Short story collections: Radiant writing adds colour to the darkest of lives

Lauren Holmes's Barbara the Slut and Other People (Fourth Estate, £12.99) speaks candidly to a Girls-watching generation (eight of the ten stories first-person narrators are female). Schooldays are shown to be a minefield – from the politics of ever-changing friendship groups in "New Girls", to the titular Barbara, an early Princeton acceptance and doting big sister to her autistic brother, who's also the victim of a vicious slut-shaming campaign.