Saba Sams's unsettling, full-throated Send Nudes captures girls and young women on the brink of change It was me, says Stella. She has the same feeling she had when she ate the fish eye. It was me, she says again.

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. Stella only knows such details because Frank has told her. Frank is obsessed with his photography equipment. The day before they caught their flight out here, Stella watched him line up his camera, lenses and film canisters in the rectangle of light coming in through his bedroom window before taking a photograph of them on his phone. My favorite stories of the collection were 'Tinderloin', 'Snakebite', 'Send nudes', 'Here Alone', 'Blue 4ever' and 'The Bread.' These tales are about passionate friendships, elusive dating rules, and learning to live in your body. Stella’s mother married Jasmine’s father in February. Stella was twelve, Jasmine was eighteen. For their honeymoon, Claire and Frank went to Costa Rica. Stella and Jasmine weren’t invited. When they returned home, Frank announced that he’d booked three weeks in a villa on the smallest island in the Balearics, to make up for it. Jasmine was over from her mother’s. Claire had baked a lemon drizzle. 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. The phrase may remind readers of ultra-forward guys on Tinder, but, as the titular story shows, the act is underpinned by more serious matters too: consent, self-confidence, who and what society deems attractive.Subjects such as pregnancy and self-harm are handled without sentimentality or squeamishness. When, in Tinderloin, Grace has a miscarriage, she draws comfort not from her wet-blanket boyfriend but from the growing devotion of his dog. You never feel Sams is “exploring an issue”; rather, each story presents the textured fabric of ordinary lives, woven from wry observation, psychological insight and blunt Gen Z dialogue. In the kitchen, they boil the samphire and chop it fine with other ingredients, like capers and red onion, to make a relish. There’s a barbeque on the veranda, and Blue lines fillets of white fish over the coals. The flood lights are on in the pool, and the water looks like a huge turquoise crystal. Blue’s enjoying this, Stella can tell. There’s something like laughter in her voice. That camera’s worth thousands, says Stella. Think of the films. They’ll be ruined. 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. The strongest four i've ever given, and that is not because it was not good enough or 'just' entertaining, which my usual fours stands for: some shorts stories in this collection is 5/5, while some are more between 3-4,5. I really enjoyed 'Here Alone', 'Snakebite', 'Blue 4eva' and 'The Bread', but my favorite is the title story 'Send nudes'. Really refreshing perspective on girlhood and female sexuality.

Each tale left me wanting more, whilst a couple ended with literal goosebumps. I enjoyed the brutal honesty of the current sorry state of dating - something which the book centres around. To quote the view of one of the protagonists, "Two people don't sit on either side of a screen rather than either side of a coffee table if they're going to be completely honest about themselves". There were no thrills attached and the book does what it says on the label. Stella feels the inside of her mouth get dry. She pours herself a glass of water from the bottle and takes a sip.They’re midway through the meal when Blue waves at someone. Stella looks over her shoulder to see a man a few tables away. Jasmine looks too.