Keeping You a Secret

Fiction
By Julie Anne Peters
Reviewed by Emily C
Rated 3 out of 5 Stars

                              Holland Jaeger seems to be living the ideal life of a teenager.   She’s stunning, and not to mention brilliant and popular in school.   She’s on the swimming team, even thought the swimming team isn’t very good.   She’s the “it girl” and has the popular friends.   She is also the president of student council, and happens to be dating another popular teen in the school, Seth.   You’d think that with all that she’s accomplished she’d be happy and carefree – but then it was senior year and that’s when Cece Goddard transferred in.

                   In Keeping You a Secret, the first time Holland sees “the new girl”, Cece.   Holland gets a feeling, one she’s never felt before.   Cece is confident, beautiful, and openly gay, and Holland wants to know more.   Holland starts the book off as being straight edge, as she was raised to be by her mother who had her at a very young age.   She’s sexually active with her devoted boyfriend, but she describes how it’s more of a chore rather than a pleasure.   Then Holland can’t stop thinking about Cece.   When Cece is close by, Holland can’t take her eyes off of her.   Holland suddenly started questioning her sexuality, which she never had before.   Holland ends up discovering more about herself than she ever knew.   But is she really ready for this? Holland goes through the highs and lows that are associated with “coming out”.   Is she even who she thinks she is?

                   This book can get seriously addictive, for either gender.   There were some moments where I wanted to punch a character in the face, if you know what I mean.   There are also a couple of moments where you’re kind of uncomfortable or even disgusted.   Homosexuality is something a lot of people aren’t really used to, so this was kind of a different book.   The author, Julie Anne Peters, describes this similar to the way she came out of the closet.   Overall, this book was very good, but definitely not my favorite.   You’d expect the ending to be a lot better than it ended up being, but you’ll have to see for yourself.