The Secret Year by Jennifer R. Hubbard

Summary:

Seventeen-year-old Colt has been sneaking out at night to meet Julia, a girl from an upper-class neighborhood unlike his own. They’ve never told anyone else about their relationship: not their family or friends, and especially not Julia’s boyfriend.When Julia dies suddenly, Colt tries to cope with her death while pretending that he never even knew her. He discovers a journal she left behind. But he is not prepared for the truths he discovers about their intense relationship, nor to pay the price for the secrets he’s kept.

Review:

To say I was excited when I received this book in the mail would be a serious understatement. I was jumping around the house crazy when I saw the package on my doorstep. I've been following this book since it was titled Black Mountain Road, a book that was supposed to debut in '09 to now where it has an different title, The Secret Year, and a brand new release date, January 2010.

Anyway, getting back to The Secret Year, I had high exceptions for this. Luckily, it was great, but it was a bit short from fantastic.

When the story begins, you are thrown into Colt's life just when Julia Vernon has been killed in a tragic car accident. To anyone else this would be sad, but to Colt this is heartbreaking and life changing. You see, Colt has been secretly seeing Julia for the last year and the Friday before she died they had one fatal fight. A fight that was never fully resolved. I was instantly immersed in the novel, because I wanted to find out all about his and Julia's past relationship. It even got better when Julia's secret journal about their relationship landed in his hands, since you got to see how she felt the past year.

Colt was an interesting and well developed character that you instantly felt sad for. Throughout, I enjoyed reading about his life, though towards the middle I began to get a little sick of his bitterness over Julia dying. Bitterness that would lead to him not only hurting one girl, but two. I understood that he was devastated over her dying, but I felt that it was a bit to strung out. Luckily, I began to understand why he was the way he was at the end, because the big revaluation about Julia and his last night was finally revealed. Even though, Julia was dead from the beginning you still got to understand who she was and how she felt through the start, which another one of my favorites about The Secret Year.

Jennifer Hubbard's writing and character /plot development in The Secret Year was another strong point. I look forward to reading more by her in the future.

Overall, The Secret Year is a decent novel.

Grade: A-

The Secret Year will be released January 7, 2010.

* Source: Publisher. Thanks Emilie!