The Secret Year is a realistic fiction young adult novel that follows Colt through his junior year of high school. Labor day weekend, he lost the secret love of his life in a car accident. Although they were in love, no one was allowed to know. He was from the flats, and she was from one of the huge houses up on Black Mountain. Throughout his junior year, Colt faces his grief in secret, reading her journal entries written about their time together, allowing him to relive the best year of his life, the one with Julia. While he is juggling grief and school, he also picks up a job and tries to make a social life that resembles normal, but it's not easy for him. Towards the end of the book, Colt realizes it's not his fault Julia died, and he does need to own up to all the lies he’s told and secrets he’s kept from his friends, family and his new girlfriend, Kirby. My favorite part of the book is the river, and how Colt always returns to the river to get things out of his head, to celebrate or to grieve. This book was a fast read (only 192 pages), but it didn’t feel incomplete. I feel like I completely understand Colt’s life story, point of view and feelings. I would recommend this book to any high school students who love romance books, and a good old forbidden lovers troupe.