The Secret Year is a YA romance novel which strives for literary credibility, yet there is very little romance, and the writing never comes close to being classified at literature.
The story is narrated by Colt Morrissey, a boy from the poor section of town called "the flats", who had a year long secret affair with Julia, a rich girl who lived on the affluent heights of the heavenly Black Mountain. The two met roughly once a week down by a river in the flats. Mostly for sex, but sometimes they'd talk. Colt and Julia were not in a relationship since she had a boyfriend she was unwilling to break up with, and Colt wanted nothing more than their physical liaison (which makes his later devastation with her and claims of love for her unbelievable).
Shortly after her accidental death in a car accident, Julia's brother gives Colt her journal/letters addressed to C. M. (Colt Morrissey). Over the next few months, Colt reads through the journal as his life goes on without her. He can't get over her death and behaves as though it was a life altering event for him, even though his life is little different than it was when they were together as their time together was often infrequent and each liaison lasted only a few hours, if that.
At the end of the story, despite having dated two other girls in the space of only a few months (both relationships end because Colt's refusal to let go of Julia's memory) and getting rid of Julia's diary, the reader is left feeling that Colt will never let go of Julia, and that this brief, superficial affair will determine his decisions for the remainder of his life.
The dialogue in The Secret Year is often unrealistic and amateurish. I'm surprised most of it got past the editor it's so bad. The narrative is better, but not by much.
Colt Morrissey, the main character/narrator, is unlikable and weak. He whines and complains more than Louis in Interview with the Vampire. Colt is from a bad neighborhood, the type where one has to be tough and ready to rumble; yet the author fails to capture this aspect of his character, and there is no difference between him and the rich kids used to form a contrast, other than the setting in which he lives.
The reader is given three sides to Julia, yet none of them are ever revealed as the truth. We see her mostly through Colt's "love" stricken eyes as the perfect goddess who comes down from her lofty heights to spend a few hours with Colt. Yet this persona does not quite ring true. In the few diary entries the reader is made privy to (and which are too sparsely scattered throughout the book considering how important the journal is to be), Julia "sounds" completely different than she does in her dialogue in her scenes with Colt; but we do get a sense of her as a "normal" though unreal sounding teenage girl.
We get a few other glimpses of Julia through other characters, but this Julia is a cold, heartless villain who was using Colt to satisfy her own psychological hang ups. However, this Julia is probably closer to the truth.
The other characters that populate the novel are as flavorful as a strip of cardboard, and as thin as a flake of onion skin. (Examples: alcoholic, homophobic father who is rarely present, mother who for no apparent reason has chosen Colt as her arch nemesis and spends every scene she's in belittling or beleaguering her son.) This is unfortunate because all of these shallowly formed denizens of The Secret Year seem more interesting than the main character.
Even for a first novel, this book disappoints. It did not take long to read, though, so at least not too much of my time was wasted.
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