Keeping You A Secret

Julie Anne Peters’s 2003 young adult novel Keeping You a Secret tells the story of a 17-year-old girl’s first relationship with another young woman. As the protagonist realizes that she is attracted to members of her own sex, she learns to deal with her family’s rejection of her, to overcome the homophobic reactions of her peers, and to navigate the trials and tribulations of a teenage love affair. The novel’s sometimes “miserable-ist” approach to its subject matter has come in for some criticism from readers worried that Peters is overemphasizing the miseries of the coming out process, but the novel also won an award for its serious and unsparing treatment of LGBTQ issues.

When we meet the protagonist, Holland Jaeger, she is trying to live life according to the rules set out by other people in her life. Primarily guided by her overbearing, invasive, and emotionally abusive mother, Holland assumes that she will continue on the straight and narrow path she’s been on: being student body president, succeeding as a member of the swim team, taking a heavy and challenging course load, getting good grades, enrolling in a top tier university, going to law school, and eventually having a family with a boy she will meet there.

Whenever Holland expresses any interests that don’t fit this mold, her mother shuts them down in the harshest terms possible. This includes Holland’s dreams of being an artist, working with kids, or going to a public university in an urban setting.



But Holland’s acquiescence starts to fade the moment she sees new transfer student Cece, an openly out lesbian. As the two grow close, Holland starts to realize that the strong feelings she seems to have for Cece indicate her own sexuality. In the beginning of their romance, Cece asks Holland to keep the relationship a secret, ostensibly in order to protect Holland from any potential harassment.

Realizing that she is gay, Holland breaks up with her boyfriend Seth. Though she’s known Seth for most of her life, their romantic relationship was based on a sense of obligation on Holland’s part rather than any actual attraction. When she tries to explain to Seth that they’d be better off going back to being friends, he explodes in anger, flinging at Holland the promise ring that she was trying to return to him.

As revenge for his hurt feelings, Seth outs Holland to her mother, who reacts with predictable viciousness. Screaming and hitting her daughter, she demands that Holland break up with Cece and start being “normal” once again. When that doesn’t work, she uses emotional manipulation to threaten Holland with never again being able to see her adored younger sister Faith.



During their confrontation, we find out the reason that Holland’s mother is as controlling as she is. She became pregnant with Holland at 15, and her disapproving parents threw her out on the street. Now the family’s history of abuse and violence is repeating itself: when Holland is no longer willing to do whatever her mother says, her mother kicks her out of the house. Now that Holland is homeless, she first stays with Cece and then lives in teen transition housing until she can figure out a place to settle.

At the same time, Holland’s best friends also react poorly to the news that she is a lesbian. Kristen, who had up to now seemed like Holland’s closest and oldest friend, drops any pretense of kindness and instead assails Holland with homophobic slurs. Holland’s other friend Leah, who is quietly sweet and more open-minded, nevertheless pulls away from their friendship in a way that makes it unclear whether they will be able to be close again.

Through all this, Cece is Holland’s rock and support. But at the same time, Holland has found reserves of inner strength and resilience that she never knew she had. Even when Cece reveals the truth about why she had wanted to keep Holland a secret – a disappointingly selfish, irrational fear that Holland would leave her for someone else just same way that a previous girlfriend had – Holland is able to figure out how to work through this relationship stumbling block in a productive and mature way.



The novel ends with the end of high school on a bittersweet note. Holland enrolls in Metro Urban college, with the hope that she will be able to fulfill her dreams of pursing the arts. But she is ultimately unable to reconcile with her mother – and there is no indication that their relationship will be fixed anytime in the near future.