The Secret Year
by Jennifer Hubbard

    THE SECRET YEAR by Jennifer R. Hubbard
    Category:  Contemporary
    Age Recommendation:  Grades 9+
    Release Date:  1/7/10
    Publisher:  Viking
    Reviewed by:  Cat
    Rating:  5 Stars


    While family and friends are still reeling over the Labor Day car accident that took senior high school student Julia
    Vernon's life, Colt is trying to figure out how to mourn her loss and the absence of their year-long, secret relationship.

    How does he grieve for the girl who was never really his, yet who he knew in a way no one else did? Colt is shocked
    when, one day at school, Julia's brother hands him a journal detailing the course of their relationship, as he
    simultaneously relives the past *and* works to move forward.

    Intertwined with the present are a series of flashbacks prompted by Julia's diary. We learn the details of their affair,
    how deeply divided their class/societal divides ran, and how those hostilities culminate among their small town's youth
    in the aftermath of Julia's demise.

    This is a novel for outsiders - and when ultimately stripped of our outward trappings, aren't we all outsiders? Jennifer
    R. Hubbard captures the trauma and agony of the achingly grim slowness that is high school with honesty and
    blistering clarity.

    THE SECRET YEAR sharply portrays those years of being torn between who/what others perceive us to be, who
    we really are, and how hard it can be to reconcile two such seemingly disparate halves of the whole, not to mention
    the overwhelming sense of impossibility that looms when trying to break free of that social image. And finally, she
    perfectly renders the pain of first love, the hope that it will be forever, and the heartache of learning it's only the first
    step into a much larger world.