Monday, July 25, 2011

Forbidden by Tabitha Suzuma

Photo Courtesy of Goodreads




BOOK REVIEW DISCLOSURE




Summary:  

Siblings Lochan (17) and Maya (16) have always felt more like friends than brother and sister.  With their alcoholic, practically non-existent mother, and a father who long ago abandoned the family, Lochan and Maya have taken over the role of parents to their three younger siblings.  Along with the stress of becoming stand-in parents, high school, and the constant threat of child protective services, their lives have brought them close.  So close, in fact, that Lochan and Maya have fallen in love.  Although they know the relationship is wrong, they are unable to stop how they feel.

Review:

First, allow me to say that if you do not have an open mind, do not read this book.  Seriously.  Some of the reviews I have read are downright ignorant, and some are even quite disgusted by it.  Which means, the point of the book is either 1) Received or 2) Not Received.  Confused?  Well, read this amazingly heartbreaking story and you will see what I mean.

Yes, there is incest.  Yes, a few times throughout I stopped and thought, "Oh my."  But this is a love story.  A tragic, tragic love story that does not have a happy ending.  Actually, when I first read this book, I hated it because I was so bitter about the ending.

However, my mind is changed.  I read Forbidden a little over two weeks ago and I cannot get this story out of my head.  It is one of those books, as I said in a previous post, where you find yourself wanting something to work out that maybe should not work out . . . and then you find yourself asking, "Well, why shouldn't it work out?  Who am I to judge love?  To judge anyone, for that matter?"

Forbidden will have you questioning things that have no answer.  And however frustrating, that's all right with me.