Forbidden (Forbidden, #1)

by Kimberley Griffiths Little

[KitsuneBae]

If only I could turn back time, I would have told myself that picking up this book is strictly forbidden so as to save myself from wasting precious hours. Bad pun aside, Forbidden made the right first steps. Beautiful cover: Check. Intriguing premise: check. Refreshing setting: Check. But then, the camels happened. Not to mention that the excessive belly dancing has made for a dizzying ride in the most negative way. I swear that by the second half of the book, I was already contemplating the thousand ways of killing a camel.

Forbidden started off really nice. We have a rebellious heroine named Jaden, the second daughter of an ordinary tribal family. Jaden’s family belongs to the Nephish tribe, one of the several Mesopotamian desert tribes that existed during ancient Babylon. Now, Jaden is betrothed to the heir of the tribal throne and the second son of the tribal leader, Horeb. Unbeknownst to all, Jaden secretly despised Horeb that she came to a point of just running away from her fate. Short of abandoning her betrothed, Jaden also fellinlove with a dark and mysterious stranger from unknown lands. His name is Kadesh. While that is charming and all, it only took me around sixty pages to realize that instead of Forbidden, this book should have been called as “Camels and How They Influence The Past, The Now and The Future.”

I’m not going to pretend that I’m an expert in desert survival but I understand that camels really play a crucial role if you want to make it alive navigating the desert. But is it really necessary to make a supposed story of forbidden romance all about camels? I dove into Forbidden with the assumption of reading about a girl surviving the harsh Mesopotamian desert and growing up following the conservative beliefs of the desert tribe, and basically, getting a modicum of understanding about the culture of Ancient Babylon through the eyes of a girl trapped by unfortunate choices. But what did I get? More camels that I can count, a half-baked forbidden romance that didn’t really feel forbidden, obstacles that made me hope of Jaden running into zombie camels to spice up the story, characters that would put my paper dolls to shame, lots of belly dancing that it’s almost disturbing and an ending that was neither here nor there.

What’s even the point of the story?