Sunburn - Chloe Michelle Howarth

 Why would we give anyone the chance to stop loving us? Why would I let them confirm my worst fear: that we are not a normal couple at all, but one strange sin spread across two people?

It's the early 1990s, and in the Irish village of Crossmore, Lucy feels out of place. Despite her fierce friendships, she's always felt this way, and the conventional path of marriage and motherhood doesn't appeal to her. Not even with handsome and doting Martin, her closest childhood friend.

Lucy begins to make sense of herself during a long hot summer, when a spark with her school friend Susannah escalates to an all-consuming infatuation, and, very quickly, to a desperate and devastating love.

Fearful of rejection from her small and conservative community, Lucy begins living a double life, hiding the most honest parts of herself in stolen moments with Susannah.

But with the end of school and the opportunity to leave Crossmore looming, Lucy must choose between two places, two people and two futures, each as terrifying as the other. But only one can offer her real happiness.

I often find it difficult to find a good sapphic book that doesn't read like a fanfiction. It still feels like queer literature is usually primarily about gay men. When I was a teenager, I loved reading those books. But now I am craving more wlw representation in what I read. I was thrilled when I found Sunburn at my local bookstore. This heartwarming novel was exactly what I needed to read during the grey and cold London winter.

The author starts this poetic and captivating novel with ‘Now is the time between birth and slaughter. ' Needless to say, the story had me hooked from the first sentence on. 

Lucy is a flawed, but relatable main character. The author described Lucy's struggles with her sexuality and the therefore arising conflicts within her community perfectly, it was heartbreaking. I related way more to Lucy's inner monologues and her craving for external validation than I would like to admit. Lucy is a girl who is still craving her mum's love. Someone who cares more about everybody else's thoughts than what makes her happy. And someone who can't accept that she might be different from all the other girls. As a result, Lucy makes endless mistakes that hurt Susannah. That would make her an unlikeable character, right? It did quite the opposite for me. It made her extremely relatable throughout this captivating and emotional journey.

Susannah, on the other hand, is the perfect girl. She knows what she wants, even though the whole town and her closest friends might hate her for it. It is not hard to understand why Lucy worships Susannah so much.

The pacing of the storyline is slow throughout the book, which I didn't mind. It fits the narrative and setting of a teenage girl living in a small village. It also gives plenty of room for Lucy to talk about her love and admiration for Susannah. However, in a few instances, I wished the pace would quicken as the same motives would start repeating themselves. 

All in all this book perfectly explores being queer in a small town, the romance of first love, mother-daughter relationships and female friendships. 

★★★★★