Forbidden by Tabitha Suzuma Review

WARNING: THERE MAY BE SPOILERS BELOW

“You can close your eyes to the things you do not want to see, but you cannot close your heart to the things you do not want to feel.”- Forbidden, Tabitha Suzuma

She is pretty and talented - sweet sixteen and never been kissed. He is seventeen; gorgeous and on the brink of a bright future. And now they have fallen in love. But... they are brother and sister.

Seventeen-year-old Lochan and sixteen-year-old Maya have always felt more like friends than siblings. Together they have stepped in for their alcoholic, wayward mother to take care of their three younger siblings. As defacto parents to the little ones, Lochan and Maya have had to grow up fast. And the stress of their lives—and the way they understand each other so completely—has also brought them closer than two siblings would ordinarily be. So close, in fact, that they have fallen in love. Their clandestine romance quickly blooms into deep, desperate love. They know their relationship is wrong and cannot possibly continue. And yet, they cannot stop what feels so incredibly right. As the novel careens toward an explosive and shocking finale, only one thing is certain: a love this devastating has no happy ending.

I don't agree with incest; it is the only taboo present in all modern cultures and I believe the reason why we are so turned off to it is purely through biological reasons. But I went into this book looking for a love story to read for Valentine's Day and, being me, I chose one that seemed as twisted as possible. I had no idea it was the exact kind of book I needed to read during this time.

Well, maybe need is too strong a word. I didn't realize how much I wanted an angsty romance novel, especially since with both my reviews for Gilt and Tarnish, you can see my dislike for books with romance as the main plot. But this book was so much fun to read, even though I don't think it was supposed to be fun. Sure, there was tons of melodrama- it seemed like every second something major was happening to this family- but unlike a lot of books I read I wasn't exhausted by all this drama. I was invested in this story in this family, I ignored the fact I found the two younger children, whom most of the drama revolves around, flat. Surprisingly, though, I didn't hate any of the characters. And Suzuma also surprised me several times in the book, like with her reluctance to fully commit to Kit's troubled bad boy persona, creating a character that, well, seemed like a fully developed book character. And she especially pleasantly surprised me when Maya goes out with Nico. Now, it would be so easy for her to make Nico into the stereotype of a hollow, shallow rich boy dickhead. But she didn't. Nico was nice and kind and gentlemanly, which made more sense in the grand scheme of things. If she made Nico a douche, it wouldn't show the growing love between her and Lochan as well as it had if he was nice. It would make sense for her to not want to date him if he was mean, whereas if he was nice and interesting, her reluctance to date him showed her feelings more clearly. Even the mother wasn't entirely villainized.

I mean, are there problems, sure. The writing was more of the get the job done variety than the beautiful sentences variety. Lots of telling, little showing, but it didn't bother me too much, especially because the story had a stronger storyline than most romance novels do. I also appreciated the lack of purple prose. The characters were hard to tell apart at times, and I would sometimes get confused as to who was speaking. There was also a lot of cliched dialogue and even the characters themselves weren't very well rounded. There was one scene, when Maya and Lochan are having this dramatic, angst-filled screaming argument in the middle of a road in the rain at night and I just dissolved into a fit of helpless giggles. Lochan's constant mood swings and Maya's blandness also shouldn't make me like this book, but I still ate everything that happened up. My only real complaint is that the chapters are too long, making it harder for me to stop someplace, but honestly the addictive quality of this book also made it hard for me to stop- I hadn't realized I read 100 pages until I looked down, which says a lot considering romance novels usually drag for me and this book was a whooping 436 pages.

I'd love to say that this book was thought provoking and challenged my idea of what incest is, but, while I liked that the reasons why people might have romantic and sexual feelings towards their siblings was explored, I didn't really get much substance out of it. I did really love Lochan and Maya's conversation about how men are always automatically considered the bad guys in all situations, whereas women are the victims It Takes One which I think always needs to be said. The ending surprised me in some ways too, I knew they would get caught (think it's fairly obvious) but how that situation played out gave me a deeper respect for Suzuma.

Overall, I'm so happy I read this book. It reminded me a lot of The Sea of Tranquility by Katja Millay, and while I do think Millay has the better writing style, I would probably reread this book over The Sea of Tranquility if given the choice. It was more fun to read. I hadn't realized I was in a miniature book slump since reading Lolita, and Forbidden was just the book I needed to snap out of it. This book will definitely go on my guilty pleasure shelf.

7.5-8 out of 10