A strikingly poetic short story collection that offers both a dreamy and starkly honest exploration of young women's relationships with family, friendship and their own bodies. Set in an instantly recognisable present of dating apps, lockdown and sourdough starters, these are characters sidelined by absences in their lives, and desperate for connection. Despite an undercurrent of loss, there is hope here - sometimes momentary, always authentic.
She takes a long breath and exhales. She picks the bowl from the drying rack. She presses it against her right nipple until the skin there is shrivelled and hard. After, she moves to the other. She scrapes her front teeth against the skin of her lips, aggressively, to draw blood into them. She bends one of her legs upwards, using the kitchen counter to support it, and draws her shoulders back. In this position, she opens the camera on her phone. She stretches her arm out in front of her, the phone angled downwards. She taps her thumb, just once, against the button.
She sends the photograph without looking at it first. It appears in the app encased in a blue speech bubble, serene and ordinary as letters. With one final tap, she disconnects. If the stranger had been composing a reply, she will never read it.
