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Frank laughs then, and so does Claire. Stella wonders if Blue was born exceptional, or if it’s the kind of thing that happens gradually. Send Nudesis full of perceptive, raw accounts from girls growing into women everywhere – in clubs at closing time, on pub toilets, at free spirited music festivals and on make-do beach holidays. What ties the protagonists of each story together is a primal sense of what growing into yourself looks like – often chaotic, sometimes teetering on menacing, and yet always perfectly real. As they battle their own demons and others’ and as they fight for a space to fit into, they reveal some wonderfully incisive universal truths about womanhood.
No, says Frank. You’re eighteen. Now down that pint. Down it. Something about having Frank around makes her a better daughter Frank cut a slice of manchego and lay it down in front of her. Jasmine didn’t touch her cheese. After some minutes, she announced that she’d invited Blue out to join them. Frank threaded his fingers together on the table. The point of this trip, he said, was to spend time together as a four.At their table, Nico has gone. Perhaps Blue sent him away, or perhaps he was simply afraid of being lumbered with their bill. Stella hopes it is the former. She pulls Frank’s money from inside her trainer, and leaves the lot in the middle of the table. Neither Blue nor Jasmine make signs of contributing. Meg isn’t the only one having unenthusiastic sex. Two other girls in two different stories have sex they don’t enjoy, and in the course of the act they cannot find the words or the will to insist the man use a condom and apparently have never heard of hormonal bill control like the Pill, so they both inevitably fall pregnant. “I thought it made me seem aloof not to ask the boys I slept with to put a condom on.” Yeah, ok. The girls are so indistinguishable they tend to say things that any of them could have spoken. “The future, to me, was something that would just happen.” I wrote that one down in my notes, I can’t remember which story it’s from, truly could have been any of them.
In all these instances, while the outcomes aren’t always what one might hope for, they are the choices made and enforced by the protagonists, and so they are always worth it. It's a fierce look into womanhood and girlhood. It's all about what it means to be a girl or a woman, using your body or being used, taking charge, growing up, making mistakes... some stories were almost feral and difficult to read, but I loved them all. The winner of 2022 BBC National Short Story Award was announced this week as London-based writer, Saba Sams. Following the announcement , we spoke to her about ‘Blue 4eva’– the winning story. In “Snakebite” Meg falls into an intense relationship with Lara. Lara, motivated only by drink and sex, uses Meg for money, company and even simple bodily warmth. Every inch of us knows that Meg must rid herself of Lara, whose influence has ruined her university attendance, her relationship with her flatmates, and even her health, yet Meg clings on to Lara, because – we, too, understand – sometimes someone is better than no one.The dress is made of velour in a muted gold colour. Stella puts it on in her bedroom, and Blue tightens the spaghetti straps by tying them in knots on Stella’s shoulders. On Blue, the dress would have been shin-length, but on Stella it trails the floor, and she has to lift it every time she takes a step.
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