#11 of 2012: Forbidden by Tabitha Suzuma
So intenssssssssse you could actually taste the sizzle through your monitor as you read this. I didn’t intend to finish this in one go, but alas, it was impossible to let go once I started. Case in point: I planned to just read a couple of chapters last night, since I’ve already spent half of my good night’s sleep on Japanese live action movies, but Tabitha Suzuma said OH NO YOU CAN’T YOU WILL NOT WANT TO ABANDON THIS BOOK. Therefore, I zombie-d through dawn, crying over, freaking out, hating on, sympathizing with, pitying, rooting for Lochan and Maya to be together, free and forever. I tried hard to understand how such a thing could happen to siblings but later on, I scolded myself for being such a narrow-minded human being. As I tweeted right early this morning right after I finished the book: Who are we to judge which love is right or wrong? This was most likely the best thing Forbidden has made me think about. But, of course, that is not what is all into it - there’s Lochan’s social anxiety, Maya’s sexual forwardness, their Mum’s irresponsibility and alcoholism, Kit’s angst, Tiffin and Willa’s stolen chance of a normal childhood, a shattered home needed to be mended and protected, a society too boxed up, if not judgmental.
Yay!s
-Good thing Suzuma is from London; otherwise, this story wouldn’t have worked as well. In other countries, like here in the Philippines where Roman Catholicism is dominant, incest - let alone, consensual incest - would not only be a crime, but also a sin. Perspective really is key.
-The characters and the setting perfectly fit the plot. I don’t know how else this could have worked, really.
Boo!s
-The narratives killed me… Not in the good way. Thankfully, the story made it so easy for me to sail through those block-by-block monologues. While they surely did bring fire emotional-wise, I wished Suzuma and her editor thought environmental-wise, too, and saved time and a lot of trees by cutting several pages.
-The part right before the ending was, I hate to admit it, predictable. I knew there was a reason the Mum was gone for a long time in the earlier chapters!
