Week Six Book Five--Dirty Little Secrets

Have you seen the new TV show Hoarders? It's basically about people who are addicted to hoarding anything and everything...so much so that their lives are completely affected. Well Dirty Little Secrets by C.J. Omololu is about a hoarder who cannot get rid of anything! High school student Lucy has to live with this, because the hoarder is her mother.

Lucy doesn't want her friend Kaylie (or anyone else) to find out about her mother's addiction, because then she'll be known as "Garbage Girl" for the rest of her life. She's embarassed, angered, and confused by her mother's addiction and wishes she could be out on her own and away from the filth that has taken over their house.

When Lucy comes home one day and finds her mother dead, she knows she needs to call 911...but if she does, the paramedics won't even be able to get through the front door. And that means the local news crew will be in her yard, documenting the "horror" that is her house. So Lucy decides to keep her mother's death a secret until she can clean up the house. But how do you clean the filth that has taken years to pile up?

I enjoyed this book and really felt for Lucy's situation; it's difficult to be completely affected by your parents' lifestyle choices. I did find all the main characters to be a little selfish, though, in their own way, which made them less likeable. The ending is crazy and surprising but yet very clever, and it left me feeling satisfied in a bizarre way.

A great debut novel by Omololu!