It's called Forbidden and was written by Tabitha Suzuma.
 |
| Sorry for the grainy image, it was the best I could find. |
Forbidden is about... how do I put this delicately?.... I don't. Forbidden is about incest. Yep. Good ol' incest. I started not to read this book but I saw nothing but great reviews on Goodreads and so I thought "why not?".
Forbidden is the story of 17 (almost 18) year old Lochan and his younger sister 16 year old Maya. They live in a suburb of London with their 13 year old brother Kit and "the kids" Tiffin and 5 year old Willa. Lochan and Maya are basically the parents to these 3 kids after their father walked out to marry someone else and raise someone else's kids and their mother has turned into an alcoholic tramp, to put it mildly. Lochan is shy and sweet and does not like to speak to anyone, at all, ever, except Maya, who was raised more like his twin because of the 13 month age difference between them. It's obvious from the very beginning that Lochan and Maya are each other's best friend. It's also obvious that they are doing the absolute best that they can juggling raising the two little ones, dealing with Kit, who has found himself a place in a gang and is constantly acting out, and trying to hide the fact that they only see their mother maybe once a week.
It all starts to go pear-shaped for Lochan, specifically, when Maya goes out on a date with Nico, a boy in his class. Lochan can't figure out why he's so jealous, what's wrong with Maya wanting to date? He's worried that his best friend will leave him and then he will be truly alone. Maya, on the other hand, is going on this date trying to forget about how much she adores her brother. Lochan is handsome and he knows her so well. She figures falling in love with someone will distract from the fact that.... well, that she's in love with her brother. After her date the siblings argue and finally share that first forbidden kiss.
Lochan starts rapidly spiraling out of control, at one point having a horrible panic attack during class one day. I could relate to him in that moment, as I've had many many panic attacks in my time. (I remember once, about a week and a half after my Dad passed I had gone back to school and cut class with my friend Lindsey, she took me to Target and I proceeded to have 6 panic attacks, one right after the other, in the shoe section. I thought I was dying. Lindsey too, she called my Mom crying asking her what to do for me.) He tries ignoring Maya but it does not good. Maya tries ignoring Lochan....nothing helps.
Throughout their relationship, as it evolves, we see how tormented and tortured and, honestly, how in love they are. How afraid they are. They know that if anyone found out about them that the kids would be taken away from them, and this is their family, these are their kids, this can't happen. They fight it. They really do, but they love each other, they really, really do. They can't fight it forever.... and in the end, the unthinkable happens.
I was NOT PREPARED for how amazing this book would be. I was NOT PREPARED for how much of a lasting effect this story would have. By the end I was sobbing. I WANTED Lochan and Maya to be left alone. I wanted them to be together. I was so ok with the fact that they were brother and sister. It was weird. Sort of like Lucretzia and Cesare in The Borgias, you just wanted them to be together, no matter what the limitations were. As you can imagine there is no happy ending here. I won't tell you what happens exactly, but it's so heartbreaking.
I absolutely recommend this book to ANYONE that can stomach the idea of incest. It isn't graphic, not at all, there are a few "f-words" from Kit, but overall, considering it's about *whispers* incest, this book is pretty tame. Forbidden hits you square in the heart. It was so good I read it all in one sitting, I couldn't take my eyes off of it. I got it from the Amazon Kindle store for around $8 but it was worth every penny I spent on it. For sure.
I loved Forbidden and on a scale of one to ten, this book gets a big fat 10!
