A review by serendipitysbooks
Sunburn by Chloe Michelle Howarth

emotional reflective medium-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Character
  • Strong character development? Yes
  • Loveable characters? It's complicated
  • Diverse cast of characters? Yes
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.25

 Sunburn is a beautifully written sapphic coming of age story. Lucy has grown up in a small rural Irish town. Everyone expects her to marry her childhood best friend Martin. However in her teen years she develops an intense relationship with Susannah. As a reader you really want them to be together. Yet Lucy is unsure of herself, her feelings, and what she wants to do with her life. And this is Ireland in the early 1990s so publicly admitting her feelings for Susannah would almost certainly have resulted in ostracism. While I was sometimes frustrated by Lucy I could always understand exactly where she was coming from and why she was making the decisions she did. The real highlight of this novel was the depiction of the relationship between Lucy and Susannah. It was gorgeous, tender, passionate and utterly romantic, especially the letters between the two of them. 
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