Tabitha Suzuma - "Review"

This is dedicated to a friend and favourite author, undoubtedly the most fluent, eloquent, beautifully realistic, chilling of writers I've ever met. Her stories have very dark themes: suicide, mental illness, depression, child carers, even incestuous relationships. I'm talking about Stephenie Meyer.

I am, of course, joking. This is a blog for Tabitha Suzuma!

I was first introduced to Tabitha through her latest book, Forbidden, which will be the main content of this blog. In short, the book is one about incest, but that doesn't nearly do it justice! I was first introduced to it by one of my best friends, and I later found out another one of my best friends had also read it. When I heard of the content, I was itching to read it to see what it was like. And I can honestly say that I have never read a more beautiful, thought-provoking book. Forbidden is what led me to my views upon consensual incest, which I will possibly touch on in another blog post, but I am completely for it, and believe it is outright unjust to put people in jail for incest.

Forbidden tells us the story of Lochan Whitely and Maya Whitely, a brother and sister in a family of five - two brothers, teen delinquent Kit and little Tiffin - as well as six-year-old (I think) Willa. The family is faced with a negligent mother who eventually abandons them and leaves Lochan and Maya to look after their siblings so that they don't end up in care and taken away from them. The strain of looking after their family with an alcoholic mother who does not care about them seriously takes its toll on them all, and gradually throughout the book, Lochan and Maya are drawn together into a romantic relationship: they are soulmates, lovers, and yet they must hide everything because they live in a world that condemns their relationship simply because they came from the same mother.

I couldn't read the book again, and I don't think I'll ever forget it, but honestly I've never read a better book, and I would recommend it to anyone. My advice: please don't be put off by the synopsis! Give it a chapter taste test. The amount of people I've seen who thought it was disgusting, but then read it and fell in love with it... it's truly amazing.

Tabitha currently has five books published. Forbidden, A Note of Madness, A Voice in the Distance, Without Looking Back, and From Where I Stand. I've read all of them and I would recommend all of them. A Note of Madness (ANOM) and A Voice in the Distance (AVITD) focus on the life of Flynn Laukonen, a talented pianist at the Royal College of Music who suffers from bipolar disorder, and how it affects his friends, including his crush, Jennah. Without Looking Back (WLB) is the story of Louis Whittaker, his brother Maxime and sister Emilie, who used to live in France until they are kidnapped by their own father, fearing he would lose them forever. From Where I Stand (FWIS) is the story of Raven Winter, a depressed teenager who is left disturbed after witnessing the death of his own mother. FWIS takes us through his life as he moves in with an adopted family, and his struggles adjusting to the world around him, with a little help from a friend called Lotte.

Again, everything Tabitha has wrote is truly amazing. I got to know her through Facebook, and I already published a review on YouTube, which you can find here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yNtsy3DmmtY, but I wanted to write a blog about it too, although I'm sure she knows by now how much I love her!

And thus concludes my "Review" (a review implies some degree of neutrality, of course, of which I know nothing about.) If you've read any of Tabitha's books, then let me know what you think :). If not... well then, there's five recommendations! But mainly Forbidden :).

Love from Leonidas!

P.S. You can find Tabitha on Facebook or on her website: www.tabithasuzuma.com
P.S.S. I originally had this planned for Wednesday, but I'm too impatient.
P.S.S.S. Why do people add S's onto the end of P.S.?