Book Review: Forbidden, by Tabitha Suzuma

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.

(Summary from Goodreads)

Wow. Just wow.

I haven't read a book in a while where I've FELT SO MUCH for the characters. It's been several days since I finished it and I still feel a kind of heartbreak each time I think of Lochan and Maya.

I wasn't sure what to think about the incest thing. Sure, in the beginning I was kind of disgusted by it--a reaction that we've all been brought up to have. But as I followed the characters' lives my feelings began to mirror theirs. They were shocked at first--as was I. But they got over that--and so did I. Why shouldn't they love each other? They never felt like brother and sister, and the way they interact and depend upon one another is not the same as the interactions I've had with my own siblings. How cruelly unfair that the one person you find yourself loving more than anyone or anything else is the one person you can't have--simply because you share the same (awful, in this case) parents.

The writing is beatiful, the imagery unique. I found myself wanting to stop and take notes, and yet I was so captivated I had to keep reading!

I won't soon forget this story.