives in my head

Charly Cox, author of Validate Me and She Must Be Mad

Honest and insightful, hilarious and impudent. We could all do with paying attention to what McNish tells us through her writing, where she directs our attention and the worlds she opens

Anthony Anaxagorou, author of After the Formalities

Slug covers so much - motherhood, gender, lockdown, loss, sex and a multitude of other topics - and yet Hollie McNish explores each with such care, nuance and wit. Hugely moving, very funny, this is an irreverent, uplifting and sharp collection of prose, poetry and fiction

Anna James, former editor at The Bookseller and author of the Pages & Co series

From the defiant title to the irreverent, incisive and transgressive poetry within, Slug is an encyclopedia for negotiating twenty-first century living. McNish's work is a constant challenge to sexism, racism, intolerance and bigotry, each piece delivered with the swag of a girl queuing up outside the Headteacher's office. Whatever the subject, the result is warm, often hilarious and sometimes furious. No other contemporary UK writer addresses the needs of women and mothers more directly and consistently than McNish. Her voice is relevant, vibrant and defiant. She just blew smoke in your face

Joelle Taylor, poet, playwright and author

Slug is a great call to arms for women and their bodies

Athena Lamnisos, CEO of Eve Appeal charity

Reading this book is like sharing secrets with your best friend. It's funny, it's sometimes salacious, it's honest, at times heart-breaking, angry and most of all deeply human

Doula Magazine

Within the first six pages I had phoned my dad to tell him I love him and had a crying fit about how much I miss my gran, so well done I say

Shappi Khorsandi

I can't take my ears off her

Benjamin Zephaniah

Makes so many of us feel seen . . . [Hollie] quickly breaks the heart and then heals it, before you have time to even take a breath

Kara Scott, TV personality, journalist and poker player