Customer Reviews

Keeping You a Secret

5 star:		(37)
4 star:		(15)
3 star:		(7)
2 star:		(5)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

This is an absolutely amazing book about teens, sexuality, and society. Peters does a wonderful job in capturing the issues surrounding coming out for young people, and deals with them courageously and realistically. She delivers a story of one girl who is supported by her parents and another who is disowned. One girl who is openly and comfortably gay, and another who is closeted and dealing with her newly-realized sexuality. These girls find comfort in each other as they deal with internal and external forces. If a book like this had been available 20 years ago, I might have made different choices in my own life. I might even have my own pre-teen daughters read it.

The book is well-written, thoughtful, and easy to read. I haven't read a story this good in a very long time.

Recommended for anyone of any age who is dealing with issues of sexuality... accompanied with a Coke and a bowl of Bing cherries...

Did I mention I really liked this book?

Now that her senior year has arrived, Holland Jaeger finds life is not so simple. Her mother is pressing her to go to law school. This is not Holland's dream, however her mother seems intent on living vicariously through Holland's life. She wants only the best for Holland. Therefore it is up to Holland to get the best grades, apply to the best schools, and meet everyone's expectations.

When Holland finds herself attracted to a new student, she realizes she's going to have a very serious problem with her current boyfriend; he's too needy. Since they began having [a relationship], that is all he seems to want to do. The new student, Cece, is an 'out-and-proud' lesbian, and Holland finds herself in the greatest relationship ever. What price will she pay when she decides to follow her heart?

KEEPING YOU A SECRET tackles a tough subject in a lighthearted manner. Now there is a lot in this book to which I cannot relate. My parents did not force me to follow their dreams and, as a heterosexual woman, I have no experience with the discrimination that lesbians face. I know when I was in high school there were no [guys in relationships] or lesbians that I knew of. In retrospect now that some of them have "come out", I am surprised that they did manage to keep it hidden so well, and saddened that they felt they had to hide the essence of who they were.

Those issues aside, I found myself intrigued with Julie Anne Peters writing. Her views are honest and handled well. Teen [relationships are]not ignored; instead it is handled honestly with both the pros and cons taken into consideration. Birth control is discussed without being preached. All of these were issues we hated listening to as kids, but they are important nonetheless.

I honestly cannot say this book will appeal to every teenager. But I do hope that those with an open mind will read it and take the message to heart. In the end, it's your decisions, the ones that change your life, that are the most important.

Tracy Farnsworth

While I found this book to be fairly predictable, what really made me angry about it was how unhealthy the relationship between Cece and Holland actually was, although the author presents it as wonderful. I kept thinking that if Cece's character were male, people would be jumping all over this, because she's frankly rather awful. An unhealthy relationship doesn't become healthy just because both parties are female.

Let's look at what actually happens here: Holland begins her relationship with Cece, who forbids Holland to come out, even though she wants to, isolating Holland from all her previous friends. She refuses to introduce Holland to her OWN friends, because she is so possessive that she is afraid one of them will "steal" her (in describing a former relationship, Cece is furious that her former girlfriend broke up with her, saying about the girl "I found her! She was mine!" Alarm bells, anyone???) Then, after being booted by her mother, Holland gets into Stanford. But instead of calling them up and asking for financial aid, asking for a defferal, or ANYTHING, she decides she has to stay in the area because of her great love for this girl she's only been dating for... what? Two months? And she ends up living in a halfway house and going to community college. If a character in a novel did something like this for a boy, no one would be praising it. I don't see how it's different because the characters are lesbians. Cece isolates Holland to the point where she has no other friends at all, and then encourages her to give up a great opportunity because she wants to keep Holland nearby. This is not how love is supposed to look.

The second book I've read by Julie Anne Peters, KEEPING YOU A SECRET is another sure-fire winner about the highs and lows of first love, the terror and joy of "coming out", and the good and the bad that is the thing called family.

Holland Jaeger is the "It" girl everyone envies--she has great friends, she's President of the Student Body, she's the girlfriend of Seth, she's the popular girl who can be counted on to always get along with everyone. That is, until Cece Goddard transfers in, and Holland's once-perfect life no longer seems so great.

The first time she sees Cece, Holland feels something that she's never felt before. Although sexually active with her boyfriend, Seth, having sex is more like a chore--she'd much rather sit around talking, the way they used to do when they were friends rather than lovers. As Cece flaunts her homosexuality, wearing shirts proclaiming herself out and proud, Holland wonders what it means when her attraction to Cece becomes almost an obsession.

College looms on the horizon and no one, especially her mother, will quit asking her where she's going. They have big plans for her, you see, both her mother, who became a single parent way too young, Seth, and the career counselor at her school. Forced into a role she doesn't want, Holland escapes into her art class, drawing away from her former friends as feelings and emotions she can't control rush to the surface.

As Holland realizes that she is, in fact, a lesbian, her perfect life is suddenly out of control. She's shunned by her former friends at school, her mother kicks her out of the house, she's forced to live in a run-down motel that's now a shelter, and she's not sure she'll be able to attend college at all.

Holland must learn what's really important in life, that it's not about being popular but about being true to yourself. As she loses old friends she gains new ones in the gay and lesbian community, and forms a bond with Cece that is beyond her wildest expectations.

KEEPING YOU A SECRET is a great, emotional read, pefect for anyone questioning their sexuality or their place in the world. A truly recommended read.

Peters, Julie Anne. Keeping you a Secret. (2003). New York: Little Brown.
Holland Jaeger's mother did not get the life she wanted, so she has decided to help her daughter live her life. So far Holland has the boyfriend, friends, and a stack of college applications which weigh her down but please her mother. But when Holland eyes Cece, an out and proud recent transfer to Holland's High School, she begins to have her own expectations and desires. Julie Anne Peters gives readers a love story that will keep them turning the pages to see what happens. More importantly, she goes into life in the post-Columbine High School, where there are rules against bullying, but when it comes to gender and sexual identity, people are still uncomfortable. Peters is able to capture in a very realistic voice the pain, anger, and fear of being an openly gay teen. Peters does not romanticize people's reactions, particularly a parent's, to the possibility that their child is gay. As more and more gay teens experience violence and hate crimes, Keeping You a Secret is both a hopeful love story and an honest reminder of the consequences of coming out.

I greatly enjoyed this book, and I loved the idea of the older and more wise one falling head over heals for someone younger than her. I honestly hate reading but something about this book kept my interest. I had it read in 4 hours in 2 sittings the day I got it, and I am now reading it all over again. I can't say enough great things about this book. If you are young and just coming out or need to just get a way for a little while, this book will make you feel good about who are (and you should), when the world around you wants you to be ashamed.

CONGRATS TO THOSE THAT HAVE HAD THE COURAGE TO COME OUT AND BE YOURSELF, AND GOOD LUCK TO THOSE ON THAT PATH :)

In fact, I finished all 250 pages in approximately 4 hours.

Bittersweet -- reminded me of my first love. The excitement of first seeing her, the awe when she told me she felt the same; that first kiss.

But it also shows that homophobia still exists in a big way; describes some of the fear that comes with just being who you are. I found myself crying hysterically through half of it. And yet, it points out that support <i>can</i> be found, if not in the places you'd most expect.

All in all I'd recommend this book, especially to anyone just coming out.

First off, let me say that I could not put this book down; I read it in a day. It is a captivating story about two high school girls who fall in love, and the pressures they deal with.

Although "Keeping you a Secret" is a great story, I only gave the book 4 stars because I felt as if the characters were very underdeveloped, and the writing style was extremely simple. After finishing the book, I still felt as if I didn't even really "know" the characters. Also, I felt as if some of the dialogue was unrealistic; I'm eighteen years old, and I know how teenagers normally talk. That said, however, I think this is a book that all people can enjoy, and it is DEFINITELY worth reading. I think the average reader will enjoy this story; I'm just extremely picky when it comes to writing styles because they easily affect the quality of a story for me.

The simple writing style is not necessarily a bad thing, because it allows for the book to appeal to both younger and older people. This is a lovely story, and it can be enjoyed by both gay and straight audiences. The only thing a person must have when reading this story is an open mind.

The content of this book is absolutely essential to literature, and congrats to Julie Anne Peters for having the courage to write the story she wrote. Homosexuality is becoming more "acceptable" by society each and every day, and books like "Keeping you a Secret" help to push that movement along. This book is a MUST READ for any teenager who is LBGT or questioning; it will help you to know that you are not alone. I really hope that Julie Anne Peters writes more stories similar to this one, and I hope that other authors will do the same thing.

GO GET THIS BOOK.

The themes in this book are important for all people to read about (weither you are gay or straight), but the writing in this book is mediocre at best. The story is a compelling one, about two girls who fall in love at highschool, and have to help eachother through the homophobic world they live in. The writing however is not very compelling. It seems rushed, and the main charicters are very two dimentional in all areas except their sexuality. The book seemed to be overly moralistic, and to be trying too hard to get a message across, which distracted from the story-telling aspect of the book. There are many other books available that deal with the same themes in a much more thorough and enjoyable way.

Peters' second novel, Keeping You a Secret, shows undeniable skill in writing and plot, yet does not live up to her previous effort, Define Normal. Protagonist Holland Jaeger seems to have what every teen girl wants in life, seems to be on the right path to a somewhere. Then, new girl Cece Goddard arrives, and Holland's seemingly perfect world is turned upside down - and not for the worst. She feels something for Cece, feels love for her, feels understanding, feels compassion for the torment she deals with due to being an out-and-proud lesbian. Having no shame whatsoever, she incessantly dons t-shirts bearing out of the closet messages: IMRU? Just Do It (With Girls). Holland realizes these new feelings, this brand new awakening, cannot be ignored. She also sees, that while the road will tough and rugged, life filled with obstacles that weren't there before, it will be worth it to be with the girl she loves, to be herself. Though Peters' paints a picture of an issue becoming more and more a staple in today's high schools, the character of Cece Goddard is unrealistically out-and-proud.