Send Nudes: By the winner of the BBC National Short Story Award 2022

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I wrote a very short story – about 1,000 words – when I was nineteen that followed a young girl and her family in Formentera. The cocaine isn’t something she really wants either, but her friend asked her to, so why not, I guess.

I wrote that one down in my notes, I can’t remember which story it’s from, truly could have been any of them. But to see the title as disconnected from the gnarly truths explored is to ignore how complicated the act of sending a nude photo is. She can’t get out of bed for weeks at a time, and he’s out here with his new wife and his flash camera. This included stories on toxic female friendships, jealousy, abortion, sending nudes (hence the title), seduction, desire and the complex relationships to other women (eg mothers and daughters, best friends, the ex’s). Her body has wide, soft curves like a Kardashian, whereas Blue is gangly and narrow, with the bones sticking up out in her shoulders.Threading between clubs at closing time, pub toilets, drenched music festivals and beach holidays, these unforgettable short stories deftly chart the treacherous terrain of growing up - of intense friendships, of ambivalent mothers, of uneasily blended families, and of learning to truly live in your own body. Some standouts here but all in perfectly controlled, moody prose with v unexpectedly sweet and satisfying endings.

My favorite stories of the collection were 'Tinderloin', 'Snakebite', 'Send nudes', 'Here Alone', 'Blue 4ever' and 'The Bread. Grazie a Bloomsbury UK e NetGalley che mi hanno fornito una copia gratuita di questo libro in cambio di una recensione onesta. Recommended for fans of contemporary (slightly offbeat) short stories which depict and offer a perceptive insight on young women's internal lives. That’s often a consequence of predatory men, but also arises from the (mostly selfish) influence of older girls, women, and parents. In her mind, Stella sees the water seeping into all the round outlines of the buttons, the ridges where the Dream Lens has been carved to fit, the film canisters sloshing aqua.Stella thinks about how if she died when she jumped, it would be all Blue’s fault, and their names would be tied together forever. Not in a fun, messy and manic kind of way, but in an if they dropped an open bag of rice and watched the grains scatter along the floor they would weep, quietly and prettily, rather than find a damn broom kind of way. In ‘The Bread’, my favourite story, a young woman survives the days after having an abortion by baking sourdough bread – the raw and painful episodes are interspersed by lovely descriptions around her kitchen, creating an unlikely equilibrium born from a scarring experience. There’s no air con in the house, so Stella spent the night thrashing about in the wet heat, re-angling the fan so that it was pointing at her face.

Sams’s characters navigate the gaps between expectation and reality that emerge with encroaching adulthood – preoccupied parents, uneven friendships, misleading kisses. The door opens, and there’s Blue, dressed in a pair of fluorescent orange bikini bottoms and a white crop top, her dark nipples just visible underneath. There was also a rabbit, and a dog, and these were virtually the only two innocents, and the ones I liked most. that the the authors inexperience was obvious, the humour of previous stories felt too mature and there seemed to be no discernible change to writing style despite our protagonists now being children. I don’t know if I was enjoying myself or just in a continual state of curiosity,” says Meg in Snakebite, one of 10 short stories in 25-year-old British author Saba Sams’s exceptional debut collection.Lo volevo leggere perché mi aveva colpito la copertina, e mi sono trovata davanti una fantastica raccolta di racconti brevi che mi ha lasciato senza parole. In Here Alone, seduction begins as a game for Emily – “this was her favourite part: the exchange of signs” – but she loses control. I remember having to reel myself in quite a lot, having to resist making my characters too jaded, too weak, or too mean. She’s wearing sunglasses decorated at the edges with plastic daisies, and a pair of stretchy shorts so small for her they look like knickers.