The Secret Year

The Secret Year 

bu Jennifer R. Hubbard

Colt and Julia were secretly together for a year, and no one ever knew, not even Julia's boyfriend. Why would they-they were from two different crowds. Julia lived in her country club world and Colt . . . didn't. Then Julia dies in a car accident. Colt is devastated but can't mourn openly, and he's tormented that he may have played a part in her death. And when Julia's journal ends up in his hands, he is forced to relive their year together-just when he is trying to forget. The problem is, how do you get over someone who was never really yours to begin with?

(Just a note: this review contains spoilers. Granted, the book is so predictable you could probably figure out every single one on your own, but—ugh.)

Wow. So. Where do I begin?

I cannot remember the last time a book pissed me off as much as this book did. And I don't mean it in the sense that it annoyed me, but that it actually made me angry.

Let me start from the beginning: poor Colt (boring, unlikable) has been "seeing" (aka having all kinds of sex—but don't worry, they use a condom, because even though they're all horrible, selfish people, they don't want to have a baby) this rich girl named Julia (less boring, more unlikable) for a year when she dies in a car accident. Colt can't mourn her because he's scum and she had a hot boyfriend. Julia's brother gives Colt a journal of her really corny poetry and prose about them having sex.

That's it. That's the story.

Honestly, though? Nothing happens in this book. Nothing. There was absolutely no tension, nothing propelling me forward in this novel except for the desire to be able to finish the book and have the basis to write my review off of. The entire novel is basically Colt feeling guilty over something really stupid and having sex with a lot of girls. Oh, and there are some lame, pointless fights between the rich and the poor that were kind of West Side Story-ish, minus ballet. 

The characters in this novel were unbelievable in that I didn't believe one single character for a second. They were all selfish and annoying in their own way, and their motivations made no sense. Like, here's a bunch of hick boys who decide to beat up a rich kid because he's so awful, but it honestly felt like it was thrown in there for the hell of it. It was so, so pointless, and the characters all seemed like cutouts. There's the manipulative rich girl (Julia), the perfect girl who won't love him back (Kirby), the girl best friend who's loved him all along (Syd), the white trash friends (Nick, Paul), the waitress mother, the alcoholic father, the gay brother—I mean, seriously.

Oh, right. The gay brother. Tom's big coming out on Thanksgiving was probably the most cliche, overwrought, unrealistic coming out I've ever read. Period. The entire scene completely demeaned the coming out process because there was no emotion in it whatsoever. Like, hey, here's Tom who's cocky and arrogant and also gay, and here's his parents literally disowning him because they're closed-minded hicks, but they'll get over it, and at least it's a Thanksgiving to Remember! But don't worry, because Colt is okay with it, even though he "[doesn't] see how [Tom] could want to have sex with another guy, but hey, it's his life." 

I've had it wrong all this time. Apparently being a gay man is only about having sex with other guys. Thanks for the helpful insight. Oh, did I also mention his brother was into theater? Yeah. Because everyone who's gay is automatically flamboyant and artsy.

This book is also ridiculous in its views of female sexuality, as Colt is frequently referred to as having "been" with Julia--since the only thing they did was have sex, well. How lucky he was to have "been" with her. Let's not mention how at three points during the novel, one of the girls Colt's just slept with gets all emotional and leaves when he just wants to rest, because sex is hard work, and he's tired. Ah, yes, let the guy lay back while the girl overanalyzes their sexual encounter. That doesn't sound cliche at all.

I think it's clear from this website alone that we're sex positive. Sex isn't a bad thing, and I totally think that that needs to be clearer in young adult literature. Books with sex views like these are not helping the cause. 

Beside the story, I wasn't even into the writing. It was unnecessarily flowery, I couldn't tell one narration from another (Julia's journal entries are interspersed), and--actually, don't even get me started on those damn entries. The writing was supposed to be so sexy, but it honestly read like really bad fan fiction mixed with low-grade erotica. It was not hot at all, it was pretentious, and I spent more time rolling my eyes than caring about their dumb forbidden romance. You know what, though, it wasn't even forbidden. And it wasn't a romance. It was having sex in a car by a bridge. Oh, my heart's so a-flutter.

Not to mention that some basic facts of the novel are just so stupid. Like, Colt and his mother work at a family restaurant. His mom works the 4 to midnight shift. What kind of a family restaurant stays open till midnight? And throughout the entire novel, Colt acts like he feels so horribly guilty over Julia's death, BUT HE DIDN'T EVEN DO ANYTHING. NOTHING AT ALL. HE HAD SEX WITH HER AND WAS A DICK AND THAT WAS IT. At times, Julia's death felt like a device to make it acceptable for Colt to be an asshole. Which he was. Big time. But it still isn't acceptable.

Needless to say, there isn't anyone I could recommend this to. It's a fairly short book, so I guess if you feel like torturing yourself, you can give it a shot, but trust me when I say it's just not worth it. I want my $7.99 back.

THE VERDICT?