| Title: | Forbidden | |
|---|---|---|
| Author: | Tabitha Suzuma | |
| Publisher: | Simon & Schuster | |
| Imprint: | Simon Pulse | |
| Pub. Date: | 06/28/2011 | |
| ISBN: | 1442419954 (ISBN13: 9781442419957) | |
| Pages: | 464 |
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 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 and cover via Goodreads)
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Oh dear, where do I start? I started this not realizing it was a book about incest. Even then, I think I could have gotten past the ick factor of the incest stuff if it was well written. Sadly, it wasn't. I will say though, it is an extremely fast read. That's probably because there are pages and pages of pointless angst, so you can kind of skim through about 200 pages because it's all pretty much the same. It also reads like an episode of "Dawson's Creek" put to paper. When that show started, I remember people complaining that teenagers don't talk like that. That's how I felt when I started reading this book.
Lochan and Maya are sympathetic enough characters, but I never really got the motivation for why they were in love with each other. The only reasoning they seemed to give was that they "understood" each other in a way no one else could. That's cool, but it doesn't explain why it turned into a sexual relationship. In some ways I think Lochan and Maya were thrown into a parenting role, and maybe their relationship was just an extension of that? I'm not really sure, because the reasoning is never looked at in depth. Mostly this book consists of statements of how they understand each other, some making out, and then both of them talking about how horrible and sick they must be. Repeat this cycle for 400 pages.
When I started reading, I told my husband how I thought it would end, and I was correct. You see it coming from a mile away, but I suppose that there are only so many ways you can logically end a book about incest. In the end, maybe I just didn't get this book. It wasn't some sweeping romance to me. About half-way through the book, I realized I was just reading it for the "freak" factor and not because I was enjoying the book. In the end, I think it gets your attention because of the subject matter, but that's not enough for me. I needed something else in the writing to support the story, and I got nothing.
Galley provided by publisher for review.
Oh dear, where do I start? I started this not realizing it was a book about incest. Even then, I think I could have gotten past the ick factor of the incest stuff if it was well written. Sadly, it wasn't. I will say though, it is an extremely fast read. That's probably because there are pages and pages of pointless angst, so you can kind of skim through about 200 pages because it's all pretty much the same. It also reads like an episode of "Dawson's Creek" put to paper. When that show started, I remember people complaining that teenagers don't talk like that. That's how I felt when I started reading this book.
Lochan and Maya are sympathetic enough characters, but I never really got the motivation for why they were in love with each other. The only reasoning they seemed to give was that they "understood" each other in a way no one else could. That's cool, but it doesn't explain why it turned into a sexual relationship. In some ways I think Lochan and Maya were thrown into a parenting role, and maybe their relationship was just an extension of that? I'm not really sure, because the reasoning is never looked at in depth. Mostly this book consists of statements of how they understand each other, some making out, and then both of them talking about how horrible and sick they must be. Repeat this cycle for 400 pages.
When I started reading, I told my husband how I thought it would end, and I was correct. You see it coming from a mile away, but I suppose that there are only so many ways you can logically end a book about incest. In the end, maybe I just didn't get this book. It wasn't some sweeping romance to me. About half-way through the book, I realized I was just reading it for the "freak" factor and not because I was enjoying the book. In the end, I think it gets your attention because of the subject matter, but that's not enough for me. I needed something else in the writing to support the story, and I got nothing.
Galley provided by publisher for review.
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