The Secret Year by Jennifer R. Hubbard

A few weeks ago, Chapters had all sorts of books on sale and so I ordered several books to read this summer. The Secret Year was one of those books. This is the first book written by this author, and I liked parts of it. The Secret Year tells the story of Colt and Julia, two high school students who had a secret relationship for a year. Julia comes from the rich part of town and Colt is from the part of town where people don't have as much money. The story starts out at the end of their year together when Julia dies in a car crash. Colt must grieve in silence because nobody knew of the relationship. He deals with all of his feelings on his own. When Julia's brother gives him a journal that consists of letters she wrote to him over the year, Colt relives their time together. He has a hard time letting go and moving on. I liked the aspects of the story when Colt is learning to let go and move on from this relationship. I felt really bad for him having to deal with all of this on his own. However, the book also deals with the tension between the rich kids and the poor kids, which seemed a little bit like The Outsiders and books written in the 50's. The story was told pretty quickly as well, there were situations that I wanted more details or to understand how it all fits in with the great story. This is also a mature read- I wouldn't give it to kids in grade 7 or 8 unless they were very mature. I did enjoy the story, but found that it wrapped up too quickly.