Genre: Literary Fiction | LGBTQ+
Release Date: Expected 19th September 2023
Publisher: VERVE Books
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 at all. 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. Neither will be easy, but only one will offer her happiness.
"Remember that, without the sweat on her sternum and the Autumn colour of her, in her most basic and fleshy form, she is only another piece of the earth, the same as me. We are all just pieces of the earth. I must take a breath."
Sunburn is a scorching coming of age, coming out story that captures a transcendental moment in time of a young girl questioning everything. It tenderly explores first loves, sexuality, tradition and growing up in a provocative and thoughtful way that was so undeniably compelling.
The setting was suffocating — a searing summer heat combined with building pressure creating a truly stifling and visceral picture. Everything was truly dazzling and descriptive in a massively engaging way.
Our narrator Lucy was something special to read— as we watch her fall desperately in love, we can see the infatuation and obsession form, that unreasonable and intense feelings of first love that is all consuming and leads to terrible choices. But even as see her become consumed by her love and be naive, I couldn’t help but feel for her intensely.
Aside from this love, we also see her try to navigate finding her place in a family that doesn’t quite fit anymore, and facing the realisation that being a woman isn’t that easy — while she searches for the answers. She sits in that confusing limbo between child and adult, perfectly encapsulating the lust for independence and identity we feel as young people, that undeniable need for rebellion and definition and this created such a real, melancholic nostalgia.
Every character has their own distinct personality, and the relationships between people are carefully crafted and complex. Between tense family relationships, beautiful friendships and real displays of sisterhood and solidarity.
Her narration is slow, pacing itself out leisurely like a hot summer afternoon, with not a lot happening but so much to hear and think about as the months and then years fall by — it was descriptive and lyrical at times, moving fluidly between scenes of family life and teenage confusion but always with so much more happening under the surface.
This is an absolutely beautiful story about belonging and beginnings that needs to be on your reading list.
⭐⭐⭐⭐
I was gifted an advanced reviewers copy of this title in return for an honest review. Please check content warnings before reading as this title contains upsetting subjects including alcoholism and religious trauma.
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