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There is a quiet beauty in meandering through someone’s mind while they meander through their life in a small town. Howarth utilizes this in Sunburn, as we follow Lucy as she falls for her friend, Susannah. Sweet, beautiful, wonderful, brilliant Susannah. Lucy says she could talk about Susannah forever, and I would gladly listen to her talk about Susannah forever. This book devastates the reader as we are pulled with Lucy between her need for external validation and love and her desire to be with Susannah: a desire that is not acceptable in this small Irish town in the 90’s. At the same time, this book fills you with a beautiful, pure love as we get the internal monologue of Lucy, which is almost always focused on her obsession with Susannah. While this took a bit longer to get through (and review lol) than both of us anticipated, it was an absolute joy to buddy read this with S. (whose brilliant review you can read here).

“Now is the time between birth and slaughter.��

With a first line as iconic as this, I knew that my copy of this book would be destroyed with my underlines and markups by the time it was all over; however, I did not expect to have pages that had a higher percentage of words underlined than not. Through the limited lens of Lucy’s obsessive one track mind we get some absolutely incredible lines �� mainly about Susannah. Seriously, I think I would die on the spot if any woman said any of the things Lucy thought about Susannah.

We follow Lucy from fifteen to seventeen to twenty as she tries to navigate through her small town, Mother, childhood friends, and Susannah, one of her childhood friends whom she has begun to obsessively think about. While Lucy feels very similar at each age �� aimlessly floating in the world, only knowing who she is in relation to everyone else �� there are distinct, defining moments that come with each age.

“I understand these girls, I follow the pattern, it’s alright.��

Fifteen brings insecurity and the need to fit in with your friend group in a way that you are all indistinguishable from each other and a budding obsession with Susannah. Most of Lucy’s thoughts are about her friends �� primarily worrying about fitting in and reflecting that all of them live very similar, lonely lives because they talk about shallow things then go back to homes that neglect them for whatever reason. I really love how the two things Howarth spends the most time on with the girls is Lucy’s irrepressible urge to be the same as them when she isn’t and the realization that maybe the others are pretending like she is. There is both a comfort and a loneliness in this dynamic as the girls fill their days surrounded by each other and are defined by each other, but they never talk about things that are deeper than surface level and all still go home lonely. The sweetness of a budding obsession starts to show in this, planting the seeds for later years.

“Even on school mornings when I am frozen to the bone and exhausted, being near her is always sunbathing in the garden.��

Despite all the negative things surrounding Lucy and Susannah, this is a really pure and beautiful depiction of first love. I really love how Howarth puts the focus on Lucy’s intense, poetic thoughts about her beloved instead of having their actual in person interactions be the focused. We primarily see Lucy and Susannah through Lucy’s thoughts and the letters they send to each other and because of that I had the absolute pleasure of reading some of the most beautiful strings of words I’ve ever seen. There is a scene in Chapter 2, when Lucy is 15 and doesn’t understand her own feelings yet, where they take Communion. It is my favorite part of the book and is probably the most marked up two pages of any book I’ve ever read with over half the words of the page being underlined. My girl really said ‘How was God going to see me as worthy of Communion, how was he going to see me at all, when she sparkled so beautifully beside me?�� and didn’t recognize that she might have a teeny tiny crush on her friend. I love her.

“The Summer has been just a little bit too warm, the sun has been a little too bright. My thoughts have been a little bit too uncontrollable. And my emotions a little too humid. They only grow more humid. It all just gets stickier. Soon I think I will be unable to go even one day without lying on the grass with her.��

The summer when everything truly begins is so vivid that I could see it. While the first two years are filled with an unknowable yearning, the Summer Lucy and Susannah are seventeen is pure queer joy. Lucy worships Susannah in every season. The entire Earth worships Susannah in Summer. With Lucy’s newfound ability to worship Susannah more openly, the world does the same. The sun follows Susannah, keeping her bathed in its light. Everything is stronger and brighter in the Summer. Summer brings the start of this newfound boldness and sweet, quiet moments. Silly letters that stem from a desire to cheer Susannah up when her parents are being shitty turns into an emotional window into a budding new relationship as the seasons change. Even though they spend every day together in Summer, these letters are as constant as their company - exchanged every day. Summer marks a time where they can pretend the pressing issues of the outside world aren't real... or at least aren't pressing down on them and let's them just be two teenagers experiencing their first love.

"Save this letter: it marks the moment that my life finally started. I have never felt closer to Heaven than I felt today on the road with you. I can only hope that it was real, and that you will not change your mind."

It’s hard to talk about the beauty in these pages as we listen to Lucy talk about how wonderful Susannah is because anything I say cannot adequately explain how amazing the words Howarth has written are: her words are too good for my words. Lucy’s inner monologue is filled with some of the most poetic and loving and worshipping words I’ve ever seen written about another person. Their letters are intimate in a way that gives you glimpses of how Susannah worships Lucy in the exact same way she is worshipped by Lucy. It is exquisite and you have to read it for yourself.

“Let me be anything as long as I am your special secret �ٳ󾱲Բ�.��

While Summer is a gentle reprieve from the pressure Lucy is under to get together with Martin, her best friend, we are thrown head first into conflict at Summer's end as Lucy can no longer ignore that she is being pulled in two wildly different directions: one she would be content with keeping secret forever and the other that she's been pressured to take her whole life. The internal conflict Lucy feels has one screaming at their book, begging for her to make the right decision.

“All I’ve done is fall for Susannah. It is not shameful or radical or wild. Anybody would fall for Susannah. I never meant to upset anybody.��

There is a heartbreakingly childlike quality to Lucy’s denial about why such a pure love will upset everyone in a way that is very similar to Jeanette in Oranges Are Not the Only Fruit. Where in Oranges Jeanette begins to question the system and what it must mean for them to hate something that is nothing but pure, Lucy looks a bit more inwardly. She’s still not convinced that her love isn’t a sin, that she isn’t in the wrong and that she has no sense of self outside of other people makes it harder for her to truly accept that it is okay to be who she is. When she is with Susannah, she thinks, ‘They will all love me. How could they not love me, when there is nothing left of me but love?�� but loses her confidence quick when she is confronted with someone like her mother who she knows deep down won’t love her anymore. She’s a bit delusional at times and it can be hard to see how it affects Susannah, who, through her own letters to Lucy, we start to get a better sense of.

“Why would we give anyone the chance to stop loving us? Why would I let them confirm my worst fear: that we are not a normal couple at all, but one strange sin spread across two people?��

Susannah presents as a very strong and sure force while Lucy doesn’t really know who she is. And while Susannah is ready to show the world who she is and be done with their small town, all Lucy wants is to hide away so that she can stay in her small town with her mother and friends who she’s known since childhood and doesn’t really want to give up. Lucy craves a normalcy that queer people in small towns are very rarely afforded, and it really does destroy her to have to choose either her life as she knows it or herself. I think it’s quite easy to judge Lucy for not “being brave enough�� to be able to choose herself, but it is also quite easy to empathize with her. Howarth really excels at painting the inner turmoil of Lucy as all she wants in life is to be happy and normal but can’t be one without the other. It paints a painful picture of how hard it really is to give up everyone you love because they will not accept you for who you are. Maybe she isn’t brave, but that doesn’t mean she shouldn’t be happy.

“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.��

Lucy’s mother is one of the major sources of conditional love that she is scared to lose. While Lucy sees the best in her and defends her for the majority of the book, she is never delusional enough to think that her mother will accept her for who she is, even casually stating that she’d be sent to the nuns at the if she found out about her and Susannah. Her mother doesn’t hesitate to starve her literally and figuratively when she doesn’t follow he rules. By ignoring her instead of punishing her, Mother shows how truly disposable her daughter is to her and how little it affects her to just throw her out in the rain. I could go on about Lucy’s mother, but I know her so intimately that she just feels so small to me. She’s a hateful woman with total control over her daughter’s life because children will always crave the love of a parent. She’s not as big and important as she seems and Lucy has to learn that to move forward.
If you read this, pay attention to the quality of food that is served. Howarth uses food a lot to show how different types (or lack) of love are unsubstantial or unfulfilling to Lucy (and sometimes Susannah).

“I love the girls more than I love myself, but they would not love me If they knew. I know this, and deep down, Susannah must also know this.��

There is a point in the book where Lucy says that all she is doing is loving people and all she needs is the right kind of love back. The conditional love that Lucy has received her entire life makes her paranoid towards Susannah, but incapable of disappointing her family and friends. Why does she hang on to the things that she knows are hurting her? Why would anyone ask her to let go when she isn’t ready? The depth of Lucy and heartbreak of the situation is added with this dynamic. Lucy never questions whether or not she will be accepted in her circles if she comes out; there is an intrinsic knowledge that all young queer people surrounded by unsupportive people have, and it is very rarely wrong. People prove who they’re going to be through other actions long before they are confronted with a fact about you.

“He makes me feel like my blood is flowing in the wrong direction, he makes me aware that I am wrong.��

There were a few ways that Howarth could have handled Martin, Lucy’s best friend that everyone thinks she is destined to marry and I was on the edge of my seat, nervous every time he was in a scene because I had no idea how he would react to Lucy not liking him. While Martin is an obstacle in a sense, he’s an obstacle in the way that everyone has certain expectations for their relationship that comes with being friends with someone of the opposite sex in a small, conservative town. My heart broke a little for Martin when, after describing all the skies she saw with Susannah as peach-coloured, the sky was colorless and lifeless when she was with Martin. While the weight of expectation could be seen as crushing for Lucy, it was also a way out that she could take advantage of while hurting her best friend in the process. When ambivalence is the worst you feel about a relationship, it’s easier to put yourself in it if you know it will make the people you care about accept you. Martin was a sweet light in the darkness with his unconditional love for Lucy despite it all.

“Crossmore is as it always was: a wild and overgrown place where hearts swell and burst the most violently. We feel deeply here. No matter how far I go, I am soaked from the earth and dusted from the pollen, and I will always carry these deep feelings. So will Martin, so will Susannah, so will the others. And although we go far to escape them, at one time or another, we must return to Crossmore. To the roots of ourselves.��

In a podcast with Verve, Howarth brings up how the town of Crossmore acts as a fleshed-out character in Sunburn. We don’t really know who Lucy is because she is rooted in so many things �� Susannah, Mother, Martin, the girls, Crossmore. Crossmore is an interesting place because of the way it feels like a living entity. In the beginning, Crossmore is a cruel, hard place for secrets, but as we move through the years Lucy begins to develop a certain love for Crossmore. Maybe it’s the deep-set knowledge that she will never be able to truly escape Crossmore; maybe it’s her love for Susannah enhancing the world around her, but she is pulled into the nature of Crossmore. Where the people are not so accepting, the land sings for Lucy and Susannah when they’re happy in love. She frequents the outskirts and the woods, carving her and Susannah’s names into the trees and claiming that they have a perfect place out by the wall. While she’s in love, her view of Crossmore is heightened too. There is a dread that comes with a small, unaccepting town, but there is also a love you can’t quite shake. It’s a weird dichotomy to read about that I suspect will hit home for a lot of people. Where she lives may be hurting her, but all she wanted was a simple life in Crossmore and now she has to worry about discovering herself and finding her own happiness, which may mean leaving Crossmore behind.