Book Review: The Secret Year + Giveaway!

The Secret Year by Jennifer R. Hubbard
Genre: Young Adult Fiction
Release Date: January 7, 2010
Publisher: Viking Juvenile
Pages: 192
Received From: Publisher

Summary: 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?

My Review: The Secret Year was quick, decent but unfortunately predictable. I liked the premise but the creativity was lacking at times. However, I did love how Jennifer started the book with this sentence, "Julia was killed on Labor Day on her way home from a party." I immediately started paying attention after that first sentence! It's straight to the point. I really enjoyed the characters as well, especially Colt. He was a simple, down to earth character that quickly won me over. Since Julia passed away on the first page, her whole personality was shown through Colt's memories/flashbacks and a notebook that Julia wrote just for him. I loved reading the passages to Colt, some were really poetic but also sensual. Their relationship was very secretive due to the fact that Julia had a boyfriend and they came from two different worlds. I felt bad for Colt because he couldn't mourn publicly because he tried to keep the secret even after her death. Overall, it's a good book but it didn't wow me.
My Rating: 4.3 out of 5
Author's Info:
Jennifer R. Hubbard grew up in New England and now lives in the Philadelphia area. She is a hiker, a chocolate lover, and a night person who believes that mornings were meant to be slept through. She's been writing since the age of six, when she used to write and illustrate her own picture books. In high school, she considered it fun to come home from school and write novels in discount spiral-bound notebooks. She had her first short story published when she was seventeen. Her short fiction has appeared in literary magazines. Her first book, the contemporary young-adult novel THE SECRET YEAR, appears from Viking in 2010.

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