Forbidden

This is a tough book to review, so I can't imagine how difficult it was to write.

It's rare that you see something as taboo as sibling incest portrayed in a sympathetic light (I guess unless you count stuff like Flowers in the Attic, but this book is only similar in the fact that a) incest is committed by two elder siblings that act as parents to their younger siblings, and b) they have an awful, no-good, terrible mother; there are no locked attics nor are there poisoned donuts to be found in this story) and man, did the author pull it off.

As I stated, the basic premise is this: eldest son Lochan and eldest daughter Maya take care of their three younger siblings: Kit, an angsty teenager; Tiffin, a hyperactive, sugar-addicted kid; and Willa, an adorable girl who is barely out of toddlerhood. They assume the roles of parents as their father left them several years before the novel begins, and their mother is obsessed with feeling young and beautiful, and never wanted the burden of motherhood. As Lochan and Maya are only 13 months apart in age, they have always been best friends, partners, above the mere fact that they are siblings. As Lochan enters the last year of school and pressure from his severe social anxiety and the constant threat of child services mounts, the two find themselves drawn together and admitting feelings that they have been denying for years.

I have a lot of good things to say about this novel, which of course can make for awkward conversation.

Person: Hey, read any good books lately?
Me: Yeah, there's this one I just finished, Forbidden....
Person: What's it about?
Me: . . .
Person: . . .
Me: . . .

First and foremost, the writing is pretty dang beautiful. The author particularly handles the anxiety aspect well, and I noticed this early on in the book with this passage:

I don't know when it started – this thing – but it's growing, muffling me, suffocating me like poison ivy. I grew into it. It grew into me. We blurred at the edges, became an amorphous seeping, crawling thing.

That pretty much hits the nail on the head. And really, this same type of description could easily apply to how dependent he and Maya are on one another, and he even says as such later in the book (albeit in a much more positive, romanticized way):

The human body needs a constant flow of nourishment, air, and love to survive. Without Maya, I lose all three; apart, we will slowly die.

Like I said before, this novel really makes you feel sympathy, rather than disgust, with Maya and Lochan's situation. They love each other and often say (in fact, one of my few issues with this book is that it is a little repetitive at times) that they are soul mates that happen to share the same parentage.

It's a slow burn, an emotional ride, and I for one found myself wanting a happy ending for the Whitely kids. I do wish Maya would have been given more character, as her personality seems to revolve around her devotion to Lochan. He mentions at one point, late in the novel, that Maya had childhood dreams of being an actress; perhaps I missed that fact being mentioned earlier on, but her character felt a little flat at times. I still liked her, but Lochan was given more layers and thus his sections were more compelling to me.

I do fret about Kit, though; if he was so damaged before, how is he going to cope with the fact that his actions led to the suicide of his older brother? It's not even mentioned in the epilogue, and I understand that maybe it's too much to add in at the end of the book, but I can't help but wonder.

At any rate, if you feel like reading a sympathetic portrayal of how a consensual incestuous relationship could form under difficult circumstances, I would recommend this one.