Review: "Sunburn" by Chloe Michelle Howarth

 

Sunburn by Chloe Michelle Howarth
Published June 2023 via Verve Books
★★★★

In rural Ireland in the early 90s, the seasons are changing. Lucy knows what shape her life is supposed to take—she'll gradually pair up with her best friend, Martin, and they'll be lovers and then spouses and then parents. Probably their lives will be shaped by the rhythms of farming, and the other girls in Lucy's year will also pair up with boys and peel away, and she'll remember Susannah as nothing more than a good friend.

But it's gradually dawning on Lucy that the future she's been promised is not really the one that she wants. The person she's been promised is not the one that she wants.

Sunburn is a slow burn of a book. If this were YA, it would take place over a summer or even a month; instead, here, weeks spin into months spin into years as Lucy waffles and settles and tries to keep everyone happy. It's frustrating at times: she resists having to choose, resists taking a stand, hurts more than one person in the process. But she's young, and she feels that she has little choice, and in the end...none of her choices are all that good. It's much more satisfying and realistic for it, this way that Lucy retreats into her inflamed skin, uses lies like aloe applied thickly, waits for the lies to catch up with her and for the decisions to be made for her but also doesn't quite believe that it'll happen.

One interesting thing is that you can see, around the edges of the story, alternative futures for Lucy, or for Susannah. Martin might get caught up in someone else, or Lucy might make choices that lead her to a boat to England, or she might live alone in Dublin with the chance to figure out who she is by herself, away from Crossmore, in a place where more things seem possible. Lucy doesn't always see these alternative futures as such—she's not really in a place to recognize options beyond the ones she's always known, decisions beyond the obvious ones that she doesn't want to make—but it's something of a reminder of how much can hinge on a seemingly small moment.

Thanks to the author and publisher for providing a review copy through NetGalley.