Gr 10-Up Colt and Julia are keeping their relationship a secret: his wrong-side-of-the-tracks (or in this case, wrong part of the mountain) friends would have thought he was a sellout, and her rich friends would have accused her of slumming. No one would have understood, especially not Julia's wealthy boyfriend. But when she dies in a car accident, the distance that always existed between the secret couple becomes unbearable. Colt stays quiet about his connection to Julia, and consequently about his profound grief. When Julia's brother gives him the diary she kept during the clandestine relationship, he begins to better understand her true feelings, her intentions, and her struggles. Though it becomes clear that her attraction to him was genuine, not all of the insight that he gains is positive. As he struggles to move forward, he is caught between two worlds: the intensity of his secret past and the promise of a more honest future, neither of which feels entirely real. In this provocative debut novel, the relationship describedtold in flashbacks and journal entriesis both tortured and electric, the teens as perfect together as they are absolutely wrong for one another. A few clichéd lines mar an otherwise satisfying tale of a powerful emotional connection amid the realities and pressures of a deep-seated socioeconomic divide."Jennifer Miskec, Longwood University, Farmville, VA" Copyright 2010 Media Source Inc.
After Julia's death, seventeen-year-old Colt can't shake the memories of their secret relationship. His grief intensifies when he inherits Julia's journal, which recaps the year they spent together. Obsessed with "trying to keep her," Colt relives the past while withdrawing from the present until he finally learns to let go. The protagonist's realistic male voice bolsters this emotional romance.
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