Book Review: Forbidden by Tabitha Suzuma

Title: Forbidden
Author: Tabitha Suzuma
Pages: 454
US Publication: June 28, 2011
Publisher: Simon Pulse
Summary taken from goodreads:

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.

3.5 STARS - I REALLY LIKED IT

MY REVIEW: 

Maybe if I had read the summary, I wouldn't have been so shocked at the ending. I knew that the book was about incest, but since I don't like reading a book's summary right before I read the book, I was completely unprepared for what happened at the end. Sure, I knew that there was an unlikely chance that everyone would come out with a happily ever after, but I still had an innocent hope that there was a chance that things would somehow work out after all.

Yeah...I was wrong. Tabitha Suzuma completely shattered any expectations that I had of this book, and she did it with such beautiful writing. I was hooked from the start, although it got became a bit too depressing and angsty for my liking near the middle, I still couldn't put the book down until I knew how it ended.

And the characters...wow, I sympathized with them so much. I can't even express all of the emotions I felt for them reading about their lives, how they got used to living without their mother being around and the secrets that they had to keep so that the social services wouldn't come around to break them apart.

I know that there are many people who would not read this book because of its topic and also because it includes sex, but if you're openminded, then I definitely reccommend reading this.