Forbidden
Books | Juvenile Fiction / Family / Siblings
4.2
(545)
Tabitha Suzuma
Perfect for readers who enjoyed Flowers in the Attic, this is a heartbreaking and shocking novel about siblings Lochan and Maya, their tumultuous home life, and the clandestine, and taboo, relationship they form to get through it.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 de facto 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 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.
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More Details:
Author
Tabitha Suzuma
Pages
464
Publisher
Simon and Schuster
Published Date
2012-06
ISBN
1442419962 9781442419964
Ratings
Google: 5
Community ReviewsSee all
"I have no idea!! I need help! "
H S
Hope Salata
"I have a phrase for stories so beautifully sad that they break through your heart. Lovely Despair. Lots of stories have broken my heart. This book pulled my heart out of my chest, threw it on the pavement, and shattered it into a million pieces. And yet I loved it with every broken shard.<br/><br/>Some people won’t ‘get’ this book. It might be cringe-worthy or even triggering. And I get that. I do. If you feel that way, I don’t blame you for avoiding this book. You have to take care of yourself. But if you can handle the subject matter (and getting your heart shattered by a story), this book could be for you.<br/><br/>Forbidden is a story about two teenage siblings, Lochan and Maya, who have spent most of their lives raising their three younger siblings. They’ve always been best friends more than brother and sister, and that develops into romantic love. I want to mention right away that these two are not people who simply have incestual leanings. They don’t feel any attraction to their other siblings. They have an attraction to each other. And that’s something that builds out of a deeper connection, not just a sexual desire. They act as parents to the kids, and Maya considers Lochan her soulmate and partner in the life they have to lead, with their alcoholic and absent mother leaving them all the responsibilities. Lochan and Maya might be living a much different life than you, the reader, can easily imagine, but you feel so connected to them that it doesn’t matter. <br/><br/>I have a thing for forbidden love, and I’ve always been curious about the idea of consensual sibling incest, but judging by other reviews and testimonials I’ve read, this can be a book that makes you really think about your beliefs, even if you don’t normally approve of such a thing. But that may not be the actual point. Whether or not you believe consensual incest is okay, I think it would be hard not to feel for Lochan and Maya, whose connection and relationship is often the only bright point in their lives. They also don’t enter the relationship without reservations. Lochan, in particular, struggles deeply with his feelings before giving in. They both just come to the point where denying their feelings is too painful to bear. “At the end of the day it's about how much you can bear, how much you can endure. Being together, we harm nobody; being apart, we extinguish ourselves.”<br/><br/>The writing in this book is simply amazing. If you let yourself become invested in this story, the emotional intensity will absolutely shake you. You feel the pain and loneliness of Maya when she’s away from Lochan. You feel the desperate panic of socially phobic Lochan when he has anxiety attacks. And in the moments they actually get to be happy together, you feel the intensity of the real love these two share and how much they truly need each other. And that makes it really, really hard to maintain that this relationship is morally wrong.<br/><br/>Is incest a good thing, something that should be encouraged? No, of course not. The laws regarding incest are completely understandable, because (and I can’t stress this enough) the vast majority of it is abusive. But this particular instance where the relationship is very clearly consensual, with two people on an equal level of authority, and based on a deep love is something I can’t believe is evil. It’s unfortunate and tragic. You feel like you wish that they just hadn’t been born siblings. But I’ve thought about this so much that I’ve sort of decided that they needed to be siblings. That they needed someone who was as invested in their family’s survival. They couldn’t have made it through their hard times if they hadn’t supported each other every step of the way. It’s unfortunate that they should be soulmates who are also siblings, but they were fortunate in that they had each other nearly their whole lives. All of it is tragic, and yet, all of it makes sense. And the incredibly rare kind of love they shared should not be illegal. At least that’s how I feel about it.<br/><br/>This book is probably the best book I’ve read in years. The writing and plot were able to suck me in and reach me on every level, the characters became a part of me, and this is a story that will stay with me forever. I feel like I have to warn you, though, that the ending of this book set me off into an extremely depressive state. I was just so invested in the story and the characters that I couldn’t really handle the ending with the other things that were going on in my life at the time. I don’t regret letting this beautifully painful book into my heart, but if you’re easily set off by tragic endings, please be prepared. I thought I was. I wasn’t."
"I finished reading it and the end had me in tears. I've never cried because of a book so this was a first. It was definitely a little weird reading about something that I've always thought was wrong, but the plot was so good that it just seemed like two teenagers in love, not siblings. It's excellently written, and a real emotional rollercoaster. It's something you know won't have a happy ending but you still hope it does. If you're okay with being out of your comfort zone, then it's a must read"
A C
Amelia Corry
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