Between the Bookcovers

Author: Tabitha Suzuma
Published: June 28, 2011
Pages: 464
Rating: 5/5 Stars

Description from Goodreads:

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.



Review:

Lochan and his sister Maya have grown up in a dysfunctional family where they have been abandoned by their father, their alcoholic mother is absent most of the time and they and are struggling to keep their siblings together and out of the eye of social services. Close in age, they have grown up as best friends as well as brother and sister. Both are stunned when they realize they are falling in love with each other and that the feelings are mutual. This is an absorbing story of their dilemma and how they handle this taboo, and how it is likely to end.

Tabitha Suzuma has taken on a subject not often written about, especially in YA novels. But she has done a beautiful job in making the story of Lochan and Maya come alive and exploring the difficulties and heartbreak found when siblings fall in love. Incest is most often portrayed with an aggressor and a victim, here it is a mutual desire without victims, but not without consequences.

The chapters are in first person and alternate between Lochan and Maya, giving us a view from both main characters. This allows us to get inside their heads and get to know them both, and I found that I found myself thinking that they deserved to find the happiness they wanted and deserved. All characters were well developed, I found myself wanting to cry for the situation these siblings were left in by the adults who were supposed to care for them.

Despite the topic, I found that this was an incredibly well written book. I wanted for things to work out for Maya and Lochan, despite the views of society and the law, but I knew that the book was not destined to have a happy ending, stories like this never do. However, the ending was not what I expected and it was a tragic, heartbreaking conclusion to one of the better books I have read this year. This is definately written for the older set of teens, but anyone older will also find this an absorbing book.

Rating: An excellent book about a taboo subject, not to be missed