The Secret Year

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Overview

Take Romeo and Juliet. Add The Outsiders. Mix thoroughly.

Colt and Julia were secretly together for an entire year, and no one-not even Julia’s boyfriend? knew. They had nothing in common, with Julia in her country club world on Black Mountain and Colt from down on the flats, but it never mattered. Until Julia dies in a car accident, and Colt learns the price of secrecy. He can't mourn Julia openly, and he’s tormented that he might have played a part in her death. When Julia’s journal ends up in his hands, Colt relives their year together at the same time that he’s desperately trying to forget her. But how do you get over someone who was never yours in the first place?

Editorial Reviews

Publishers Weekly

Julia is from the rich crowd on Black Mountain while Colt lives “in a house with [his] father’s junked cars all over the yard.” For a year they meet secretly for sex and intense conversation by the river between them, until Julia is killed in a car crash. Colt navigates his grief privately until Julia’s brother, Michael, gives him Julia’s journal. Debut author Hubbard effectively intermingles Colt’s memories, Julia’s secret letters to Colt, and the present, as Colt falls into a relationship with a friend, deals with the aftermath of his brother’s coming out, and falls in love again. The journal, as well as hints of the fight Colt and Julia had their last night together, create hooks that draw in the reader, but it’s the smooth pacing and well-drawn characters that elevate the book. The community’s class animosity is realistic and stark but, as in life, is never fully resolved. When Michael gives Julia’s poems about Colt to the student literary journal, Colt and Julia’s secret is finally revealed. It’s a moving portrait of grief and the sharp societal lines that divide. Ages 12–up. (Jan.)

Booklist

With this debut novel, Hubbard has crafted a fine addition to the pantheon of YA literature.

More Reviews (3) Fewer Reviews

School Library Journal

Gr 10 Up—Colt and Julia are keeping their relationship a secret: his wrong-side-of-the-tracks (or in this case, wrong part of the mountain) friends would have thought he was a sellout, and her rich friends would have accused her of slumming. No one would have understood, especially not Julia's wealthy boyfriend. But when she dies in a car accident, the distance that always existed between the secret couple becomes unbearable. Colt stays quiet about his connection to Julia, and consequently about his profound grief. When Julia's brother gives him the diary she kept during the clandestine relationship, he begins to better understand her true feelings, her intentions, and her struggles. Though it becomes clear that her attraction to him was genuine, not all of the insight that he gains is positive. As he struggles to move forward, he is caught between two worlds: the intensity of his secret past and the promise of a more honest future, neither of which feels entirely real. In this provocative debut novel, the relationship described—told in flashbacks and journal entries—is both tortured and electric, the teens as perfect together as they are absolutely wrong for one another. A few clichéd lines mar an otherwise satisfying tale of a powerful emotional connection amid the realities and pressures of a deep-seated socioeconomic divide.—Jennifer Miskec, Longwood University, Farmville, VA

Kirkus Reviews

The news that there had been a car accident on the Black Mountain Road was not as surprising to Colt as who was killed: Julia. The people living in the flats, like Colt, do not mix with the privileged families who live on Black Mountain. Julia had it all-a rich boyfriend, an expensive car and a membership at the country club-but the one thing she wanted was Colt. They spent a year meeting in secret, talking about their lives, wading in the dark river and making out in Julia's car. But when she dies, Colt has only her journal to help him mourn the loss of a relationship he is not sure he even had. Stocked with stereotypes, such as the hard-drinking, insensitive father, the overprivileged, misunderstood rich girl and the bad boy to whom she runs, this novel barely makes it out of the gates before it becomes mired in cliche. A too-familiar plot and inexperienced writing combine to create a story that is at best forgettable and at worst regrettable. (Fiction. 14 & up)

Children's Literature

A lot can change in one year, a lesson which Colt learns the hard way. There are two types of people in Colt's world: those that live on Black Mountain and those that live at their feet on the flats, a sharp divide which is rarely if ever crossed. And yet Colt and Julia manage to span the gulf, keeping their relationship a secret from their friends for an entire year, something Colt manages to continue after Julia's death. But nothing remains a secret forever and it is barely a year later that the entire school learns of Julia's and Colt's relationship. While most people refuse to believe that Julia would stoop so low as to have anything to do with someone who lives on the flats, the revelation is enough to spur Colt to action and helps him realize he needs to let go of his obsession with Julia. While Colt struggles to remove Julia's grip on his life, he learns a great deal about himself and the ties that bind him to the people in his life. Reviewer: Danielle Williams

Product Details

ISBN-13: 9780142417799
Publisher: Penguin Group (USA) Incorporated
Publication date: 12/23/2010
Pages: 208
Sales rank: 92,802
Age range: 13 - 17 Years
Lexile: HL650L (what's this?)
Product dimensions: 7.38 (w) x 11.70 (h) x 0.62 (d)

Meet the Author

Jennifer R. Hubbard lives and writes in Wyncote, Pennsylvania. The Secret Year is her first book.

Read an Excerpt

Alone in my room that afternoon, I placed the notebook on my bed and stared at it for a minute. It wasn’t that I was debating whether to read it. I knew I was going to read it. But at the same time, I was scared. What the hell had she written?

I flipped open the cover.

Dear C. M., I had to write this down because I don’t believe what just happened. If anyone had told me this morning that we would do what we did down by the bridge, I would’ve thought they were crazy. But it happened. Maybe that’s why I want to write about it. I need to make it real.

I didn’t even notice you much last year, when you were in Calvert’s class. You sat in the back and kept your mouth shut. But tonight it felt like you could see right into me, like you knew what I was going to say next. That never happens with Austin. What I have with him doesn’t go far enough.

I have to break up with him now. All I want is to be back with you, standing thigh-deep in the river, feeding you my tongue.

I closed the book. She had a pretty good way of describing that first time we kissed. That didn’t surprise me, since I knew she liked to write. She wrote poems, and she’d even shown me some. Most of them were about her family or nature or something like that, poems she could hand in or publish in the school magazine. There were a few poems that she showed to me but not to her English teacher. Poems about nights we spent together. Why hadn’t she ever shown me this notebook, though? She was supposedly writing to me, after all.

“Standing thigh-deep in the river, feeding you my tongue.” I couldn’t get that phrase out of my head now. That’s the way it happened, all right.

That night I’d been on one of my rambles, walking along the riverbank from where it ran behind my house down to the bridge. Higgins Farm Road was just a two-lane street, its bridge nothing more than a low-railinged bump in the road. They should’ve made the bridge higher; it flooded every time we had a storm. It made a good meeting place because everyone knew where it was, and when you went under it you were out of sight of the road. And there were streetlamps, so it was never totally dark.

Kids did party there sometimes, and they had marked the bridge’s underside with so much spray paint that you couldn’t read any of it anymore. But most partiers liked the vacant lots on Oldgate Road better. That was especially true when the riverbank was muddy. Since it had rained a lot that week, I didn’t expect to see anyone at the bridge.

I had good boots, so I didn’t mind the ooze and muck. In fact, I kind of liked it. Everything smelled wet. When I got to the bridge, I saw a shiny car parked off to the side of the road. Then I noticed a girl standing up to her knees in the river. She wore a black dress, which she had hoisted up so she could wade deeper.

“What are you doing?” I called out. Ordinarily, I would’ve left without letting her see me. I didn’t feel much like talking to anyone that night. But this was so strange—a girl wading into the river all alone in a fancy party dress—that I figured I should speak up. In case she was trying to drown herself or something.

She looked over her shoulder at me. The dress had a low back, and her white skin was the same color as the moon. “Who the hell wants to know?” she laughed.

I recognized her then. I knew a lot of Black Mountain kids by sight, even if we never talked, because they were in some of my classes. She was a year older than me, but she’d been in my math and science classes. “You going swimming, Julia?”

“Sure.” She kicked up a foot, spraying drops. “Who are you?” She squinted at me. “Oh, I know you. You were in my math class last year. But I don’t remember your name.”

“Colt Morrissey.”

“Right. You live around here?” She swept out an arm like she was welcoming me to the neighborhood, like it was perfectly normal to be standing in the Willis River in the middle of the night.

“Yeah. But you don’t. What are you doing here?” She’d let go of her dress, and the bottom of it dragged in the water. “You always wear that to come wash your feet?”

She ran her hands down the top of her dress, the sides of her hips, her thighs. “You like black satin? I thought it would be nice for a dip in the river.”

“Okay. Just so you’re not drowning yourself or anything.” I hadn’t meant to say it that bluntly, but after talking to her for a couple of minutes I still had no idea what she was doing, and it made me nervous.

“Drown myself? Over Austin Chadwick?” Her laugh made me shiver—something about the way it tore out of her throat, like it shouldn’t be a laugh at all. “Yeah, that’ll happen.”

I didn’t know what to say. I didn’t want to hear about Chadwick. I figured that she’d come here to cool off after having a fight with him. “Your dress is getting wet.”

“I could take it off.” She smirked, but when I didn’t say anything, her mouth softened. “You know, when I said that, your eyes didn’t even bug out of your head. I like that.” She held out a hand. “Come join me?”

“In the water?”

“Well, that’s where I am.”

I don’t know why I did it. I took off my boots, because they were good boots and I didn’t want to fill them with river water. I took off my socks, too. Then I waded out to her. My jeans got soaked and heavy, clinging to my legs. “Happy now?”

She couldn’t stop laughing. “I can’t believe you did it.”

“Why not?” My toes sank into the velvety silt floor of the river. It felt slick, oily. I hoped we wouldn’t step on any of the broken glass or rusted cans I sometimes found here. Looking down at her legs, I said, “Aren’t you worried about leeches?”

She shrugged. “They don’t hurt. I’d just peel them off.”

I’d never thought a princess from Black Mountain would say anything like that. That was when I started to like her.

We stood a few feet apart. The river swirled gently around our legs. “What are you doing down here?” she asked. “You always come to the bridge at night?”

“Night, daytime, whenever.” It was none of her business what I was doing here. “I like it here.”

“This town isn’t that big,” she said. “There can’t possibly be two of us who just like to come look at the river at night.”

“Then what do you think I’m doing? Meeting my fellow secret agents? Passing them my latest surveillance notes?”

She laughed and scooped up a handful of black water. “It’s like liquid ebony,” she said, and it ran through her fingers. “There was this dance tonight up at the country club. Austin got drunk. He thinks it’s fun to spend five hours hanging over a toilet bowl.” She shook her wet hand, spraying me with drops of the river. “I mean, God, when he gets drunk I can’t even talk to him! He can’t follow a conversation. He can’t kiss without slobbering.”

“Austin the Teenage Alcoholic,” I said. “It would make a great TV movie.”

“Ohhh, listen to that sarcasm. You don’t like him.”

“Why should I like him?”

She shrugged. “You’re right. There’s no reason you should.” She turned away from me, and the breeze caught her hair. “Anyway, it’s not like I’ve never been drunk myself. But there’s a difference between a little buzz and all-out drooling sloppy.”

“Don’t worry,” I said. “If he needs it, I’m sure his daddy will buy him a new liver.”

She turned back around. I thought maybe I’d gone too far with that one, and she’d slap me or something, but she grinned instead. “You think he’s got everything, don’t you?”

That one didn’t even need an answer.

“Colt,” she said, teasing, scolding. “If you’re lucky, you should know you’re lucky.”

That was exactly how I’d always felt about the people who lived on Black Mountain. But I’d never put it into words before, or heard anyone else put it into words. “You talking about Austin?”

“I’m talking about you.”

“Me?”

“You don’t believe it? You need me to tell you how?” She stepped closer to me. “I could go with the obvious, tell you how someone sleeping on the street would be glad to live in your house. Or how a ninety-year-old with a walker would love to be seventeen like you.”

“Sixteen,” I interrupted. I wanted to choke myself as soon as I said it. It wasn’t even exactly true; at that point I was still a couple of weeks shy of sixteen. I knew she was seventeen, though.

“Whatever. But I won’t even go that basic. I can tell you how you’re luckier than Austin Chadwick.”

“This ought to be good.”

She took another couple of steps toward me, close enough now that I could smell her shampoo, a soapy peach scent that I got to know very well later. She counted on her fingers. They were long and white, with perfectly curved nails. I wanted to touch them, but I didn’t. “One, you’re smarter than Austin. Two, you’re probably not an alcoholic. Three, you’re better looking than he is. Four, you’ve got the balls to wade out into the Willis River with me.”

“That’s some list.”

She laughed low in her throat and took one more step, and now I could feel the heat coming off her skin. “You still think Austin has it better than you? You’d rather be sprawled out on the floor of the country club men’s room than here with me?”

“Not especially.”

That’s when she kissed me.

I’d had a girlfriend the year before—Jackie—my first real girlfriend. She’d moved away over the summer. We’d done everything together, but the first time I kissed Julia, I felt like I hadn’t done anything. Julia’s mouth was hot and the river was cold and her satin dress was so smooth it didn’t even seem to be there.

“Five,” she said, breathing hard, “you’re a much better kisser than Austin.”

Customer Reviews

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harstan

Posted November 14, 2009

more from this reviewer

strong teen relationship drama

Sixteen years old Colt relaxes in his room when he gets a call from Syd who tells him that Julia Vernon died in a car accident. Neither Syd nor their friends knew that Colt and Julia were secretly seeing one another for the past year. They hid their relationship because she was from the Black Mountain country club wealthy set and he was from the dirt poor flats.

Both of them enjoyed sex and being with each other every Friday night, but had to ignore one another in school. Her brother gives Colt Julia's diary because almost every entry involves him, and how much she wanted to be with him; yet also relished being part of the in-crowd even though that meant her public boyfriend was Austen who she did not like. Colt reads the diary and wonders who Julia really was and how will he move on without her as he struggles to get on with his life while grieving in silence.

First love can prove disconcerting under ideal conditions, but when social, economic, race, religious difference also are part of the relationship, it can prove extremely difficult. Colt and Julia had a tough time of it due to the social class differences between them. Readers get to know Julia through the mindset of people like Colt but mostly via her dairy; she was a troubled teen unable to break down her feelings for Colt from her need for social acceptance by her peers. Colt is disturbed by how much he cared for Julia as he has to still conceal his feelings especially his grief as the other man and still find a way to move on. The Secret Year is a strong teen relationship drama.

Harriet Klausner

4 out of 4 people found this review helpful.
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The_Book_Vixen

Posted April 10, 2010

Great debut novel!

Colt and Julia couldn't have been more opposite thanks to their social differences. Julia's the rich girl who has everything she wants; the friends, a car, the country-club boyfriend. Everything except true happiness. Colt is just the poor boy living on the wrong side of the tracks. Yet, they had been in a "relationship" for the past year, up until Julia was killed in a car accident. Romeo and Juliet - meet The Outsiders.

"Julia was killed on Labor Day on her way home from a party. I didn't get to see her that night. I used to meet her on Friday nights...We'd meet on the banks of the river, clutch at each other in the backseat of her car, steam up her windows.We did all that for a year, and nobody else knew."

After Julia's death, Colt is left to grieve alone and secretly because his relationship with Julia was not known. In fact, Julia had a boyfriend - Austin. Colt and Julia's was the type of relationship that didn't have strings. Colt detached himself emotionally from Julia, that is until she died. Up until that point, Colt was completely disconnected in the relationship. To him, it was just sex.at least that's what he thought.

Following Julia's death, Colt went through a roller coaster of emotions. Michael, Julia's brother, gives Colt a notebook. It's Julia's journal where she penned letters addressed to a C.M., letting go of her emotions and feelings. This notebook has such an effect on Colt. He learns things about Julia that he never knew. He doesn't devour the notebook; instead he takes it in very slowly, absorbing each memory and emotion from a different point of view, through Julia's eyes.

I had been anticipating the release of The Secret Year since last year. Hubbard did a wonderful job telling the story from the male POV. I like that even though Julia is dead from the very beginning, I still got a sneak peek at her side of things. The story isn't completely one-sided which gives it depth. The unique premise caught my attention and I had to read this book. Affairs happen all the time but the only time we think about them is when they become not-so-secret, which makes The Secret Year believable.

I love the cover of this book! The girl and the guy kissing at the bottom of the book, being secretive. The girl has her eyes open just a bit, like she's looking at him, watching his reaction. You can barely see the guy's face. His eyes are hidden by his wispy hair. It's almost like he's just an illusion. Another thing I liked about this book is the multiple meanings behind the title. Every time I read a book, one of my main goals is to figure out the meaning behind the title. Authors go to great lengths to capture the essence of their book in one short sentence. Or sometimes even just a single word. And when an author nails the title right on the head, especially when there is more than one meaning behind it, I truly appreciate that.

The Secret Year was a great, fast-paced read at just under 200 pages. I was so excited to get this book in my hot, little hands. The Secret Year is a great debut novel. When I was done reading the book, I was glad I read it but at the same time I didn't want it to end. I can't wait to see what Hubbard comes up with next.

1 out of 1 people found this review helpful.
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Sourcerella

Posted January 7, 2010

An interesting plot that makes you think

The concept of the book is really interesting, making it a read that I didn't want to put down. I received an advanced copy of this book a few months ago and I couldn't wait for the book to be published so I could recommend it to friends.

1 out of 1 people found this review helpful.
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Anonymous

Posted April 10, 2012

The book was really funny, but I wish it was longer.

The book was really funny, but I wish it was longer.
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StalkinTheBooks

Posted April 4, 2012

more from this reviewer

The premise for this book is what hooked me, and I read it quick

The premise for this book is what hooked me, and I read it quickly, but it just didn't quite live up to my expectations and I really wanted to love it. First off, I think the book was a little to short, its just under 200 pages and there's so much going on with Colt emotionally, that I wish it could have been longer. Since everything is told from Colt's POV, I felt more emotionally connected to him. The author writes Colt in such an honest and masculine way that even when Colt is being a jerk, he still comes across as a likable guy dealing with a personal lose.

Julia was hard for me to relate to, I thought she came across as selfish and shallow. I could never quite understand why she kept doing some of the things she did. She would say one thing and then do something else, part of this might have to do with the fact that you only ever hear her voice through the journal. I think I might have been able to relate or at least like Julia more, if I could have seen her and Colt's relationship before the accident, instead of getting all of it through Colt's memories and Julia's journal entries.

I really enjoyed the way that Jennifer wrote Colt's relationship with his family, it was very realistic. Most teenage boys keep a lot to themselves, so it didn't surprise me that his parents were oblivious to what was going on with him. I also really liked all the scenes with Colt and his brother, you could tell that they were close, but never really completely open with each other. Some of Colt's friends seemed rather cliche' but Syd, Kirby and Michael were definitely well round character dealing with their own personal issues. I liked how each one of them brought out a different emotional trigger in Colt, that would make him think of Julia. Overall I thought the novel was pretty good, the premise was pretty original and I think that Colt is a very realistic male character. If it wasn't for Julia being so unlikable I think I might have given it a higher rating.
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Anonymous

Posted January 10, 2012

I thought it was a great book like a this generation version of "The OutSiders" but with a twist... love
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Michelle423

Posted November 10, 2011

I Also Recommend:

Touching

Colt is from the wrong side of the track or in this case low side of the hill. Julia is from the high class upper hill. When these two meet for the first time they instantly had a connection. It was a connection no one knew it existed for a whole year. Unfortunately Julia died unexpectedly and Colt is forced to deal with his grief in silence. Colt ends up with Julia¿s journal full of entries of their experiences together. He had no idea what those entries would do to him. He relieved each moment they shared only turning into an obsession with the dead girl, Julia. Where¿s the sense in reliving these moments if it doesn¿t bring her back . This story tells a compelling story of a young man trying to deal with his emotions. It was well written and different from the other YA books I have read. My only wish was this book could¿ve used more pages to the ending.
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murphyslibrary

Posted June 5, 2011

The Secret Year

from Murphy's Library - rated 3 and a half there

Colt and Julia meets one day, around the bridge close to Colt's house. She's the rich girl from school, he's just the ordinary teenager she usually ignores at school. But for some reason, she sees something different on him that night. They talk-and they have fun together, and soon they can't stop seeing each other. But Julia has a boyfriend-a rich kid, like her, someone her family knows and likes-, and Colt agrees with no string attached, he's perfectly fine with that. He knows there's no room for him on her family, and he can't really see Julia on his family either, so they're doing well with their deal. Nobody knows, not even their best friends, and they keep doing this for an entire year.

And then Julia dies in a car accident, she's with her best friend, on her way home after a party. Colt hears the news, and he's in shock. She won't meet him at the bridge every Friday night anymore. They won't talk about nothing and everything. She won't pretend to ignore him at school anymore. There's just this empty hole on his chest. And he can't talk to anyone about it.

Until one day when, at school, Michael, Julia's brother, comes to talk to him. At first, he's not sure exactly what are Michael intentions, but soon the boy starts to talk: he's found a journal between Julia's belongings, a journal with letters she wrote to Colt. He starts to relive his relationship with Julia through her letters-and finds out what she thought about them and what they were through. Would Colt ever get over her?

I read The Secret Year in a couple of hours, and I finished it with a smile in my lips. At first I thought I wouldn't like it, because this kind of story always brings a moral-that cliché that we're going to be fine, we're going to get over and move on, Colt would probably meet another girl and fall in love with her and be happy. I kinda avoid reading this kind of story, because I loved someone who died in a stupid way like that, he was just starting his life and everything was taken away from him. It's been almost 6 years now, but still hurts-and, to be honest, I think it will hurt forever. Some days it hurts more, some days less, and that's it: life goes on.

I don't think Colt would ever get over Julia. What they had was just theirs, their relationship was something they kept to both of them, and they were fine with that-most part of the time, at least. But they didn't have the chance to move forward, and she'll always be special to him, some way. Of course, I think he'd fall for another girl and try to be happy, but no one can ever replace Julia on his heart, because of the "what if".
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Abby_Cadabbys

Posted June 4, 2011

more from this reviewer

Not that bad.

I bought the book to read while on a flight, and I found it ok. Nothing too spectacular. Not really a page turner, there was nothing that happened that you couldn't figure out or find out within a page or two. I liked the style it was written in, and that it was a quick read.
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StoryboundGirl

Posted May 31, 2011

Solid Debut

The basic premise of a boy and a girl from opposite worlds/classes/situations is nothing new, but the way this one plays out certainly is. Once I started reading, I couldn't stop. I surprised myself, even, with how much I felt for the main character, Colton. He's intense and desperate and sad, and he's also this regular teen boy living his life. He's not rich or popular or the best looking guy in school, and sex is a part of his life.

Julie dies (not a spoiler!) and he's stuck with a hole in his life that no one knows exists. Except him. He's left with questions that will never be answered: Would Julia ever have dated him openly? Would their hook-up relationship have faded into nothing eventually? Colt doesn't know and now he never will, and neither will the reader. THE SECRET YEAR follows him as he comes to terms with the aftermath of Julia's death and what's been left behind, and figures out who he wants to be.

This is a solid debut for Jennifer Hubbard, and I look forward to more books of hers in the future.

See more of my reviews at StoryboundGirl {dot} com.
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Anonymous

Posted April 18, 2011

Highly Recommended!!!

An amazing book with an amazing story line! THis story definatley moved me in an unforgetable way. I would recommend this for teenagers. I am very particular with what i read and i need a book that keeps me on edge wondering whats gonna happen next, and this is definately one of those books! a great twist on a romance! The book had a good pace and never once got boring. It was amazing and i couldnt put it down until it was over. Although wasnt too happy with the ending. Please read you will enjoy it!
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tesla93

Posted February 25, 2011

Great Read.

I loved reading this book. It moves pretty quickly, and keeps you reading. It is a original story, and is not a repeat of other well known romances of young love. The writer really captures the emotions of all the characters without making it boring. I really enjoyed this book, and recommened it.
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Sarah7498

Posted February 24, 2011

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The Secret Year

I understand how someone could completely hate The Secret Year. Julia could seem like a total b**** because she is demanding of Colt to keep their relationship a secret, there's a lot of sneaking around, and the teens are participating in 'more adult' activities. It didn't seem that way to me. I love books from guy perspectives and 'after' books such as The Secret Year. Still, it just wasn't what I had expected it would be.
The Secret Year is one of those books you have to pay complete and total attention to; which means reading in a quiet place when you don't have much on your mind. Of course, I'm saying this because that happened to me. I had started writing the review, basically saying how much I wanted to love this book and how sad I was that I didn't, when I decided to give it another chance. So, I locked myself in my room and read the whole book straight through. Overall, I did enjoy this book; but it was hard to understand at times.
The characters. Oh, how I loved the characters. Colt and Julia were together for a year, a whole year no one else knew about, a year that started as a physical desire and turned into something much more. With Julia gone, Colt has to deal with the emotion and grief her death provoked alone and hidden from the outside world. I just loved Colt. His personality got to me (I admit I developed some sort of a crush on him) and I found myself living inside his head time and time again. Though Julia was dead from the start, she exists within her letters and Colt's memories; where we get to know and understand her. Besides Colt, she is the star of the novel. I really liked her because although she was rich and popular, she wasn't shallow and stupid; instead she wrote brilliant poetry, was really smart, real, and strong.
The plot of The Secret Year was beautiful and Hubbard's writing was great, but (I'm very sad to say) it didn't outshine the flaws of the story. I found myself disappointed with the ending, as well as a little confused. Despite this, I'm eagerly looking forward to her next novel.
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jessbierschied

Posted February 7, 2011

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The Secret Year

SECRET YEAR, by Jennifer R. Hubbard goes in-depth with one boy's obsession with a girl he was secretly with for a year, not a single person knew about them together, so when she dies in a car accident he can't take her off his mind.

I was impressed with the concept of this book, it was slow in some areas for me, and I'm usually one for happy endings that have a resolution, but this one ended kind of abruptly with some questions left unanswered.

The main character Colt's obsession with Julia, the dead girl, seemed a little off to me, but at the same time it was kind of cute. And when Colt's best friend moves in on him, things get weird for him because he isn't over Julia yet, and it's his best friend! I found that I could relate to that and I'm sure a lot of other people could as well.

When Kirby comes into play, it's unexpected that Colt starts to fall for her, especially since she is dating Julia's younger brother. Their relationship begins to develop, and eventually Kirby frees herself of a boyfriend and starts with Colt. I liked how their relationship developed but I would have liked to see a continuation of what happens with them. I think with just a few more pages or maybe an epilogue to finish up whats happens.
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BooksWithBite

Posted August 1, 2010

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The Secret Year

The Secret year is one book that I enjoyed being on in the secret. Colt for a whole year dated Julia while she was with another guy. Suddenly with her death, Colt not sure how he should react.

I felt so sad for Colt. He was hurting and yet he could not even show it. He was in pain and was upset over people who were mourning Julia because he felt like they didn't even know her well enough. Colt and Julia did love one another but circumstances didn't allow to share their love with the world. They both were different. Colt was poor while Julia was high class.

Colt goes on through the year remembering times with Julia. They way they spent their time together hanging out when no one else knew. Jennifer did a great job keeping this book in suspense and by that I mean the reader. While I was reading this, I was dying to know if the secret relationship between Colt and Julia would get out. I won't spoil it, but it was something to read through.

Jennifer Hubbard's The Secret Year is definitly a great read. I enjoyed being a part of the secret. I love the romance between the two characters. The only thing I did not like was the shortness od the book. I wanted more of the book. More of the relationship between Colt and Julia.
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Nikkayme

Posted May 25, 2010

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Breathtaking Story of Love, Loss, and Life

Colt and Julia come from opposite ends of the hierarchy. Julia is from Black Mountain and has money, while Colt is from the flats and has a family who just gets by. For an entire year Colt and Julia have a secret relationship; a secret friendship, a secret life, a whole secret year together. When Julia suddenly dies in a car accident, Colt has to live with his secret life and the memory of his secret girl.

The Secret Year isn't a traditional love story and it certainly isn't Romeo and Juliet. Colt and Julia aren't two kids who were in love on opposite sides of feuding families; no one even realized they knew each other. Colt and Julia were two kids living their lives and falling in love along the way. Julia's sudden death leaves Colt as an almost broken boy trying to deal with his secret year and his secret life with his secret girl whose death riddles him with guilt.

Colt is such a strong, passionate character. I could really feel his honesty and how genuine a person he was. When I was reading The Secret Year, I felt like I was there with Colt, in his head, feeling every emotion he felt, and it was heartrending and powerful. There were many passages in the book that had me overwhelmed with emotion because Colt is so overwhelmed. He loved Julia and now that she's gone, he doesn't really know how to cope. Having a secret relationship with her won't allow him to truly deal with her death.

Colt attempts to deal with Julia's death by reading her journal. Julia's journal entries are a nice peek into her life, but we only seem to know the Julia who's with Colt. I never felt a huge connection to her, but I couldn't bring myself to hate her like some people do. Through journal entries and Colt's memories, we see the layers of Julia that Colt both loved and hated. We see the Julia who wasn't sure what she wanted and didn't know if she could end things with her Black Mountain boyfriend to have something real with Colt, we see the Julia who is wild and vivacious and completely carefree, and then we see the Julia who wants to love Colt completely, but isn't sure if she can. Meeting Julia is like peeling the layers off of an onion. The more layers Colt peeled off, the more emotional the story became.

Reading this was a very intense experience for me. I knew the story wasn't going to have this warm, happy ending, so turning each page was almost a bittersweet experience. Colt's loss was my loss and his pain was my pain. And while the storyline is predictable at times, the message is strong and the writing is impeccable. Julia's death forces Colt to realize that being an outsider and a poor kid doesn't really matter; that first loves aren't necessarily forever and that life does go on after death. Hubbard has done a stunning job weaving this intricate and breathtaking story of love, loss, and life.

Opening line:
Julia was killed on Labor Day on her way home from a party.
Favorite line(s): I'm caught between two passages, so here's both:
I should've known there are always strings. They'd slipped around my wrists and knotted up before I'd even noticed. They still pulled at me, still chafed.

At the end, we'd both been pushing at the walls of our secret world, pushing at each other.
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Nan_W

Posted April 9, 2010

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How do you grieve with no one to talk to?

This is not quite the novel I expected it to be--but it is the novel I wished it would be. And that's a good, good, thing.

As the novel opens, Colt has just learned that Julia has died in a car accident right before her senior year was set to begin. It was a stupid, tragic accident, and Colt is horrified. As the title implies, he had had a secret affair with her for a year. She was a wealthy girl in their economically divided town, and he was poor. She had a boyfriend--another rich boy--and she promised to leave him. Both Colt and Julia knew these promises were lies, but they were also necessary.

This is the story of what happens after Julia's death. Colt is grieving, but he cannot acknowledge it in public. Not even his friends knew of this affair. After school resumes, Julia's brother approaches Colt and gives him a journal of sorts that Julia had been keeping. It was in the form of letters to Colt, although as he realizes, the Colt of these letters is not the same person as he is. Just as Colt had glorified Julia in his mind, she had done the same to him.

This is the story of moving through grief and finding a life beyond it. It's a story of love and identity and the ways that you can be twisted to conform to your community.

This is a great story, and I recommend it highly.
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Casey88

Posted January 31, 2010

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The Secret Year by Jennifer Hubbard

This was a great debut. It was especially nice to read a story from a male's perspective. I loved the idea of Colt learning about how Julia truly felt from reading her diary, which was basically a bunch of letters written to him. And they way Hubbard portrayed Colt and Julia's "relationship" throughout the novel, made it that much more believable for me.

Throughout the book, Colt struggles to make sense of the "relationship" he had with Julia, and whether or not to tell someone about it. But the question was: would anyone even believe him? I think Colt was a strong person - being able to keep such a secret for a year and then even after her death. If it were me in his shoes, I would have thrown it in Austin's, Julia's boyfriend, face just to shut him up!

I definitely recommend reading The Secret Year if you ever get a chance to. It was such a great story.
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No1NewAuthor

Posted January 26, 2010

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AMAZING!!!! Go and get it now!

The premise was simple but soooo captivating! Please do yourself a favor... go and buy it! I bought it yesterday night and by this after noon, I finished it. The writing was so smooth and clean that it read quickly. To the point that I had come to the last page and didn't even realize it until I read the last word. I didn't want it to end. I have one warning: The subject matter is a little more grown up... 17yrs and up. Not the kind of book you want your tween reading.
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TeensReadToo

Posted January 13, 2010

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Reviewed by Cat for TeensReadToo.com

While family and friends are still reeling over the Labor Day car accident that took senior high school student Julia Vernon's life, Colt is trying to figure out how to mourn her loss and the absence of their year-long, secret relationship.

How does he grieve for the girl who was never really his, yet who he knew in a way no one else did? Colt is shocked when, one day at school, Julia's brother hands him a journal detailing the course of their relationship, as he simultaneously relives the past *and* works to move forward.

Intertwined with the present are a series of flashbacks prompted by Julia's diary. We learn the details of their affair, how deeply divided their class/societal divides ran, and how those hostilities culminate among their small town's youth in the aftermath of Julia's demise.

This is a novel for outsiders - and when ultimately stripped of our outward trappings, aren't we all outsiders? Jennifer Hubbard captures the trauma and agony of the achingly grim slowness that is high school with honesty and blistering clarity.

THE SECRET YEAR sharply portrays those years of being torn between who/what others perceive us to be, who we really are, and how hard it can be to reconcile two such seemingly disparate halves of the whole, not to mention the overwhelming sense of impossibility that looms when trying to break free of that social image. And finally, she perfectly renders the pain of first love, the hope that it will be forever, and the heartache of learning it's only the first step into a much larger world.
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strong teen relationship drama

Great debut novel!

An interesting plot that makes you think

The book was really funny, but I wish it was longer.

The premise for this book is what hooked me, and I read it quick

Touching

The Secret Year

Not that bad.

Solid Debut

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Great Read.

The Secret Year

The Secret Year

The Secret Year

Breathtaking Story of Love, Loss, and Life

How do you grieve with no one to talk to?

The Secret Year by Jennifer Hubbard

AMAZING!!!! Go and get it now!

Reviewed by Cat for TeensReadToo.com