Name: Sunburn
ISBN: 9780857308412

Chloe Michelle Howarth

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. But only one can offer her real happiness.

Sunburn

sofia 🪆

“Why not be honest? It is exhausting to haul secrets around all the time. Secrets that nobody is asking me to keep. Why do I weigh myself down so voluntarily?”

Storm

It makes perfect sense to want to be inside her mouth, to be torn to pieces by her; until I catch myself wanting it, and I am shocked, I am disgusted. I almost laugh at my own absurdity. That wasn't me at all, just a bad notion that got into my head to make trouble. That wasn't me who thought that. What a weird feeling. Very discreetly, I bless myself and hope to be forgiven, and I hope that I never feel anything so inexplicable or strong again.

One day, Mother will grow tired of me. This isn’t a worry or a guess, it is an instinct. Her affection will wane, and so I must absorb all the love she gives me while she is giving it.

When he leaves, I watch from the back door as he disappears down the garden, out onto the dark road, taking the last of today’s goodness with him. Then I am left alone with my family.

When we spend the evenings talking and playing in my garden, I feel so liminal. We are adults and children at once. 

Here, the days drip by as slow as half-melted candle wax. Time is hard and soft at once in Crossmore.

Right now we are between uses, and it is very quiet.

I always talk about leaving Crossmore like it's something I am definitely going to do. As if I would know how. I don't know where I would be going or who I would be going to or what for.

It's presumptuous, yes, but now that I'm getting older, I can’t help but wonder about her experience as a mother, and as a woman, and how different her life might have been without children or with different children or at least without a daughter. Who would she be with one less child standing between her and freedom? Would she be an entirely different person?

In this thin space between sleeping and waking, there is room for honesty

My fear, shame, and regret are elsewhere, I know them all combined in one sickness when I stare at Susannah, deep and long, and without permission.

My heart lurches, as if it wants to leave my awful body and go make a home in her…As is my greatest talent, I disappoint Susannah

‘She's her mother's daughter anyway.’

I am afraid that we might all be our mothers' daughters.

The dial tone throbs in my ear, its heavy, low sound. I hold the phone to my heart, and its beating falls in line with the beeping of her goodbye.

When I open the door, the hallway is flooded with February light and her. Look at her now, in the doorway, a painting in an old wooden frame. Is that not spectacular? Even though I've had her hundreds of times, when I see her looking like this, I doubt that she has ever been mine.

The house is all wrong now. It feels as though I am living upside down, breathing animosity in place of oxygen…To Mother, I am no longer Lucy. I am a fragmented memory, brought back when she trips over my schoolbag in the hall, when she hears the closing of my bedroom door and sees my empty seat at the dinner table. This memory is easily ignored. She has given up on my curfew, on my laundry, on my meals. I am thinning and unclean, and she is unbothered. At last, we have reached the long-anticipated limit to Mother's love. What I wouldn't give to be punished.

How can I defend myself to Mother when I don't understand what I am defending? How is it that when you grow up and get stuck in love, that love is forgotten about? My love now seems to be an aggressive, political thing. It is the ceaseless search for an identity and then committing to that identity. It is a fight to exist in my own home. Is that not exhausting? Is it worth it? It feels like the good parts of loving have been thrown on the backseat and forgotten about.

!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!@$&&$$??!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!???!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!&&&!@!!!!!!

Larissa Campos

Nobody seems to realise how obsession has weakened my limits.

esse livro tá indo pra rumos tão interessantes... vou passar mal, a descrição dos sentimentos de atração é algo que nunca vi antes

I didn’t do a thing. I just sat and watched as she was torn to pieces. And still, somehow, I am the one that she chooses to whisper to, ‘Ring me after school.’ How am I supposed to get past this delusion when she comes directly to me? My heart lurches, as if it wants to leave my awful body and go make a home in her.

What a thought to think! How suddenly and vehemently I think it. And how hot my cheeks are. It makes perfect sense to want to be inside her mouth, to be torn to pieces by her; until I catch myself wanting it, and I am shocked, I am disgusted. I almost laugh at my own absurdity.

A little predictable but such a good read. Very helpful in understanding a deeply rooted religious shame partnered with unrequited, a little toxic love. Illustrated 1990’s Ireland really well- I was sucked in. 

Lily Dendy

gurlene 

ASTAGHFIRULLAAHHHHHHHGH BUKU GILAAAAAAAAAA

Saffy

emotions were beautifully written, the turmoil of catholic guilt so damning and so well captured 

Karen

literary embodiment of home video by lucy dacus

rachel

this novel has inflicted permanent damage on both my heart and soul. i hated it. 5 stars. 

Stas

O livro me deixou com a sensação de fim de verão, como prometido. O que não foi avisado, é que esse fim de verão seria como correr uma maratona e logo sentir o ar frio contra a pele grudenta de suor. Não sinto frio, não me sinto limpa e não me sinto confortável, mas me sinto viva.

Queria olhar nos olhos dela e desafiar que lesse o mesmo livro, que fosse honesta e queria tanto ao ponto de não querer nada. 

Queria a versão da Suzanna e talvez me sentiria menos intrusa, mais acolhida. Vou querendo muita coisa até ficar sem ar e resolver que só quero dormir. Queria trocar cartas, jogar meu celular fora, saber que quando chegasse o próximo verão, ainda assinaríamos os papéis como "Sua, L" 

Esse livro abriu meu peito, consigo ver meu coração vivo e batendo. Se viro pro lado, ele cai. Mesmo assim, o esperado é que eu durma e viva mais um dia quente, que acaba frio.

O livro me deixou com a sensação de fim de verão, como prometido. O que não foi avisado, é que esse fim de verão seria como correr uma maratona e logo sentir o ar frio contra a pele grudenta de suor. Não sinto frio, não me sinto limpa e não me sinto confortável, mas me sinto viva.

Queria olhar nos olhos dela e desafiar que lesse o mesmo livro, que fosse honesta e queria tanto ao ponto de não querer nada. 

Queria a versão da Suzanna e talvez me sentiria menos intrusa, mais acolhida. Vou querendo muita coisa até ficar sem ar e resolver que só quero dormir. Queria trocar cartas, jogar meu celular fora, saber que quando chegasse o próximo verão, ainda assinaríamos os papéis como "Sua, L" 

Esse livro abriu meu peito, consigo ver meu coração vivo e batendo. Se viro pro lado, ele cai. Mesmo assim, o esperado é que eu durma e viva mais um dia quente, que acaba frio.

really makes you think about your own queerness and how much your family and environment shapes you. 

Thea Sophie

A raw, honest, heart wrenching story of first love from Lucy’s perspective as a queer teenager growing up in rural Ireland. 

The writing in this is so beautiful, it read more like a poem than a fiction novel. A bit repetitive at times, but starting halfway through, I couldn’t put it down.

Kaitlyn Wendler

A raw, honest, heart wrenching story of first love from Lucy’s perspective as a queer teenager growing up in rural Ireland. 

The writing in this is so beautiful, it read more like a poem than a fiction novel. A bit repetitive at times, but starting halfway through, I couldn’t put it down.

If i had a nickel for every queer irish novel i read this year i would have two nickels, which isn’t a lot but it’s weird that it happened twice

widya

You don’t get to twist my guts that way. Yet here I am, trying not to throw my emotions up. 

Romy

Claire Jorgensen

this book made me discover things about myself 

no villains, no heroes, just a town of people figuring it out and hurting each other in the process. a beautiful sapphic novel

have broken and mended my heart in ways only lesbians in christian households could understand

joys

it's exactly what it wants to be and it was not for me. dnf after 60%

Treyden Talbot

Naomi 

Listen, if she'd given me the manuscript, an oat milk latte, and a red pen, we could've gotten this up to five stars 

Regan Martin

“If you'd lose them over this, then maybe you never had them at all.”

after reading this book: I love everyone I have ever loved, again, in a new way <3 there are no sins to forgive. we were girls together

petrina

Such a candid perspective of struggling with sexuality 

Miranda Hall

Wow. For a debut novel, this was insane. Lucy's distinct voice was honestly unlike anything I've read before. She simultaneously felt far away from a real person and like the exact image I see in the mirror. The dread simmering from the pages, specifically in the last half, was palpable. It was hard to face many of the things this book addressed, and at times, I felt exactly how Lucy did. Her view of the world and herself was so narrow, a byproduct of growing up in a small, unchanged town. Knowing that there was so much more waiting for her while she struggled to see beyond the constraints of her farm was tough. The world feels so small at 17, and it's impossible to explain that everything you know then is not going to be everything you know forever. I was also deeply moved by the relationship between the girls and their mothers; so different yet so entirely the same. If this was a different story, Susannah and her mom could've reached an understanding before time ran out, and Lucy's mom would've embraced the little girl she's always known with open arms. This was not such a story. I'll probably think about this book and these girls forever.