Review: The Secret Year by Jennifer R. Hubbard

Title: The Secret Year

Author: Jennifer R. Hubbard

Publisher: Viking Juvenile

Publication date: January 7th 2010

Buy the book: Amazon / Barnes and Noble

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?

(Image and summary taken from Goodreads.)

Review:

This book gave me really mixed feelings. The ending left me confused and depressed. Half the time I was reading it I wanted to chuck something at Colt and scream at him saying, "Dude! Julia's dead, let her go! She probably never loved you anyway!" What I didn't like about the book is that in the end he wasn't able to get over her properly and ended up losing great people. I disliked Julia. I thought that in a way she was only using Colt to have something interesting in her life. It's like she just wanted something in her life that was different. The story was very sad but I wouldn't call it tearjerking, just really sad. The ending was sad. The romance was sad. Though I'd have to say, kudos to Jennifer for her beautiful writing. Even though the story was (again) sad, her writing is great! You can really feel how Colt felt when he lost Julia. Especially since people didn't even know they were together, he wasn't able grieve for her properly and openly.

Though I prefer the cover of the paperback version more. (The hardback cover sort of got me in trouble in school. Haha.)

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