Forbidden by Tabitha Suzuma

Title: Forbidden Author: Tabitha Suzuma Pages: 432 Genre: Young Adult Published: 2010 Rating: Four out of Five

SYNOPSIS:
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.




VERDICT:
I wasn't sure if I was going to like this book at first due to the extremely sensitive subject – incest – but I actually enjoyed it and by the time I was half way through the novel, I found myself rooting for the couple and desperately hoping for a happy ending for them which I knew would never happen.

This novel makes you re-think everything you've thought about consensual incest and realize that it does happen and what terrible pain and heartache it causes to those that themselves involved in it. I was impressed at how Tabitha Suzama tackled such a taboo subject and made the story believable at the same time.

No matter how wrong, sick and disgusting you may think consensual incest is, I challenge you to read this novel and not find yourself painstakingly wishing that Maya and Lochan could somehow find a way to be together.

Four stars!