The Secret Year ~ Jennifer R. Hubbard

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? [Summary from Amazon]

Colt would be the first to tell you: what he had with Julia Vernon, their year long, hushed relationship, was nothing like Romeo and Juliet’s doomed affair. It’s true that Colt was from the flats, Julia from Black Mountain, and never the two should have hooked up. But here’s the thing: Romeo, at least, was convinced of Juliet’s love. Even after reading the epistolary notebook Julia kept, Colt couldn’t say the same.

While not as emotionally gripping as I anticipated and wanted it to be, The Secret Year was both sexy and saddening. Julia’s letters to Colt were written with the overwhelming headiness the teenage years tend to impress upon us, most especially regarding lust, love, and sex. Hubbard didn’t hold back, she didn’t cage Julia’s letters with modesty, but instead gave Colt and the reader lines like this: “All I want is to be back with you, standing thigh-deep in the river, feeding you my tongue.” (15) Colt turns that phrase – feeding you my tongue – over in his mind, absorbing the words with the same awareness he had of that first kiss with Julia. That line isn’t the only example, not the only turn of phrase that gets under your skin, portraying Colt’s relationship with Julia as something not quite romantic, but raw.

The sadness, when it comes, is not so much prompted by  Julia’s death. It’s more because she left behind so many questions that Colt can only guess the answer to. Her letters, though addressed to Colt and filled with the excruciating, exhilarating details of  their sexual relationship, continually intones another name: Austin. Julia’s Black Mountain boyfriend. The guy perfect for her because he belonged to the same country club, because her parent’s loved him, and because, quite frankly, everyone expected him to be the other half of a golden couple. Colt grapples with her attachment to Austin. He can’t puzzle out if she meant it all those times she said her and Austin were done. Not knowing drives him to think about her constantly, long after he’s finished her notebook, and long after she’s gone.

I appreciated just how complicated their relationship was. That’s not to say I bought every minute of it, but the parts that rang true…it was worth reading for those.

Tension between students living up on Black Mountain and those on the flats also propelled the story forward. A tagline posted somewhere – Amazon, I think – referenced The Outsiders, and that might work on the most basic level. As plot devices go, the class resentment and ensuing conflict mostly worked in The Secret Year.

If I had one problem with the story it was this: How is it possible that every girl Colt pursued had sex with him, and so quickly? I’m not saying teens don’t have sex. I’m saying that not every girl will want to or would be comfortable doing so, and yet almost every girl Colt speaks to in the book has sex with him. Really? The promiscuity wreaked havoc with the authenticity because it didn’t seem reasonable. That’s my opinion, of course; you may think nothing of it, or maybe even the exact opposite, if and when you read the book.

In the end, The Secret Year was a quick read and one with a lot of teen appeal.

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