Sara & Cariad's Weirdos Book Club - Send Nudes by Saba Sams with Olga Koch

Episode Date: March 28, 2024

This week's book guest is Send Nudes by Saba Sams.Sara and Cariad are joined by award-winning comedian Olga Koch to discuss dads, teenage girls, snakebite, the intranet, menstruation and more! Thank you for reading with us. We like reading with you!Trigger warning: In this episode we mention paedophilia.Send Nudes by Saba Sams is available to buy here or on Apple Books here.You can find Olga on Instagram: @kolga300 and Twitter: @rocknrolgaYou can get tickets to Olga's tour show Prawn Cocktail hereListen to Olga's podcast Family Jewels hereSara’s debut novel Weirdo is published by Faber & Faber and is available to buy here.Cariad’s book You Are Not Alone is published by Bloomsbury and is available to buy here.Follow Sara & Cariad’s Weirdos Book Club on Instagram @saraandcariadsweirdosbookclub and Twitter @weirdosbookclub Recorded and edited by Naomi Parnell for Plosive.Artwork by Welcome Studio.  Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Sarah Pasco. Hello, I'm Carriad Lloyd. And we're weird about books. We love to read. We read too much. We talk too much. About the too much that we've read. Which is why we've created the Weirdo's Book Club.

Join us. A space for the lonely outsider to feel accepted and appreciated. A place for the person who'd love to be in a real book club, but doesn't like wine or nibbles. Or being around other people. Is that you? Join us. Check out our Instagram at Sarah and Carriad's Weirdos Book Club for the upcoming books we're going to be discussing. You can read along and share your opinions.

Or just skulk around in your raincoat like the weirdo you are. Thank you for reading with us. We like reading with you. This week's book guest is Send Nudes by Sabah Sam's. What's it about? It's a set of short stories, so it's about many different characters, a lot of whom are struggling with sex and relationships. What qualifies it for the weirdos book club?

Well, it's a whole lot of outsiders, a lot of angst and pain, and there's a rabbit as well. In this episode, we discuss. Dad's, teenage girls, snake bite, hats, the intranet, and menstruation. And joining us this week is Olga Cock. Olga is an award-winning stand-up who's currently on tour with her show, Prong Cocktail, and she has a brilliant podcast called Family Jewels with Charlie Dinkin.

Welcome, Olga Cock. Welcome, Olga Cock. This is a new thing we're trying. So we are a little bit obsessed with you. I'm obsessed with you. I am, and I was saving it to we start recording because I'm embarrassed by it. Why are embarrassed? Because I feel it's creepy.

I watch her stuttering. I watch your stand-up on Instagram so much. I love your stand-up for two reasons. One, obviously, hilarious. But also I'm learning a lot about sex and people. A young person. She's a young person teaching us. What I have is, I really, you know when you think,

oh, the kids are going to be all right? Because the things you talk about and the audience are laughing about are so inclusive and they're sometimes, you know, sexual without being, oh, I'm saying a rude word. Everyone's just laughing at the language. Which is what it was when I started comedy. He would laugh because someone said dick. Right.

Like in a really naughty... Those are the days. A really naughty schoolboy way. No, it's very intelligent comedy. Yes, yes. But it's about smutty things, which I think... Well, the psychology of sex. You don't need to say anything.

We're just going to talk about how we're going to. You're very kind. This is far too much. Also, I don't know if this is still available, but Olga once said one of the greatest radio shows I've ever heard. The Russian one. Oh, it's called fight. Yeah, yeah.

It was so good that I listen to radio comedy a lot. And often the thing with radio comedy is, you can tune in. and out and I had to stop doing what I was doing. It was based on her Edinburgh show. And it was like a half hour version of it. Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's so good.

A very condensed. If it's still on BBC Sands, I don't know. If you ever do need new representation, me and Carrie Ed would love it. No, it's a three or four. Yeah. Now, listen, we found someone. She's young, but my God. And she's not just saying dick, no, it's more.

We're here to talk about the incredible short story collection. Send Nudes by Sabah Sams. So, Olga, when we decided we were going to... Cover this book. We did a Christmas sort of roundup. in a bookshop called Morocco Bound just down the road. And this book was on the shelf. I had heard other people talk about it.

We decided we're going to do it. And then because you're cool to know about sex, that's why we paired you up. That's why we paired you up with this book, not having read it. And then when I started reading it, I suddenly thought, oh gosh, because some of the topics are really,

I get provocative. It's not stand up, we'll put it that way. It's quite hardcore emotional writing. No, there's no like gags. No, it's not like a laugh of a minute. Yeah. And so I hope it was okay. Yeah, it's fine.

Yeah, good. Good. Okay. It was very, very good. I won't go, I mean, enjoyable to read, not enjoyable, I suppose, in content. Yeah, yes. It's the kind of thing, it would sound really, I guess, Ponzi, pretentious to say, but in a way that good art should make you feel lots of feelings and some of those feelings are really uncomfortable,

it's that there is comfort in the fact that they're very common things. I think sort of there is that like shock value surface that is it's like quite sexy and quite explicit. But I thought the thing that did most effectively was describe relationships between women. Yeah, it's much more about women than it is actually the sex they're having. And so like the story of like the sort of one-sided friendship. Oh yes. That was that shook me to my core. I think that was like the most, I suppose, effective story of all of them.

But then the sisters and even the last one with the mom, it's like there's these like relationships that you got recognized. because I feel like all relationships between women are so much more intense than any other. Well, it's why we gossip forever. Yeah. And we have to keep re-analizing our female friends and their relationships because there are so many layers. Like it never gets boring a female friendship. An ex-female friendship. Oh my God, guys.

Okay, I saw a TikTok. I'm so sorry to jump into it so fast. But I saw a TikTok that was like modern horror story. And then it was like when you receive this from your ex-exam. best friend and it's just happy birthday hope you're well oh oh this is why i can't go on tic-tok that sounds like a negative emotion to me i can't skip past that that's affected you look she's taking it in because but you don't forget their birthdays no of course you don't of course you don't i'm already i'm already and even like you get to december and you go oh it's the fifth it's coming

up yeah i'm so bad at letting people go that i don't have anybody that would i'm like Carriad really works with people. Because I had a grief early on, so I will not let you go because what if you die? But even if they mistreat you or they don't want to be friends with you. Oh yeah, I'm still here, baby. She said it on me. I told me to be a friend. I was such a bad friend.

Rather than just being my ex-friend, best friend, which is what I'd had cyclically. She was like, okay, you've done something really wrong. I'm the one who's stayed. You've got to stay in this friendship and learn about it. And now I can be friends with people. Like I learned how to, I learned intimacy from Carriad, yeah. She's like the wife who's taking. back the cheetah going yeah yeah that's good of me wasn't it

it's good of me thing is but look at him look how well he's thriving I'm in the garden she's done so well I built a shed can we talk about the best friend story snake bites yeah can we also say there's 10 stories and they're brilliantly written but yeah I do think it's where saying there is a thread of bleak sadness in a lot of these stories and I found myself

after each story having to put the book down, like, fucking hell, you know? Like, oh, okay, this is a good example. Do you remember watching my so called life? Yes. And I would watch my soul called life, and it was so depressing. My brother would be like,

why'd you watch the play? It was so sad, you cry. And you remember the end? Dance by the Lady of the Moon was the production theme tune. Come on. And I'd sit there with like tears pouring down my face. And I would be like,

why am I watching this? But I was a teenage girl, so it made sense. And it felt like this was dragging me back to that teenage feelings. And I felt slightly as someone in their early 40s, I was like, oh God, it's hard to go back.

It's hard to go back. That's what's incredible about it. Yes. It whiplashes you back in the way that music can. Yes, yes. Or a smell. Yeah. I want to give a warning to our older readers.

Well, I think maybe a warning in general is that some of the things we're probably going to have to talk about now are, you know, those serious and upsetting things, but that also do happen to people. Yeah. And also, but I feel like when you're in your teenagers and early 20s, like, everything's so intense. Like, your friends are going through such intense experiences and your friends are going through such intense experiences and your going through such intents. That's what she captures, but equally like, it felt like reading a teenage diary. There was part of me that was like, no thank you, no thanks. I don't

want to go back there today, like, but it's brilliant writing. Okay, so I think I do like going back there. You're a different age to us, Alga. You would never have drunk Blue WKD, I imagine. I'm aware of it. Yeah, because I was in a different country. A different country as well, but yeah, Blue WKD,

Smyrna Faises when they were mentioned. I thought those little references were dappled in so carefully to keep telling you it's then. Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's that point in time. She's much younger than us. I had no idea.

But also, yeah, she was referencing Facebook quite heavily, which is not a social platform that is used. She's 26. Or maybe they just carried on doing Blue WKD. We just thought it was discontinued because, you know. You found self-respect. We started going to bed at 9 o'clock. Everything captured was so universal. Yeah, true.

Like no point was I like, this does not relate to me. Yeah, yeah. Exactly. I thought she was exactly my age. So Olga, how did you feel about the unhappiness in the stories? Or spending time with the characters in their unhappiness? Being whippedash to teenage years. I feel like there is this sort of morbid enjoyment of it,

the sort of idea that you can dip your toe into this either teenage yearning or teenage sorrow like the world is ending if he doesn't love me back or text me back. And I think that that's enjoyable in how overwhelming it is and how consuming it is. Self-destructive it can be. That period of self-destructiveness, which feels side by side with, you know, actually hurting yourself. It's so different. You live through it and then you go, yeah, it's safe.

That's a phase. I feel like it's too near and you can slip back too easily. That's how I feel. Because you're a got. Because you're a got. Obviously, I feel like even reading these... The darkness is still near, isn't it? Reading those dark places that women go to, I was like, I felt like it was drowned.

I was like, I need to get back up. I got out of there. You're not going to pull me back. Like, that's how I was like, fuck. Like, no, Sabba. I can't go back. I read a lot of it on a train. I had to put the book down.

Obviously, I had to turn it over because I was next to an old man. I didn't want him to read, send nudes on my cover. And he was doing his Sudoku and kept talking to me, so it would have been awkward. And I had to have like 10 minutes, like, you're not there. You're not a teenager. Like you said, you survived that. But yeah, I found it very evocative. Her writing is really evocative.

I would say that I'm not a huge fan of the short story in general. I am also not a huge fan of the short story. Because it is possible for the whole thing to go by and you to go, what's happening? Where are they? Whereas what's so incredible is every story started and like before I got to the end of the first page, fully immersed. Yeah. I knew them. I knew who they were. I knew where they were. Particularly that I'd say blue forever. That one I thought was the best one.

That's one that won a short story prize I think particularly. The one about the stepsisters. Yeah, when they go on holiday and the younger step sister and like a much older. I found that like, I mean you know, pain, toe curling to read but like within half a page I absolutely knew. every character and what they were doing and how everyone was feeling. This new family merged from, yeah, 12-year-old and her mom and then like a 19-year-old and her dad and he'd had an affair and that's how they got together. And then her friend turns up who's all glamorous.

And I was like, oh, God. Just go back home. Everybody go back home. I can't deal with it. But I thought that story was fucking brilliant. That was my favourite. Actually, it was blue forever. Did you have a favourite older?

I think it had to be Snakebite. Oh, snake bite. I found so upsetting. It's upsetting. I'm just a serial, like, I want to say, like, best friend monogamist, but I keep coming back to people who are terrible to me. Well, you're in my gang. Oh, absolutely.

They're terrible to me, but then I tell myself, oh, they're not terrible. They're just the only ones telling me the truth. So I'll have a best friend for, like, two years who will be like, you're ugly, you look disgusting in this. You're going nowhere and I'd be like, finally someone who's telling me the truth. The rest of you are lying. Because she's talking to your inner saboteur, as Rupertor would say. And then so I saw that. I was like, oh, that's a cyclical.

So that feels familiar to you. Yeah. That snake bite story we should say so is, yeah, a girl sort of lost in her world and then this girl kind of infiltrates her life. And it's horrible to read because it is, I think even if you're the bad best friend, you've had a situation where like someone crazy comes into your life and you try and fix them. You try and save them.

You think you can help. I'm not saying this just because I'm the bad best friend. It's so tragic because the girl who is being. the bad friend has, and it's what your parents would say to you, I think, or it's a kind of parental thing to say if someone is being horrible to you at school, for instance, they would say, they're more unhappy than you are. Yeah. Happy people don't behave that way. Yeah, they've got stuff at home. Yeah. They're not good. And you think, and you think how can it be true? And I think that's what's done so cleverly in that story is that there is, you know, when they go to visit

Lara's mom. Oh, God. That was so painful. And you see how she's treated by her mother. And it becomes so clear that it's a very, very, very damaged in pain person. But you're watching two vulnerable women. That's what's so horrific. And you know what I just realized? It's like, I miss what a sentence, but I have a daughter. And there's that thing of like, you've got through your teenagers, but you know you're heading towards teenagers with someone else.

And so it's like looking at these teenage girls being like, oh, God, you think you remember how bad it is, which actually was. Yeah. And Lara, even though you could be like, well yes, your mum is horrible and all this awful stuff is happening. She's still damaging that person. That's why I thought the ending was so incredible.

In two of the stories, there were animals. There was a dog in the first story and there's a rabbit, that story. And I was really scared. Yes, I was scared for the rabbit. I was really scared. Oh, no, someone's got to tread on the rabbit or someone's going to do something. And actually, nothing bad happens. Only to human beings, the bad things happen in this book.

The animals are harmed in the writing of this book. For vegans. For vegans reading, you'll be alright. And I guess this is a spoiler for that. story, so if anyone listening doesn't want to know what happens, but when she decides to sort of end that friendship, that is her

being a kind, doing a kind thing. What do you think? Is that how you sorry? Absolutely because she put the rabbit in the wardrobe. Oh, I thought that was thoughtless. No, no, that was her, you know, keeping him, she gave him the watercress to say sorry. Has sex with the girl to say sorry. I'm not defending her, I'm saying it was

I thought it was thoughtless that she, yeah, I think we're, this is really revealing us to what sides of the friends. because I thought, yeah. I was like she was so pre-ocked her own herself. She didn't even realize where the rabbit was. Oh, so I thought it was like, she put him back in the box.

She's put the friendship back in there. No, I thought she literally closed the door and didn't even make it. Because it's not a good place to leave him. Like he could have died in there. I really read it as like, that girl is so thoughtless and unkind, where it comes from, that she got ready and she didn't even know the rabbit was in there and she left.

And that's like, that's the friendship. She put the friendship in the company. She didn't even fucking care. and I was like Meg caring is leaving and leaving the rabbit there not taking the rabbit with her I thought was the best

Oh good come on back She wouldn't be able to take care of the rabbit No So she left the rabbit with someone who was going to take care of him Yeah because she didn't care about the rabbit Oh She didn't care

That's the friendship And she didn't really care about the rabbit She wasn't invested in that rabbit In the way that Meg has made this But she can't care of because no one cared about her Yeah that's true But it doesn't stop the hurt That's what I mean

Yeah no one to honor how to care But that's not to say that she Impacted over intent, as my therapist tells me. But she brought back the watercress, the old watercress for the rabbit. And it's soggy and it's out of day and it's like, you know, like it's not okay. But she knows what the rabbit wants, or needs, which is the watercress. And then in terms of a friend, she knows the girl is in love with her and it's damaging and she knows she wants the best for her. And she knows that she pushes her away and treats her terribly because she has to go. She definitely could have left before she did all the harmful things, is what I'm saying. I mean, also, I feel like if you know that someone's in love with you,

and they're mad at you, the easiest thing is to fuck them. Yeah. The amount of times I've said I love you just to get out of an Come on. But having sex with her is also, that that's, okay, that's your, that's your soggy watercress. You know? I think it's cruel. I think it's cruel. I think, yeah. And it's, I agree with you.

I think it's the best she can do, but it's still shit. I think also it's clear that, like, in the environment that Laura was raised in, she feels like, like her body is the one, sure currency that she has. And it's a matter of, like, saying, well, you should give this guy a blowjob. That's currency. And then having sex with her. instead of apologizing or trying to make it better is currency. Yeah.

And that's not to say that, like, she's bad because of that. It's like that's what she knows. Yeah. I feel like to this day, this happens to me. When someone does something confidently enough, I mean, obviously, this is like a platitude. You don't really question it. You just assume that that's how things are done. Yeah.

And then you try to, and if you're upset by it, you're like, no, I'm weird. I'm weird because. It's my fault, yeah. Yeah, because they're clearly in control of what's happening. And so it feels like Meg just got sucked in. Yeah. It's not a person it was confident. It's very hard to put a name on feeling sometimes.

So you can be feeling deeply uncomfortable about something, but you're not really having the time to work out explicitly. What are you uncomfortable with? What don't I like? I thought it was really, I think this story was particularly good as well because the way that Lara latches onto Meg, like senses how vulnerable she is just at the pub. Chooses her, yeah.

Chooses her. And then Meg goes home to like this loving home with these parents who seem to be supporting her. and she's like given up on her course and you're like again that made me so sad because i was like what's happening that you're just low self-confidence when she describes herself in certain clothes or borrowing certain things she feels so ugly in that way that you can as a young person and it's completely unconnected to how ugly or not you are oh yeah yeah yeah and she's lost she's definitely a lost soul and that's what you can see drags them together of like meg is lara is completely

fucking lost and doesn't care that's her mo and then meg is like well I feel like this but I didn't know how to express it. Look at this person expressing how lost they are. Oh, great. I'll go on this journey with her. But yeah, like, oh, I also identified heavily as the flatmate that was like, this is fucking disgusting. I have this person studying medicine that's like, your friend is gross.

Like, stop bringing your friend. She ate my food and the kitchen's gross. Like, the way she described the bedroom with the rabbit shit everywhere that just become part of the room. I was like, no, that's not how. But do you notice that like there is so much writing like that now that is like a Tessa Moshvig writes that like if you And Eileen that's like so so visceral I mean yeah

Also like even wetlands by Charlotte Rov I've only read year of rest of me like so But that's also quite a visceral one Oh yes oh my god yeah She spends on the floor of the She spends a lot of time taking laxatives And she spends a lot of time Like describing the very very long liquid shits

She's doing to empty herself And it's now a film and I just don't know how they're going to do this I'm playing shit one yeah so you have rest in her and relax so yeah it's amazing in terms of but wetlands by Charlotte Rush is one of my

I really would love to do that book on the podcast she's just like quite famous in Germany before she wrote it to the TV presenter I think even a kid's TV presenter and basically the whole book is about her genitals

so she shaves her bum hole this is a classic she nicks herself and then it gets infected in Chasco to go to hospital and she has piles and that's just like hemorrhoid details

Hemwood's detail Because social media we share so much about our lives but it's very filtered even if you try to be a not filtered that books are reflecting that by being so visceral of like you wouldn't put this on fucking Instagram. Like censoring in that way. Because we know so much about people's lives but we

don't know what it feels like when I have an hour long liquid shit. That's not making it to TikTok. I don't think it's a social media thing. I think it's a literature thing. It was shocking when James Joyce described a character having a wee and then Beth Kitt described her character having a poo. Henry Miller wiping his ass with a pizza bread.

There we go. And I think it's the opposite to shame. I actually think that's why reading is all by you're reading more women talking about it. Yeah, I'm trying to think how I'd feel about, yeah, would I care about a man shaving his butthole? Yeah, I'd still read it. She wants the haemorrhoid details, that's what she's after. We all have bodies, right?

And bodies are disgusting. We're not even drunk, but here's this. I love that sentence. Okay, I have something that sort of unites both your theories. I think social media has pushed what intimacy is. And so we're finding new frontiers of intimacy. And that's why it's shocking because this is like the last paradigm. Yeah.

The last frontier of intimacy that is yet not available to us. And we're not desensitized. You can join the friend group. That was good what you did there. Because she got both our theories. We need a third. A third to just constantly go, you're right and you're right. Not a third in any other sense, Sarah, just a third for reading.

So, yes, it is shocking like the P. Yes. But it's only shocking because social media has moved. But shocking in a wonderful way. I mean, this is why I find, to go back to menstruation. Sure, we always do. I do. I want to know about characters who menstruate.

Menstruation. Is there menstruation in here? I forgot. Loads. Which ones? Yeah, there's a description on a bed sheet of a patch of blood that's the size and color of a two people. And when she brings the pants to her dad.

She shows him right at the beginning. Sorry, I've forgotten Tindeloin. Yes, yeah, that was great. You were probably speed reading the period bits because you want to train next to an old man. They've been quite a tense incident about seat reservations. It was all very tense, guys. If you started reading aloud, you'd have been sitting alone, my friend. Actually, yeah, I would have got my seat then.

Yes, the bit in Tindaloin, that's the first story. And that one upset me so greatly that I just thought, oh, that girl, I just really felt so sad for her. Oh, it's such a happy ending. Do it's happy ending? And it's up with a dog? Are we both right? Oh, gosh.

Okay. Have you seen poor things? No, not yet. We've babies. But she basically is a woman who wakes up with a baby's brain. Is that? Yes. It's based on a book, isn't it?

It is universally acclaimed. I hated every minute of it. You're not the first woman. Said that to me. I've talked to some other women. They were like, yes. So the idea is... Everyone's hailing it as feminist.

Yes. Yes. My issue with it is, is, and I'm sure I'm not the only one who has this issue, but like, she's just, like, has this lust for life, and she's loving everything. But the men in the movie are just as terrible as any other men, and they take advantage of her. And you're meant to kind of, like, laugh and be disgusted by the men because they're like, oh, my God, you want to fuck a baby, what's wrong with you? But then because it's a feminist sort of take, because she's never affected by any of it. And so the message

almost becomes, if you choose not to be disturbed by the disturbing men, that's how you win. This is why, when they actually do eventually just end up with sex dolls. It's like, Great. You go over there. You saw yourself out. Because the problem was that we didn't like it. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. As long as we changed.

Take us out of the equation. So at some point she's like, men are being really, really gross to her, but she's like just laughing at them instead of being horrified. And it's like, that's how you win. That's how you win, ladies. You just laugh at them when they're gross. Don't be sad. That's on you.

So how I felt about the first story was very similar in that like she seemed to be okay with all this awfulness going on around her. And so, guess it's like, oh, it's not traumatic because she's not traumatized, but it's like, no, but the men around her are still not being great. And I think that's how I felt reading it as an older woman. It's an old woman. I was reading this kid, being like, and again, that, that reaction that you have about things of like, oh yeah, that's fine. And being old and being like, it's not fine. I never thought the writer was telling it was fine. No, no, but the character telling you

it's fine. The 16 to 27, straight away, you have a writer telling you about a child entering the adult world without an adult to protect her dad just seemingly her dad being so like she tells him and dad's like oh you don't tell me stuff like that and i was like why it's a happy ending because that dog bit all the bad men okay i felt that was such a huge of like love is love oh my god love is love all right she's yeah she's got you're really swaying me on this one they're kind to each other maybe this is because i love my dog so much but they're thing of like sleeping in a bed with a dog that they don't smell nice but they smell of them and it's when you love them it's such a beautiful smell a horrible meaty breath

that if it was a man as a vegan person and exactly as a vegan that's how big the love is and then like there's the big eyes when you just open your eyes and look at that's the first part of the day

I'll go have you ever had that with a dog or a man with this big meaty breath you can't have it with a man no I see human interactions are too complex but there's a purity with an animal and that's what she finally got

was yeah I think I just found her so sort of like binary good badness unconditional unconditional love the purest kind the kind that most people never get. And that's 16 years old, she found it. That's, you've sold me. You've sold me.

And I like the dog bit the bad man. The one I did like, actually, which I thought was more optimistic, was that here alone when she goes to the bar and picks out that guy and then goes to them. Oh, to the engagement party? The engagement party. So I found that really hard. Oh, I, there was something that I felt, again, like she had more control in that situation. Again, again, a very, very positive ending.

Yeah, the ending was great. I thought send nudes was a very positive ending. Yes. So this is why if anyone's listening goes, or this sounds bleak, some of the topics are so... Yeah, bleak, there's a backbone to it of deep female sadness,

which I think she's investigating. And I think... And I don't think it's not like, oh, you're going... I didn't feel depressed, I wasn't like, oh, God. But she's not saying that sadness is inevitable and you won't go over it. I think she's saying...

It's a phase. She's taking you there, and she is showing you, this is how sad sometimes women feel. And if you are someone who's been deeply sad, I think it can be confronting seem to be like, fuck, those feelings are so hard. It's very sad.

But I think that's the problem, actually, is that you can be a really, really lucky, privileged person, not that much is wrong. You're incredibly miserable, making bad decisions, feeling very heartbroken. And a lot of her characters, that's what I would describe them as. As she said, you know, there's a character who's from a, loving family. Her dad would lend her two months rent without noticing.

Meg, yeah, yeah. She's doing well on her course. She just feels like she looks a bit ugly in a crop top. But that's what I almost, it's almost exposes. isn't it? Because it is like, yeah, some people, or maybe this is unfair to say, some women, like the depths of sadness that you can feel sometimes in that world. When the world just feels like it's too hard to be in. What about then if we say that sex is such a problem for a lot of these characters?

Because I was just remembering that Meg had only had sex once and it was under a hedge at a party. And, you know, very unenjoyable, not about her pleasure. And that's where the self-esteem thing comes from, is it? Like people don't approach her and, yeah, she's living with people who don't really care about her. She doesn't, she hasn't found her gang. And that's the vicious cycle of low self-esteem. You make bad sexual decisions. But then Lara has all the sex in the world and she still doesn't have high self-esteem.

Yeah. No, but I'm saying low self-esteem makes you make bad sexual decisions, which makes you feel bad about yourself. Sorry to Sam. Like our PHSC teacher. So we shouldn't have sex, Ms. Pasco. Absence is the only answer. Well, you just put this ring on and we're going to cheer up.

Okay. Now Jesus is really happy. I would recommend it. I think it's just like the feeling, the overwhelming feeling I often got, was like this, this, this sadness. And female children or people at the edge of childhood being, encountering adult men. Yeah. I guess that's so uncomfortable, isn't it?

It's not great. So the girls who were, their moms were the trapeze artists. I found that one really, really hard. The festival one, that's called the mothers and the girls. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. I found that one really difficult. Like, I just wanted to grab those children and run away. Like, I just, I was like, why are they, when the moms were like, see you later,

I was like, they're fucking, what? like 12, they need to be in bed. Like, what's happening? Like, I just... Just generally, there's like, there's so many of the stories that we just talked about. If anything, maybe all of them have this idea of like, the girls have a bigger

like world of the relationships in their heads that there is in reality. And I think the most visceral one for that one is the engagement party where she had a full relationship with this man who did not give a shit about her. There's a really incredible moment where she realizes in aversive

commas that she's in love with him. Oh God, and she starts laughing. And it's so funny because I've definitely had that happen to be several times in my life where you've had a very, very small interaction with someone, I mean, which could be full sex, but you know, you don't know, there isn't, there's not this huge bank of intimacy and your body decides for you. Yeah, I'm waiting for a text. That's it.

I'm in love. I know. It just does it for you. The chemicals do it. But she's walking on the street just laughing, isn't she? and then she like almost gets run over because she's laughing so much. Because her body is literally filling with that, you know, what's it called? And the philophane?

P-E-A is the hormone. It's the one that makes you sort of a little bit of addicted to them. This is like factual, that people will fall for romance scams, find out that the person is a scammer yet still message them because it's like, I don't really care because it's like, I'm still getting that hit. And I think there's, it's easy to look down on them. And then you're like, wait a second.

If they're getting what they need to get out of this, then sure, fine. Have your fun. Yeah, I think that's how I felt about that story. Because initially, again, I was worried for, her. I was upset. I didn't think she was going to be okay. And at the end, I was like, oh, she's okay. Like, she's eating her car up and her. And there'll be another guy. Like, that's what I liked. She, to me, was such a resilient character. I was often,

I felt like she was presenting you as such vulnerable characters that immediately I'm stressed. I'm stressed for how vulnerable. Like those girls in the festival who were like 12 and the 60-year-old boy, I was like, oh, I'm already worried about them. To choose between how horny you are for the boy and how much you love your best friend. That's terrible. When he kissed one of them, doesn't he? Then he kissed the other one. They're like, what? I thought you liked me and he was like, oh, I thought that's what was happening. I thought we were like all going to kiss and they're like, no, choose. I was like, oh God, that was, yeah, that female logic of like, yeah, we've been holding hands with you, but ultimately we want you to say which one

is pretty. That's what we need to know. So we understand where we are in this world. And the almost like gambling level of risk of like, I know I'm, I, there's a 50, 50 chance that I will get hurt. Yeah. I want to fucking die. Yeah. But I'm willing to risk it all. I think you're right It's about women And it's about female friendships And female connections Much more than it is about the men in the stories

Particularly in Blue Forever The Step Sister relationship with the friend Like it's much more than it is about the dad The moment I loved in Blue Forever So we've got this oldest step sister Jasmine And her friend Blue That sort of come to visit them on holiday And she puts on the younger girl Stella's clothes

Oh that was hilarious And so it describes the T-shirt first Which is a bumblebee And it says B spelled like a bumblebee kind And then when the sister the step sister is saying she can't come with us she points she points to her t-shirt and goes read it in weeks it's like those kind of moments that absolutely go I know that person I know how wonderful she is and how much this 12 year old would look up to her oh god yeah and she's wearing

she's wearing a 12 year old's t-shirt and shorts and making a point to her friend of like we're nice yeah be nice I thought that one was particularly like as I said just like the characters felt so real. Like you really felt like you were on this awful holiday with them. Okay, well then can I ask you then? Yes. Did you think that the stepdad was a paedophile? Oh yeah. It was unclear wasn't it? I, I, there

were, yeah. Or if not a paedophile. So he's taking photographs of the young girl, yeah. And his daughter is very angry in this complicated relationship and destroys the camera. Destroyes the camera towards the end. Really insinuating that it's not healthy

his photography of young women's body. Yeah, I certainly had a moment. I was like, oh, oh, he's a bad person. There's enough touching, like hands on shoulders, buying her presents, that is definitely heavily insinuated. But I really liked writing-wise, my non-judgment, you know, I'm about saying my non-pedophile judging hat, which no one should ever wear.

But what I liked writing wise. I hope that was on sale when you bought it. I'll take two. A Zora doing a non-pedophile viewing hat. Obviously, it's terrible, but what I liked about the writing is she stays within the 12-year-old's point of view. So she doesn't do that thing that I think it would be easy to do, which would be to like, so he's a bad man. We know he's a bad man. She stays fuzzy in that like you sort of think maybe he's dodgy, but you don't get to pin it down.

And in an adult point of view, and you don't get to have that moment of like, yes, he's wrong and we're going to have the scene where everyone tells him. We just live in this world where it's like, the 12-year-old thinks he's super cool, the coolest step-down ever. but we see these older girls' reactions who scream at him. That for me was such skillful writing because it was like, yeah, show don't tell. It was just like hinting and allowing you to make the decision for it which is why I thought that that story particularly was so good.

Well, you were uncomfortable. I was uncomfortable for some of it. Yeah. But I think because of this general trend in mostly female written fiction of this sort of sensory immersion, I'm kind of almost used to that. You're getting, yeah. Oh, you're getting an urge to it.

But I do really enjoy it again. And it's like it's not trying to make you feel nice and fuzzy. Yeah. That's not the intention of the author. Yeah. Yeah. But I very much felt like I was with an author who was very in control of the button. She was pressing.

Yeah, yeah, definitely. And I think the subtlety is almost like more horrifying than whenever it's like just completely flatly out on the page. Yeah. Also just blue as a character, there's something so mesmerizing about it. Like, not an arrogant, but a really truly confident teenager. Yeah. To this day, if I meet a confratteacher, I'm like, how do you do?

Where are you going? I honestly think teenage girls, if you could harness that unquestioning energy, that's who will save the world. How do we do it? Grette d'unberg is trying. She's trying her best. She's trying her best. She's trying.

In her pedophile judging hand. I think you need to create merch. I once asked my brilliant mother when I was a kid, I was like, mom, which age do you wish you were? And she looked at me. And she said, I'm only ever want to be the age that I am now. And when I was a teenager and she said that, I'd be like, in my head, I was like, she's lying. She wishes she was 19.

She wishes she was in early 20s without kids. And now the older I get, the more I realize how true what she said was. Because you could not pay me to be. Never. 25. No, thank you. I think that's such a, oh, God, that is how we should all be living our lives in terms. And if it's not the age you are now, then fucking change your life.

because you are the age you are now. Sarah will be available for motivational speeches. Change your fucking life. So, Karen will defend you in court. Yeah, you don't let go. You don't let go, guys. Never mind what you've done, I'm still here. Yeah, I think that's a very interesting point.

And I am so glad not to be back there. But then, again, I hate to sound like a man being like, as a father of daughters. But I feel like as someone who's going to go through teenage life with a girl, it's like, oh. I think they just stay in their rooms on computers now. Yeah, and that's fine, isn't it? Terrible things happen.

No, no, Sims. Get her on Sims. Yeah, is there a way for her, like, to have all the tech but not have any internet connection? Yeah, sadly. Yeah, you don't, don't flip it to the proper internet. You do it like an intranet just that's in your house. Yeah, make your own version of Google. www.

www. Carriadshouse.com. Tell her that's the internet. Do you know that's what my dad did? Whenever she's messing, you're catfisher. You create all the faces of, like, boys and girls, her age. You're playing. All the free.

You're an improviser. That is so, so fucked up. Have the cast of our sentation. They're cast on tases. She'll be like everyone, everyone speaks a really good to be English at my school. It is so fucked up that I'm so worried about the real world.

I will create a fake world full of my own characters. True much showing your own baby. She's going to write a great book about me as a mother. So you go to the playground. That's going to be an incredible book. Go to the playground. Take pictures of all the kids.

Okay. Already creepy. It's okay. You've got your hat on you. Everyone knows you're not. Apedo. And then, so then you do fake profiles. And then you just send her compliments all the time.

I thought it was so great in maths today, that you're so strong and clever bit. And you say all these kind of things, really good affirmations. I think I've read a story about someone doing that on Instagram, that they made a fake profile so that they could be friends with their daughter and would, like, you look great on things. And, yeah, but then, like, she obviously wasn't writing in the right tone.

So they're like, what's wrong with you? There's a film, I think it's called Dogs Tooth, about these parents who want to protect their children. and keep them in the house. And the bit I remember is that they don't know what aeroplanes are. They always ask you because they're so well. So they have to make these little toy airplanes and they throw them because they sometimes, so they think that the airplanes from the sky fall into the garden.

Oh, my God. They find a toy, they go, another one fell out of the sky. Wow. Yeah. Sounds like a lot of work, but she would write such a good book about it when she's 21 and escaped from me and my cult. You know, and then I could say to her, well, look what you got out of it. Because you'll have really good self-believe.

She'll be like, people were saying, like, you can be anything you want to be. Yeah, that's how esteem works. Your mother creates a fake world when you can never fail. And then you go into the real world and it's exactly the same. When I was at primary school, I was told I could be anything I wanted to be. And Mrs. Banks was explicit. She said, if you want to be an astronaut, I believe you could be an astronaut. And I believed her.

And now I'm a comedian. Despite for very many years, not being funny. Because I was like, Mrs. Banks said, I could do what I want. I don't want to do this. I would argue that's less to do with Mrs. Banks and more to do with your reaction to Mrs. Banks. I would argue, because she probably told a whole class of people that

and not all of them became successful comedians. Did any of them become successful astronauts? Well, one boy played for Arsenal, which I was actually better. Actually, out of 30 kids, that's pretty good, isn't it? That is huge. That's pretty good. Oh, would you recommend send nudes?

I'd absolutely recommend send notes. I'd also recommend it, and not to be infantilizing, but to men to read. Yes, that's a good point. Do you talk to men? You've seen her stand up. She talks to them. Yeah, as a little slice of insight.

Yeah, I think that's very good. Because sometimes something, the reason I keep coming back to snakebite is sometimes I find it very difficult to explain how intense female friendships can be. And as a self-proclaimed bisexual woman, I feel like I had a lot of really sort of homes. homoerotic female friendships that explode. And that's something that happens to so many bisexual women. That's like a universal experience for bisexual women. And so that really, really spoke to me because I definitely have been in those dynamics where you're like, I'm obsessed with you.

I don't know where this obsession comes from. I hate you, but I hate seeing you with anyone else. I don't know if this is love. I don't know of this. But it's such a explosive feeling that this is the closest I've ever felt it when reading. Yeah. And I feel like a lot, and again, I'm generalising here, but a lot of men are on the opposite end where you see these men talk about the loneliness epidemic and saying they don't have any friends.

And so those, if they want to experience, if they want to, the other side is like a friendship promotion experience. I think he could deal with this, Jeffrey. I'll be pining for yourself with a pine on this. I'm self-proclaimed straight. And it's very, very similar. I mean, now I don't. Thank you. But the friendship is so brave.

it's actually exactly the same in terms of that you share a bed with someone you finish you know one of you smokes one half of the cigarette the other ones finishes it but again i think that's i think that's you oh i think you have intense relationships with people well i did at that age when i had those you still have those really really drunk you wear each other's clothes you kiss the boy the other person like it's just this constant thing and it's actually the most intimacy that it's almost it is like a dwarf star it can only explode there is nowhere for it to fit in your adamant life because anything less than everything is rejection. Yes, it's betrayal.

And even the two girls who want to kiss the same boy, it's so much between them. It has nothing to do with the boy. It's nothing to do with him. It's nothing to do with him. That's so frustrating because when you're a teenager, it becomes about him. And it takes years before you're like, God, actually, you could have been one of many men interchangeable. It was about us and our status with each other.

And this went back to like year nine when Mrs. So-and-so said, I was better at this. Like, that's what it's about. Oh, God. Yeah, she's brilliant. And you know what? I feel I'm excited to read a full not, like a full not short story from Sabahams. I like a longer book for once. Your homework, my sons.

It's to write a full novel. What a patronising old woman I am. But that's what I really would love to. How amazing to be able to create, because each of these stories is a novel. Yeah, yeah, yeah. How amazing to be able to create it so quickly. Yes. I recommended this to a very, very intelligent old man who was, who's read.

everything. Charles Brandreth. It wasn't Charles Brandreth, but it was in that category, like so well read that, you know,

it's like, Stephen Fry. Almost. And he was reading a series of short stories and I said, oh, I'm reading a series of short stories.

I said this. And it was, this was heartening to me that he was like, that looks brilliant. I'm going to read this, a man in his late 60s, I think.

And he said, it's just so good, it's so interesting to know what youthful people are thinking and talking about. It's not just for young women to read. I recommend it. I did recommend

it. I've already done it. Have you? Have you been busy? You recommended it to someone to your children? Theodore? She wants to read a book that doesn't have a dragon in it. Steen, do you want to know why I shouted at you yesterday and said your jumper was too big for the washing basket? It's because I didn't know what to do with the emotions.

No, sit down. Now listen, snake bite is a drink. It's a drink. Okay. I can't imagine my husband ever understanding what it's like to be a teenage girl. Maybe that is what happens to dads when their daughter's become teenagers. They are like, what? Yeah. Well, yeah, because you're seeing the other side of it, aren't you? Yeah. Like, you can't ignore it. It's at your home. Yeah. And then if you are straight, your wife just nodding at you, like, uh-huh. Uh-huh. What is a good dad to a teenage girl? Because, like, we saw the representation of the dad who's like, non-judgmental. Yeah.

But he's so far removed from everything she's doing. He has no idea what's going on. I think this is where the astronaut thing comes in. I think wouldn't be perfect if your dad just went to space and then you turn 21, 22, re-meet again as friends. I don't know. I don't know how. I know how. I read a really good thing that was like the one of the massive problems with parenting is that whoever becomes the main primary carer as a child often continues and actually if you split it properly and a mother genuinely took the first 10 years because that often is when you genuinely do need the mother to be around and at like 10, 11, 12, the father then took 10 years off his work to take over because actually there's lots of psychological theories that that's actually as a teenager you would need more

advice from her father that that would be more helpful and the mum by that point is tied and burn out she's done other raising rather than like no one is in charge and that was thinking like actually yeah your dad turns up at 10 is like right my shift I'm going to do everything that she's been doing oh okay yeah so like I'm talking like stereotype idea of what mum does of like but the dad like gives up his job in a way that the mum had to do when the baby was born I think we're taking a lot of granted oh yeah yeah yeah no we are but it was an interesting theory of like I understand And the theory that the male input could be so valuable then. And also that you could genuinely share...

But they'd have to be so competent. Oh, yeah, yeah. And yeah, exactly, because I haven't been there for the first 10 years to really think. Well, my dad sort of only started being interested in me and, like, with any of his children, once they could, like, absorb information. Yeah. And then he kind of stops being interested once they can question that information. Oh, really? But the sweet spot, 10 to 15, it's just regurgitating of history, isn't it?

Like Roman Empire, the Greeks. And you're like, could I ask? about your dad? Please. Were his parents around his whole life? Yes, but his dad is just like a completely removed. Oh, I see. Yeah.

Because Philippa Perry says if one of your parents wasn't present, so for a dad it would be a dad, the part of your life, you can't deal with your children effectively sometimes because you didn't have an example of how to do it. Which is common. That makes sense. Yeah. It's a lot of sense. In common in grief.

So if you lose a parent at a certain age, you never had a parent. At that age when you've got children, you suddenly go. Because when you were there, this is what we're talking. talked about four because my dad died when I was 15. So I was after 15 to you know 80 I wasn't like a normal teenager. So like I don't know how to deal with teenagers past that age because it's like well I didn't have that. Lucky is auntie Sarah. To tell them to the pub isn't it? Auntie Sarah gave you what? A snake bike. Hang on Ben calling her. It was a short story. It was a short story. I know I let her get away with everything but actually this time. Anyway we've gone off

topic. Thank you so much for coming. Thank you so much for having me. Thank you so much. Thank you. We recommend people going to come to your gigs. Oh, yeah. Oh, please, I'm on tour. All information is on my website at www.

rock and rollga.com. And that's the real internet, not the house internet, the above set up. Thank you for listening to the Weirdo's Book Club. You can find out about all the upcoming books we're going to be discussing on our Instagram at Sarah and Carriads Weirdo's Book Club, all one one. My novel, Weirdo and Carriad's book,

You Are Not Alone, are both available now. Thank you for reading with us. We like reading with you!