Christopher C. Payne's Blog

Forbidden – Tabitha Suzuma

Publisher: Simon & Schuster Children's Pu
Date: June 28, 2011
ISBN13: 9781442419957
ISBN: 1442419954
BINC: 3273699
Age:16 and up
Available format : eBook, Hardcover

Forbidden – Tabitha Suzuma

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.

Will my words be able to cover even a bit of what I'm feeling?

When my friends told me, guaranteed me that this book will make me weep, I had high hopes, but what this book presented, it went so much more higher that that.

Incest, a taboo in our society, goes against every religion, every law, every thoughts that humans have. Often described as disgusting, vile, an act only pedophiles and psychopaths could perform. But what if? What if the 'incest' is just a product of forbidden love? Will that be so wrong? I don't deny that the very thought of a brother-sister relationship made me uncomfortable, but after being absorbed into this unique and heartwrenching story, I guess these people who supposedly committed this 'crime' deserved to at least have a chance to be heard, to tell their side of the story.

Now, every since I'm hooked on reading, I've came across TONS of story on forbidden loves, ones which spun me off ground and ones which made me weep, but nothing could even compare to this. This, I proudly announce, is the best story about Forbidden love I ever read in my entire life. I was on an emotional ride throughout the book, the starting of the story gripped me until the end, for once, I don't feel like I'm the reader, instead, I was the character. The way the story was written did that.

Time flies when I read.

Lochie was insecure. I was not freaked out by their relationship, despite what they are. It made sense, and it ached how much I have to read them living in the dark. Battling the whole world, Lochie is always trying to restrain himself from feeling what he feels, that made me so 'tense' reading from his POV, I just wanted to give him a big hug and say it's all going to be okay. In fact, I think the inner turmoil of Lochie and Maya added the charm to the whole story.

Forbidden taught me a lot about life. The need to be independent, like how Maya and Lochan did to raise the children. To me, reading about their genuine concerns about their family warmed me, unlike teenagers in general who often take advantage of their family, I feel the love and turmoil in the Whitley family (minus the mum and dad). Being neglected by both their parents, Maya and Lochan did everything it takes to keep their remainding family intact, and if that meant sacrificing, time, and effort. I saw them take over the parents role, controlling a rebellious teenager, and comforting two innocent kids; they worked as a great team.

It taught me about love. Love is an affection, which many people take for granted these days. For Maya and Lochan, it's a forbidden emotion, they cannot love each other for something more. That is the only love that they could not have. Lochan was a social-phobe, and he often felt truly alone and frustrated, with Maya in his life, he felt noticed because she was the only one who truly understood him.

The whole read was amazing, but what baffled me most was the ending, that was the main point of my undoing actually I never expected the story to end as such! Left with so much emotion it's sort of hard to close the book and return to reality land. I found myself still depressed the next day, that proved the magnitude of effect Forbidden has on me.