Review #87: Forbidden- Tabitha Suzuma

Summary: 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 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.

Title: Forbidden

Author: Tabitha Suzuma

Pages: 454

Rating: 4/5 Stars

Review: Wow! I have no idea where to start with this review. I enjoyed this book despite the very controversial topic. I found this book as easy read and it kept me interested. I also found it to be very heart reanching. I was almost in tears at the end. If this book was separated into two books, one just the romance and one off the incest, it would have been way easier to review lol. I surprisingly loved the romance, these two young adult characters gradually falling for each other and they are also best friends. Very cute! But then I remember that they are brother and sister, which gave me the creeps. Especially if they were intimate.

I enjoyed reading POV's of both main characters. I loved how the author slowly delves into the characters relationship and shows it in a tasteful way. Lochan and Maya were basically forced to play house when their mother took off, so a relationship formed. Theirs just crossed the line. The author made Lochan the perfect victim for what would happen. He was a loner and most likely had multiple personality/ aniexty disorders. Of course he would fall for the one person that had always accepted and supported him, even if she was related. Maya is the one that I feel could have stopped everything. I don't get her side to this relationship, I feel like she was kind of the instigator. I would have loved to read Kit's version of what was happening and why he was so furious to do what he did. 

Despite the incest, I enjoyed this book. I would recommend it to readers who love V.C. Andrews, myself included. My advice is to read it with a grain of salt and try to accept it for what it was, A Romance.

About this author

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Tabitha Suzuma was born in London, the eldest of five children. She attended a French school in the UK and grew up bilingual. However, she hated school and would sit at the back of the class and write stories, which she got away with because her teachers thought she was taking notes. Aged fourteen, Tabitha left school against her parents' wishes. She continued her education through distance learning and went on to study French Literature at King's College London.

After graduating, Tabitha trained as a primary school teacher and whilst teaching full-time, wrote her first novel.

A NOTE OF MADNESS tells the story of seventeen-year-old Flynn, a piano prodigy who is diagnosed with bipolar disorder.

In 2004 Tabitha Suzuma left classroom teaching to divide her time between writing and tutoring. This gave her time to write her next four novels:

FROM WHERE I STAND - a psychological thriller about Raven, a deeply disturbed teenager in foster care who self-harms and harbours a dreadful secret.

WITHOUT LOOKING BACK - about teenage dance sensation Louis, who suddenly finds himself uprooted from his home and whisked abroad on holiday by his mentally unstable father, until he sees his face on a missing person's poster.

A VOICE IN THE DISTANCE - a sequel to A NOTE OF MADNESS about Flynn and his continuing struggle to cope with his bipolar disorder without jeopardising his career or losing the girl he loves.

FORBIDDEN - Maya and Lochan are in love... But they are brother and sister.

Published in six different languages, this is her most controversial and heart-breaking novel to date.

HURT (out Sept 2013) - At seventeen, Matheo Walsh is Britain's most promising diving champion. He is wealthy, popular - and there's Lola, the girlfriend of his dreams. But then there was that 

weekend. A weekend he cannot bring himself to remember. All he knows is that what happened has changed him. Mathéo is faced with the most devastating choice of his life. Keep his secret, and put those closest to him in terrible danger. Or confess, and lose Lola for ever . . .

Tabitha Suzuma's books have been nominated for a number of awards including the Carnegie Medal, the Waterstone's Book Prize, the Jugendliteraturpreis and the Branford Boase Book Award. She has won the Young Minds Award, the Stockport Book Award, and the Premio Speciale Cariparma for European Literature.