Dirty Little Secrets

by C.J. Omololu

Everyone has a secret. But Lucy’s is bigger and dirtier than most. It’s one she’s been hiding for years—that her mom’s out-of-control hoarding has turned their lives into a world of garbage and shame. She’s managed to keep her home life hidden from her best friend and her crush, knowing they’d be disgusted by the truth. So, when her mom dies suddenly in their home, Lucy hesitates to call 911 because revealing their way of life would make her future unbearable—and she begins her two-day plan to set her life right.

With details that are as fascinating as they are disturbing, C. J. Omololu weaves an hour-by-hour account of Lucy’s desperate attempt at normalcy. Her fear and isolation are palpable as readers are pulled down a path from which there is no return, and the impact of hoarding on one teen’s life will have readers completely hooked.

Genres: Young Adult, Realistic Fiction, Fiction, Contemporary, Teen, Mental Illness, Mental Health

212 pages, Hardcover

First published February 2, 2010

About the author

I write as C.J., but you can call me Cynthia. My YA novel DIRTY LITTLE SECRETS came out in early 2010. My next book TRANSCENDENCE came out in June of 2012, followed by the sequel INTUITION in June of 2013. My newest book is a YA thriller called THE THIRD TWIN and will be out in February 2015 followed by another standalone thriller RECOVERY in early 2016.

You might notice that I only give 4 or 5 star reviews. That isn't because I love everything, it's because I only review things I really love. As a writer, I know all that goes into making a book, and while a story might not strike a chord with me, who am I to say it won't with someone else? I hate tomatoes, but lots of people like them, and it's the same with a book. So, if I rate something here, it's means that I'd let you borrow my copy, but I really do want you to give it back so that I can read it again.

Reviews

[MischaS_ · Rating 4 out of 5]

Lucy lives in a house full of garbage which her mother calls "Treasure".

I was so sorry for poor Lucy! This instead of normal life. It is terrifying to imagine that so many people live in these conditions. Those suffering from hoarding as well as their family members. I cannot imagine being a teen, and this being my home.

I did not expect much from this book, and I could not put this down. It may not be perfect, but it delivered where it mattered. I never knew I wanted to read a book about hoarding, or about a teen who lives with a hoarder parent, but I certainly am happy that I did. Even if it's very terrifying to think about and I have a sudden urge to go through all my drawers to clean up the unnecessary clutter.

Anyway, I would appreciate if there would be one or two more chapters, cause the ending was sort of very quick, and it remained open. I have so many questions. What's going to happen? What about Josh/Kaylie/Phil/Sara... never ending questions.

[Megan · Rating 5 out of 5]

C.J. Omololu had me at hoarding.

Megan glued to the television: *gasp* “Ewww!”
Hubby in the next room: “If it’s so disturbing, why are you watching it?”
Megan: “Oh my gawd! You have to come see this!”
Hubby: “I. Will. Not.”
Megan: “No, really! Yougottacomeseewhatthesepeople…”
Hubby: “It’s the same thing every week. Some fat person is too lazy to clean her house. End of story!”

But it’s not the same thing on every episode of Hoarders. Each person has a different obsession, rationale, family issue… I could go on and on here. In her debut novel, C.J.Omololu tackles the oh so fascinating subject of compulsive hoarding and the toll it takes on a family. Dirty Little Secrets is the story of Lucy, a teenage girl desperately trying to cover up the fact that her mother is one of the worst sort of hoarders. Junk piled in every available space. Years of garbage in the house. Questionable plumbing. Non-functional kitchen. Busted furnace. You get the picture, right?

This is a quick read, and although it only covers a day or so in Lucy’s life, we learn so much about her, her mother and her siblings through memories and reflections. When things go wrong, Lucy makes some questionable decisions. Had her story been one told through the media or an episode of Hoarding: Buried Alive it would be so easy to judge and condemn her. Omololu manages to make us sympathize with and understand the choices Lucy makes, even though her actions may be drastic and not the most well formed plan.

Once again, this is one of those novels that I am finding it difficult to write a review for without giving away spoilers. However, I did love the writing and the characters. Lucy is not a YA heroine to look up to. She is a teenager who has had a fucked up life and copes the best she can. Somehow, in her rash and poor decision making, she comes across as more realistic than many YA protagonists.

This is a book that I definitely recommend for just about anyone. It’s fast paced, disturbing, intense and about hoarders. Need I say more? =)

[Kristi · Rating 3 out of 5]

Dirty Little Secrets was such an emotional and absolutely disgusting book!

I can't describe the dismay I felt for teens that have to grow up in this type of environment. It's bad enough that people suffer from this disorder, but it's even worse that there are innocent minors that are subjected to this sickness.

My heart broke for Lucy and her ache for normalcy. I didn't really understand it at first... I was angry at Lucy for not calling the police right away, and then by the end, I had so much admiration for her... I don't think I would have even been so brave.

I loved how Omololu revealed Lucy's past and basically showed us the path of her mothers illness through the layers of trash that goes through.

This was such an informative read as well, I know there is a lot of stigma surrounding hoarding because science has a hard time defining it.... it is an obsessive compulsive disorder, or is it something totally different. Omololu does an excellent job exposing an issue that not many people understand.

Overall, Dirty Little Secrets was a very intense, unsettlingly real and emotional read, but definitely worth reading.

[Lara · Rating 2 out of 5]

So...I read this entire book in one sitting, but I had some very definite issues with it--the ending in particular. The choice Lucy ends up making about how to handle her situation felt really drastic, and...well, not at all mentally sound. She doesn't really face her problems, or let anyone in to help her, just hides them in the end (even from her own family)--just like her mother had been doing most of Lucy's life. And there's absolutely no discussion about the consequences of Lucy's actions. All the lies and the fear and the shame bothered me, because none of it gets resolved at all within the story; yet I feel like the author wants me to believe that at the end, all of Lucy's problems are over and everything will be fine, and I don't see how anyone could possibly believe that.

Also, the comparison to What's Eating Gilbert Grape that Lucy brings up irritated me as well. In that, it seemed like the way they handled things was mainly for their mother's benefit--a way for her to keep her dignity. But Lucy seemed almost entirely focused on herself, and I couldn't really commend her for her decisions in the least.

In the end the story just felt extremely shallow (despite its having such a sad and serious subject matter) and incomplete, and I was left thinking, "Really? That's it? But what about this? Or this? Or this?" Disappointing.

[Reynje · Rating 4 out of 5]

Dirty Little Secrets is a book that I had to let percolate for a while before reviewing. If I’d written this review based on my initial post-reading response I think it might have been quite different in tone and content. Having allowed time for my thoughts to settle, however, has resulted in a more holistic view of the novel as opposed to a knee-jerk reaction to the ending. Because what initially felt shocking now seems exactly right for this story. I think Omololu not only made a bold, confronting choice; but that she made one that successfully communicates the traumatic nature of Lucy’s situation.

Compulsive hoarding has garnered increased attention over recent years thanks to the saturation of rehabilitation-style reality TV. I’m not here to argue whether this is exploitative rubbernecking or genuinely helpful, but I do think that the majority of such coverage – initially at least – is presented in such a way as to shock or disgust. Montages of squalor are packaged together so as to elicit a sort of slack-jawed horror in the viewer; it’s telegraphed quite plainly that we should feel something because it isn’t “normal”. But more on this later.

Lucy’s mother is a compulsive hoarder. Outside, their house looks like most of the others on the same street. Inside, it’s choked with detritus: stockpiled clothes, decades worth of newspapers and magazines, abandoned crafts, plastic containers, rotting food. The house has fallen into disrepair and is being consumed by a small mountain of junk and filth. This is their secret from the outside world. And when Lucy’s mother dies amid the chaos, she decides to make sure that secret remains hidden. It’s up to Lucy alone to conceal the truth about their life.

The key to understanding just how high the stakes are in this story lies in being able to see them from Lucy’s viewpoint. The decisions she makes throughout the novel need to be considered in the context of the life she has lived up to that point, glimpses of which Omololu provides through flashbacks and memories. Further, she juxtaposes this with the life that Lucy wishes for, by incorporating interactions with her schoolmates, her best friend, her crush, and her siblings. This isn’t just some passing embarrassment that Lucy is worried about, rather, she fears that revealing the truth will cost her the future she longs for. While she had previously determined to stick it out for the remaining years until she could leave home and put her mother’s hoarding behind her, now she’s racing against the clock to stop everyone finding out what’s really been going on.

Making the shift into Lucy’s mindset is what made this novel click into place for me – and Omololu facilitates this by having the reader experience Lucy’s progression of emotions throughout the day. It’s a short novel, and one that takes place over a short period of time, but Omololu keeps the movement of the plot tied to Lucy’s mental state as she moves through various stages of processing her mother’s deaths and the repercussions thereof. There’s a clear sense of rising urgency in the novel, as the clock is ticking on Lucy’s window of opportunity to prevent her mother’s hoarding from becoming fodder for local gossip.

And that’s where public reaction comes into the equation. Whether or not the response Lucy fears is realistic is not really the issue here. The fact is, it’s real to her. The outpouring of revulsion she expects from people is the driving force behind her actions in the story. Whether or not Lucy is cognizant of the fact that her mother’s hoarding is an illness, it’s overshadowed by her fear of the public’s perception. The possibility of empathy or understanding is all but drowned out by the expectation of disgust and humiliation.

This is not an book easy to summarise without significantly spoiling it, but it’s worth bearing in mind that this isn’t an in depth analysis of the psychology of compulsive hoarding, but rather how it affects a hoarder’s family members. Omololu gives us some insight into the reasons why this situation has come about, but the novel is more concerned with how it has impacted Lucy’s life – both physically and emotionally. In that respect, it’s a compelling book – showing the extreme pressure that Lucy has lived with and has shaped her as a person. And this is powerfully portrayed in the ending of the novel, which crystalises years of fear and stress into a haunting final scene.

[Sesana · Rating 4 out of 5]

Yes, this is a problem novel, and the problem this time around is hoarding. Sort of an unusual choice to write a YA novel about, but not entirely surprising. Gawking at hoarders is a bit of a cottage industry on certain cable channels, after all. Dirty Little Secrets is entirely from the perspective of the teenage child of a hoarder, and it's set almost entirely in the day that she's discovered her mother dead in their home. And fair warning, some of the descriptions in this book are stomach-churning.

Lucy's decision, to spend a few days cleaning up the house before reporting her mother's death, was at first all but anything but understandable to me. I'm not sure why Omololu decided to start with that shock and then use the rest of the book to try to convince her reader that Lucy isn't an unbelievably awful person. She gave herself quite an uphill battle. It's partway through the tour of the house that I started to understand, even if I never could imagine doing this myself. Maybe it was when Lucy found the hamster cage, or realized that her mother had given no more care and consideration to things that Lucy had made than to random pieces of garbage. There's also plenty of flashbacks that put her relationship with her mother into context. Essentially, there isn't one, which is one of the saddest things about this book.

Lucy's mother was definitely a compulsive hoarder, and she had come to the point that building walls of things around herself had cut her off from her family. Lucy believes that her mother loved her stuff more than she loved her, and because we never see inside her mother's mind, we don't know how true that is. And does it really matter if it isn't? It's what Lucy genuinely believes to be true, and she'll never know otherwise at this point. Lucy's apparent coldness is a defense she's built up over time. After reading this book, I visited the website Omololu mentions at the end of the book, Children of Hoarders, and wasn't surprised at how much Lucy sounded like the people on the site. She did her homework.

On the last few pages, Lucy makes a decision that, if I'd read it at the start of the book, would have seemed insane. But by the end, I was able to understand just how much she felt backed into a corner. Not excuse or defend her actions, exactly, but I could understand. It was hard to read at times, but I'm very glad this book exists. Gawking at hoarders is almost a national pastime, but it's always from the perspective or an outsider. At best, there's some dwelling on the state of mind of the hoarder, but the effects on the others in the house aren't really talked about so much.

[Agatha · Rating 1 out of 5]

WARNING: SPOILER ALERT.

Young adult fiction about a girl whose mother is such an extreme hoarder, that she cannot ever invite any of her friends over. Just picture that tv show, “Hoarders,” and that is how this girl’s mother is! I wouldn’t recommend this book, however, to either young adults or not-so-young adults b/c there were some pretty immature decisions made, in my opinion, which just left me scratching my head that anyone would create this scenario for young adults to read and absorb! Basically, the girl’s mom DIES from a horrid asthma attack (likely brought upon by the mold and other allergens in the filthy house) and the girl decides that she cannot call 911 b/c then it will come out in the news that her house was so filthy and she’ll lose her friends, so she decides to try to clean up as much of the house as possible before alerting anyone. (immature decision #1!) She props the windows open to let the winter chill in to keep the mom’s body from decomposing too quickly (!) and for a 24-hour-period tries to go on a cleaning and purging rampage (immature thought-process example #2!). But wait, it gets better: in the end, don’t worry: everything gets solved when she just decides to burn down the house w/ the mother in it. Say wha???? Craziness. Not to mention too simplistic b/c it wouldn’t solve the problems of the mother’s overdrawn credit card bills, the lack of paperwork now for the mom’s estate, etc. Dumb!!! To the max!

[AquaMoon · Rating 5 out of 5]

Extremely graphic and highly disturbing, but a gripping page-turner nonetheless.

Lucy's mom is a hoarder. Highly paranoid that she's going to need something someday, she never never throws anything away, never allows anyone to touch her so-called "treasures". Old newspapers & magazines, plastic containers from take-out meals, mounds of items bought en masse at bargin sales, and countless other odds and ends create unsanitary mountains of filth and trash that all but bury every surface. Black mold edges the drapes of every window. The overpowering stench of rot permiates the air. The interior of the house is no better than a landfill. This is the environment in which Lucy had spent most of her life.

Deeply, almost guiltily ashamed of her mother and her homelife, Lucy does all she can to hide her living situation from classmates and neighbors. Even Lucy's best friend has never set foot in her house.

Then one morning Lucy returns home to find her mother's dead body sprawled beneath a toppled stack of old magazines. Instead of calling 9-1-1, Lucy decides to clean up the house. Her reasoning (saving her family the embarassment the sight of all that filth will surely bring if made public) is twisted, selfish, and almost as disturbing as her mother's reasoning for keeping every scrap of whatever that makes its way into the house. But as I continued deeper into the story, I began to sympathize with more and more with Lucy's plight. As the day and the cleaning progress, Lucy uncovers lots of unexpected (and unpleasent) things: long-lost items, huge (unpaid) credit card bills from her mom's mass purchasing, heaps of clothes with the tags still attahed, food that had been rotting for who knows how long... There were several places I phycsically cringed (the maggots in the kitchen, discovering a long-dead hamster buried under the woodchips of a forgotten cage, to name a few). The ending of the story finds a desperate Lucy taking a page from her favorite Johnny Depp movie, Gilbert Grape, and setting the whole house on fire. She feels there is no other alternative.

While this story was exceptionally creative and very well-written, it was also very difficult to read--to keep reading. There were several times where I almost put the book down, unable to stomach the gravity of what Lucy was going through. In the end, I think the only thing that got me through was the same sort of morbid curiosity one gets when driving past a horrific accident on the roadway. You can't not gawk. I couldn't not finish the book. Still, I predict this one will win awards.

I would like to stress that this book is NOT for younger readers. Those with a weak stomach (who become grossed out easily) may want to pick up something lighter.

[J.C. Phillipps · Rating 5 out of 5]

I loved this book.

Dirty Little Secrets tells the story of how Lucy, a high school junior, hides the family's hoarding secret from her friends, neighbors, and the "normal" world.

It has a great hook. We know in the first line that Lucy has a secret. Ms. Omololu doesn't lead the reader on for too long, and we find out the secret quickly. Then it's all about what Lucy has to go through to keep the secret hidden.

I was impressed by the control of the pace. (And I like a good pace. I can't stand books that spend two pages describing a room.) Things move along quickly, and just as Lucy's starts to get a handle on one issue, another one pops up demanding her attention. But the story had it's quiet moments too - moments when we'd see another side of Lucy's life - good and bad.

There is a nice little romance cooking - I like a good romance - but it wasn't the main focus of the plot.

I liked Lucy from page 1. She was smart and kind - but flawed - and she went through a gamut of emotions as she lied and schemed to keep her secret hidden.

For me, it was a fun read, an emotional read, and a very satisfying story well told.

[Kathy · Rating 4 out of 5]

Yikes. Dirty Little Secrets made me watch an episode of Hoaders just to see what a house like this might really be like. I've known "cluttery" people and my house is often messy but seeing what life for a hoarder and their children is like was eye-opening. It also motivated me to dejunk & clean my house. I may not be a hoarder but it wasn't hard to find several bags of items to giveaway.

This book is heartbreaking but was really interesting to read. Watching Lucy attempt to clean up and sort through years of accumulated junk while sharing the secret story of her life made for a very interesting story. I'm not sure if a teenager would enjoy this book or not but I found it intriguing.



Rating: 4 Stars - Great Book

Content: Clean (ironic since the subject matter is filthy)

Source: From Publisher

[Khornberger · Rating 4 out of 5]

We have another book which falls under the category of shock title. It is, however, very appropriately named. Lucy is the youngest child of a hoarder. She is now living alone with her mother and has suffered the consequences for all of life that she can remember. She has had to forgo friends coming over, sleepovers, etc. Once, when Lucy was caught unaware, a friend entered her house and her reaction was to publicly humiliate Lucy.

Lucy is now sixteen and works carefully to keep her few friends away from her house. She returns home to a big surprise; her mom is dead under a stack of magazines and newspapers that fall upon her. Lucy spends much of the novel trying to cover up any evidence of hoarding so that the paramedics do not see the home and have the media get wind of the situation.

At the beginning of the novel, the writing was somewhat basic as Lucy was with her friends (the author is not the caliber of Sarah Dessen but teenagers will most likely forgive her and continue reading). As soon as the author charts familiar territory (hoarding - because she works with hoarders and children of hoarders) the novel becomes really interesting and unique enough to read and not want to set down. Much of the novel covers the emotional aspects that a child of a hoarder encounters and is really interesting and well done.

This is a good novel for teenagers to begin to understand the emotional impact various illnesses have upon individuals.

[Kate · Rating 4 out of 5]

Lucy has a dirty secret - her mom is a hoarder. All her life she's had to keep friends away from her house, especially after a few kids found out and started calling her "Garbage Girl." Finally Lucy has a chance at being friends with Kaylie, and a date with Josh, but only if she can hide her secret.

Then one morning Lucy finds her mother dead under a pile of stuff that toppled over. The last thing she wants is for police and paramedics to come to the house and not even be able to get through the maze of stuff. She's sure that will end in news cameras and everyone finding out. So Lucy decides that she will clean the mess before calling... and keep her secret safe.

I love the show "Hoarders." It inspires me to clean my house. I can be a bit of a packrat and my apartment can get cluttered quickly, but this show gets me inspired to clean. I can imagine how Lucy, now that her mother isn't forbidding her to throw anything away, just wanted to do a clean sweep of the house, but as I've seen time and again on that show, even just throwing everything away is a huge undertaking. Lucy finds herself getting sidetracked as she uncovers bits of her past, and she also has to deal with Sara and Phil, her older siblings who left as soon as they could. Sara is following in her mother's footsteps and Phil just keeps telling Lucy to hang in there. The family dynamic and history is a huge part of the hoarding problem. Lucy's mother isn't totally villainized for her problem - Lucy relives memories of her mother's positive qualities and unearths some great things her mother has done.

In the end, Lucy finds a way out of the problem. I wish it had been a bit more direct, but overall I thought this took an interesting problem and explored how it affected everyone involved.

[E. Anderson · Rating 4 out of 5]

I'll admit it -- I'm obsessed with the show Hoarders. I think part of me is always afraid that my pack-ratty-ness make me susceptible to that extreme. But shows like Hoarders don't always show the human side of this serious, clinical illness, and DIRTY LITTLE SECRETS (Walker Books for Young Readers, 2010) by C.J. Omololu gave me a real look at what it's like to grow up in a hoarding home. Lucy is a typical teen in most ways -- she goes to school, she has a best friend, she likes music and coffee and has a crush on a boy. But what her friends don't know is that her house is full of stuff -- stuff that her mom has collected over years and years and refuses to throw away. Her older brother and sister have both grown up and gone away, leaving Lucy alone with her mom, who has let the house get so bad that there is no longer hot water, let alone the smells coming from the kitchen. When Lucy comes home one day to find that the unthinkable has happened, she begins a mad dash to try and clean up the mess that her mother has spent years building before anyone can see what her life is really like. DIRTY LITTLE SECRETS brilliantly takes place in a period of about 24 hours, utilizing carefully-placed memories to fill in the blanks of Lucy's difficult life in a family that has ceased to function. While I felt the ending came to quickly (sequel, please!) I absolutely could not put this book down and I highly recommend it to anyone who has enjoyed YA books by Laurie Halse Anderson, Elizabeth Scott, or Judy Blume. (Yes, I just invoked The Judy.) Go find your local indie and pick up a copy ASAP.

[Diane Ferbrache · Rating 3 out of 5]

Lucy is a normal 16 year old, makes good grades, and can’t wait to graduate and go to college, but she has lived with a secret her whole life. She is careful making friends and never invites them into her house. In fact, no one except close family members is allowed inside. When Lucy’s mother suddenly dies while Lucy is away, she is faced with a dilemma – calling 911 will bring EMTs and police to the house and everyone will KNOW! Lucy’s mother was a hoarder, and the house is filled with old newspapers, books, garbage, and more. In the hours after her mother’s death, Lucy makes a decision.
This is an interesting well written, suspense filled book. I couldn’t put it down, and I’m sure teens will sympathize with Lucy’s problems. Unfortunately, the book’s ending is problematic. Although the readers might understand Lucy’s motivations, her decisions are questionable, at best.
***SPOILER ALERT*** Lucy decides to hide her mother’s death until she can clean the house so she won’t end up on the evening news and her mother’s habits exposed. She takes time out to go to a party/date with the hot boy who is suddenly showing interest. When she realizes that she cannot clean up in a timely manner, she burns the house down. This ending is shocking and certainly questionable. There is no thought or consideration given to the consequences of these actions.

[Jennifer Wardrip · Rating 4 out of 5]

Reviewed by Andrea for TeensReadToo.com

DIRTY LITTLE SECRETS by C. J. Omololu tells the story of sixteen-year-old Lucy's dirty secret - literally.

Lucy grew up in a house with a mother who was a hoarder. And she's had to keep it a secret because no one would understand the piles of trash in her house. She finally feels that she might have a chance at a "normal" life and even has a best friend and a boyfriend. But when something happens to threaten that, Lucy must make a decision that will change her life forever.

Wow. This story broke my heart. I had never heard of hoarders before. I can't imagine growing up in that environment. It made me wonder if any of my students live like that. I'm not sure there is a way to know, unless the child tells you.

I felt so bad for Lucy. All she wants is a normal teenage life. I could feel the stress and panic she was in while she was trying to clean up the house so that she could call an ambulance to come get her mom. A child/teenager should never have to go through that.

And the ending shocked me. I definitely didn't see it coming and it makes me wonder what happened to Lucy after the end of the story.

This was definitely a sad but thought-provoking read, and one I highly recommend!

[Danya · Rating 3 out of 5]

Most of my Psychtember reviews will be formatted differently than my standard reviews, to reflect the mental health theme. I've structured things as though the book is the patient and I'm giving it an assessment. Each axis is an aspect of the book that I'll give my thoughts on (characters, plot, etc.), and the validity score refers to how psychologically accurate I think the book is. Then I may list some other books that this one "shares symptoms with" (i.e. novels dealing with similar topics) and provide the patient's "statement" (quote) before giving the "diagnosis" (my shooting star rating). The rating still reflects my overall view of the book, using my standard rating system.

Assessment:

Axis 1. Characters

Lucy's a sympathetic narrator with a lot of admirable qualities: a great survivor's instinct, an ability to push on, and strong self-reliance. But she's also obviously suffering from the effects of her mom's hoarding, paying the price with a limited social life and low self-esteem (not to mention the house situation itself, which is a whole separate issue). We're shown how much Lucy fears the stigma of living in such a house — she was called "Garbage Girl" and bullied before she transferred schools — and she must keep everyone at a distance. I don't blame her for feeling ashamed; I'm sure I would feel sick, mortified and stifled living the way she does.


She has a pretty poor relationship with her mother, not surprisingly. I think I would have felt sympathy for the mother if in every way, except for the hoarding, she was a wonderful mom...but she's not! She's always yelling at Lucy and blaming her for everything, spending all of her kindness on her patients and treating her family like crap. Since it's told from Lucy's perspective, I admit I couldn't feel a lot of sympathy for her mom, although I did feel a little sorry for her at one point when she starts crying, and it seems like she does get really stressed about her job. It's sad that she doesn't have a better relationship with her daughter, but I suspect that it's due to more than just the hoarding, since the mom seems to have other issues.


The romance is cute — I really liked Josh, since he's so obviously into Lucy (the coffee shop scene is adorable!). His mom has problems too, which helped Lucy realize that she wasn't the only one with parents who have problems, but also that her mom's hoarding is different from more common disorders (like an addiction). I liked Lucy's brother Phil and I wish she'd opened up to him, because he understood what it was like to live that way; it's a shame that he wasn't there for her.


Axis 2. Premise/plot

As the presentation of what it's like to live with a mom who hoards, Dirty Little Secrets is very effective. As a story, though, it doesn't really work, because it doesn't have much of a plot. There are basically two major plot points (one at the beginning, one at the end) and the middle is all Lucy cleaning the house. We get flashbacks about the mom, Lucy's siblings, and what it was like living in this house, but it's very slow and lacks momentum. The fact that Lucy has a deadline helps a little, but seriously, she spends most of the book cleaning. If you are the kind of person who loves to have a huge mess to clean up, and that makes you happy, then you will love this book, because you can clean vicariously through Lucy. There are a few gross scenes in here, so if maggots and the like make you squeamish, you might want to be aware of that before reading this one.


I appreciated that Lucy took initiative, first with trying to clean the house up, and then with the final action she took to try to free herself (although I don't necessarily agree with what she did, so I ended up feeling kind of mixed about this choice). The ending was very abrupt, and I was left feeling somewhat dissatisfied; I wanted more resolution with Josh and Kaylee, Lucy's siblings' reaction, and just a glimpse of Lucy's future generally.


Axis 3. Writing Style

Some of the descriptions in here are quite appallingly disgusting (which they should be, given that stuff is going bad), so the author does a good job with the grossing-out-the-reader side of things.

Axis 4. Psychological Accuracy

This is a very realistic portrayal of a girl who has lived for years with a mom who's a hoarder in a house that is completely suffocating her with stuff. It's gotten to the point where things are molding and it's unlivable, really. There's a lot to do with the stigma of hoarding in here, and since stigma is a very important aspect of mental health I was pleased to see that brought in.


However, I would have liked more detail about the psychological explanation of the mom's hoarding behaviour. I really wish that this had been clearly explained to the reader; there's so much blame put on the mom in this book, and while I can understand that the author wants to validate how people with hoarding parents feel, and that's perfectly reasonable, I think it also needs to be pointed out that hoarding is caused by a mental disorder and that these individuals need help, and may not be able to stop without help. After all, some types of hoarding are classified as subtypes of obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) and obsessive-compulsive personality disorder (OCPD), but that's not mentioned here. At times it sounded like Lucy's mom was choosing to be like this, like she could have stopped at any time, and we never get to see what's going on in terms of the complexity of the mom's mental state, so I was disappointed about that. There are some oblique references to the cause of the hoarding behaviour (like the fact that it's genetic) but we never actually get told straight out that the mom has a mental illness.


Still, kudos to the author for picking an unusual topic that needs to be highlighted more in YA, and for doing her research about what it's like to live with a hoarder, and believably portraying the emotions one might experience in that tough situation.


Validity Score: How psychologically accurate was Dirty Little Secrets?


Axis 5. Miscellaneous


There's actually an additional final chapter to this one, posted online (thanks to Bonnie from A Backwards Story for alerting me to this!).

Patient shares symptoms with: The Opposite of Tidy by Carrie Mac

Patient's statement:

"The phone's display shone brightly as I opened it to dial 911, the numbers blurring through the tears that had started to form in my eyes. I blinked hard. My fingers hovered over the first number as I looked down the hall at the piles of magazines, newspapers, clothes, plastic bags, and boxes of her stuff that choked all but a few narrow, winding paths through the house. I knew it smelled like rotting garbage in here, remembered it in one of the recesses of my brain. It was the same smell of decay I always worried would follow me out of the house, clinging to my clothes like a sock to Velcro. I'd lived with it for so long, I didn't even notice the smell anymore.

But the paramedics would."

Diagnosis: 3.5 shooting stars.

For more information about hoarding, see here.

[nancy (The Ravenous Reader) · Rating 4 out of 5]

Wow! This book is beyond anything I have read. I cannot stop thinking about it. DIRTY LITTLE SECRETS was so well written that I could experience the claustrophobic living conditions, the overwhelming stench of mold and decay and understand the reasons that Lucy needed to keep the family "secret" safe.

Lucy is coming home from the movies, a great night out with her BFF and her school crush and before she could reach her front porch all good thoughts come to a crashing halt. Lucy knows that within the walls of her house lies a filthy secret; her mother is a hoarder and she is trapped within the confines of that fact, isolated. Lucy survives by clinging to the knowledge that she only has two years left before she can leave as her sibling have done before her. Then Lucy finds her mother had died while she was out and with her hand poised to dial 911, the reality of her family life causes her to reconsider. So she sets a two day deadline and what happens next is hour by hour account of Lucy's struggle to keep her family's secret from ever being public knowledge.

The story of a teenage girl trying to live a normal teenage life when her home life is anything but normal will grab you and not let go. Lucy's overwhelming desire to fit in and her forced isolation to make her life bearable are well detailed. And as Lucy valiantly tries to clean the layers of dirt and grime, the years of living with her mother are painfully revealed and it is fascinatingly disturbing.

DIRTY LITTLE SECRETS is a thought provoking and stunning read. You will question yourself and wonder. How far would you go to protect your family secrets?

[Lori · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book takes place in only 24 hours. Lucy has a big secret. One that no one must never find out about. Her house is full of trash. Newspapers stacked to the ceiling. Garbage piled in the kitchen. Mold covering everything. So when Lucy discovers her mother dead under a pile of magazines, what can she do? If she called 911 her family and their secrets would be on the evening news. This is the story of how Lucy copes with her mother's death and their secrets.

This book is a little disturbing because of it's content but I still really enjoyed it. Lucy is just like every other teenager. She worries what people will think of her. She worries about keeping her friends. She is very easy to relate too but she also has this huge secret that she can't share with anyone. How far will she go to keep it? That's what keeps you on the edge of your seat through this entire book. Half of me wanted Lucy to just get it over with! Call 911! But the other half agreed with her. She had to do everything she could to cover this up. Through the entire book I racked my brain trying to figure out how this could work out in Lucy's favor. I could find no options. If you want to know how it turns out you will just have to read it!

Overall I really enjoyed the book. It was something completely different than what I have been reading. C.J. Omololu did a great job of taking a very disturbing situation and turning it into something that we could all connect to. I will definitely be reading more by Omololu in the future.

[Shanyn · Rating 4 out of 5]

If there is one action I want to take after reading Dirty Little Secrets, it is to clean my house and get rid of the junk. Unfortunately, we are in the midst of moving/living different places, so this is not exactly possible - which is probably a good thing, because I may go overboard.

Dirty Little Secrets deals with a family living in a house full of hoarded items. Clothes, newspapers, mail, shoes, magazines. Lucy's mom keeps everything, and this is obviously a problem for many reasons, both emotionally and physically.

The entire book is over about a 24 hour period of time, which I found to be interesting and much more powerful than if it were a story more spread out. We are in the mind of Lucy, a high schooler trying to deal with a mother that is no longer able to run the house because of her collecting problem.

The voice of Lucy was very realistic, as were the actions that she took in the 24 hours we read about. Relationships and problems weren't perfectly solved, and the progression of Lucy from the beginning to the end of our journey with her fits what could actually happen in one day.

A bit of a draining book to read emotionally, Dirty Little Secrets will make your heart ache for Lucy as she tries to live the life she deserves.

[smoreads · Rating 1 out of 5]

i feel sad that i didn't like this book overall, because the premise was so engaging & there were some deep moments during the read. however, it never developed for me, and i ended up majorly disappointed. i didn't believe in lucy's reaction to her mother's death, and i never fully felt her fear or desperation...or ANGER. i didn't connect. the scope of the story seemed so very open & outside of the house, while the problem in the story was so personal. i wanted to spend so much more time inside with lucy (in every way).

in a completely non-solicited opinion, i would have loved for omololu to focus on younger lucy; there is so much to work with within her own family that i didn't want to spend time focusing on a romantic subplot. we get a brief flashback of lucy's friend elaina discovering her secret, but what a fantastic main problem that could have been---and if the relationship between lucy & her mother had been developed a bunch more, the story could have ended with the death & the arson.

then again, nobody asked me & i seem to be in the minority in regards to this book. ;)

[April Hochstrasser · Rating 5 out of 5]

Finally a book I couldn't put down. I'm fascinated by the show "Hoarders" on TV because I think I've known a few in my life, and had to clean out the house of one after she died. This teenager had a secret, and that was that her mother was a hoarder. She wouldn't get rid of anything, or clean up anything. To clean anything was an affront to the mother. So this ordinary teenager is trying to live like a normal person when her homelife is anything but normal. She has to think of all kinds of excuses to keep her friends from coming over to her house. At one point she found a whole nest of little critters in a drippy mass of former fast food take-out. There are narrow walkways in her house getting from one room to another, but heaven forbide if a stack of newspapers or magazines topple over. She has to shower and keep herself clean elsewhere because the water in their house doesn't work. There is nothing she can do without revealing her secret. I was soooo relieved at the ending, I just can't tell you. Highly recommended, short and well-written.

[Andria · Rating 4 out of 5]

Lucy's mom is a hoarder: their house is filthy, filled with towering piles of newspapers, boxes, bags, and assorted trash, and any time Lucy tries to clean up or throw anything away her mom freaks out and becomes verbally abusive. Lucy can't ever invite friends over to her house or let anyone know how they live, so she never really let herself get close to anyone, but now the cute guy she's been crushing on for years is starting to pay attention to her. And then the unthinkable happens, and Lucy has to figure out how to handle the situation withouth exposing her family's dirty little secret to the world.

Heartbreaking and compelling, this is a story of a girl desperately trying to take control over the overwhleming chaos in her life. It was a quick read, and for that I was grateful...by the end of the book I was also desperate to escape that oppressive house and all the clutter and dysfunction contained therein. If you've ever watched those hoarding shows on TV and wondered what it would be like to grow up in a home like that, read this book and find out.

[Chelsea Campbell · Rating 5 out of 5]

I LOVE this book! I immediately related to Lucy, and in some ways her struggles are like any teen's--worrying about popularity and best friends and wanting to get the guy she likes--but in other ways this book was like nothing I'd ever read before. Once I started reading, I couldn't put it down until it was all over and I knew how it ended. Lucy's attempts to keep her mother's hoarding compulsion a secret drew me in and had me on the edge of my seat the whole time. This book was very intense and at times disturbingly real, and I enjoyed every single moment of it!

[Paige Davis · Rating 5 out of 5]

Another book I read in my early developmental years that really made me a better person. Made me think before I spoke. Made me consider before I assumed. Made me question before i concluded. I felt an attachment to the main character, and I loved the themes present in the book, which is why it’s a 5-star book for me

[Miss Bookiverse · Rating 5 out of 5]

Inhalt
Lucy würde gern ein ganz normales Leben führen. Zuhause duschen können oder Freunde haben, die auch mal bei ihr übernachten dürfen. Aber das geht nicht, denn Lucy muss ein Geheimnis hüten. Eigentlich das Geheimnis ihrer Mutter, denn die kann nichts wegschmeißen. Sie hält alles für wichtig und kontrolliert, was jedes Familienmitglied in den Mülleimer wirft. Das Haus ist von oben bis unten vollgestellt und die meisten Räume können nicht mehr benutzt werden. Warmes Wasser gibt es schon lange nicht mehr, weil Lucys Mutter keine Fremden ins Haus lässt. Wenn all das je jemand herausfindet, da ist sich Lucy sicher, ist ihr normales Leben vorbei. Jeder würde sie nur noch Müllmädchen nennen und nichts mehr mit ihr zu tun haben wollen. Als Lucy eines Tages nach Hause kommt, macht sie eine furchtbare Entdeckung, die ihr aber gleichzeitig die Chance ihres Lebens ermöglicht.

Rezension
Dass es bei einem Teenager zu Hause nicht ganz sauber abläuft und sie oder er sich nicht traut darüber zu reden, ist wahrlich kein neues Thema. Meistens handelt es sich dabei um häusliche Gewalt, Alkoholmissbrauch oder noch schlimmeres. In diesem Fall hat sich die Autorin allerdings auf ein völlig neues Gebiet begeben. Im Fernsehen habe ich zwar schon öfter Berichte über Messie-Wohnungen gesehen, aber verpackt in ein Buch ist mir diese psychische Störung noch nie untergekommen. Das hat das Ganze wirklich interessant gemacht. C.J. Omololu hat gute Arbeit in ihrer Recherche geleistet. Ich fand alles absolut nachvollziehbar und realistisch. Ich glaube der Autorin und Protagonistin, dass es wirklich genau so sein muss, einen Messie in der Familie zu haben. Es war superinteressant einen Blick in so ein Leben werfen zu dürfen. Wie das Haus über die Jahre immer mehr verkommt, wie man den Dreck kaum noch wahrnimmt, wenn man selbst dort drin wohnt und vor allem, wie man lernt mit einem Messie umzugehen. Die Begründungen, warum man das nicht wegschmeißen sollte, wofür jenes später noch gut sein wird oder sogar, warum es in dem eigenen Haus dreckig ist, kommen für normale Menschen unglaublich irrational rüber. Für einen Messie macht das aber alles Sinn und das merkt man auch in der Art, wie Lucys Mutter mit ihr redet und argumentiert. Ich fand es faszinierend wie dieses 16jährige Mädchen das alles ausgehalten hat. Wie es sie zu einer Kämpferin gemacht hat, die ihrer Mutter immer wieder die Stirn bietet. Ein tolles Beispiel hierfür ist, dass Lucy es schafft ihr eigenes Zimmer vor dem Chaos zu bewahren. Dort hat sie sogar eine eigene Mikrowelle, in der sie sich Wasser zum Waschen erwärmen muss.

Schreibtechnisch bringt die Autorin alles super rüber. Der Roman wird aus Lucys Sicht geschildert und so hat man als Leser direkt ihre Gedanken vor Augen. Durch diese Schilderungen waren alle Aspekte, die auf den ersten Blick vielleicht nicht so gut nachzuvollziehen sind, total logisch und fundiert. Auch die verschiedenen Atmosphären – der enge Flur, die dreckigen Zimmer, die intimen Momente mit Josh – wurden passend beschrieben und kamen dementsprechend rüber.

Mich hat die Geschichte an keiner Stelle gelangweilt. Ich fand es interessant wie Lucy mit der unerwarteten Situation umgeht, wie ihre Gedanken an früher zurückwandern oder die Momente, in denen sie einfach Zeit mit ihren Freunden verbringt. Der Entschluss, den sie gegen Ende fasst, hat mich während des Lesens total ergriffen. Es hat plötzlich alles so viel Sinn gemacht und obwohl die Situation im Nachhinein vielleicht extrem herüberkommt, konnte ich sie im Moment des Lesens voll und ganz nachvollziehen und mit Lucy mitfühlen.
Auf den wenigen 200 Seiten ist mir Lucy so sehr ans Herz gewachsen, dass ich wirklich gern mehr über sie lesen möchte. Das Ende bleibt ein wenig offen und obwohl die meisten Wegen gewiesen sind, kann der Leser sich selbst ausmalen wie es mit Lucy weitergeht. Das Buch beschreibt zwar alles, was ich als Leser wissen muss, aber ich hätte trotzdem gern noch ein paar mehr Kapitel mit dieser beeindruckenden Protagonistin verbracht. Ich wollte zusehen, wie sie ihr zukünftiges Leben in die Hand nimmt, wie viel sie ihren Freunden preisgibt und auch wie ihre Geschwister mit der neuen Situation umgehen.

Offene Fragen
Wird/ist Sarah auch eine Horterin?
Wo wird Lucy in Zukunft wohnen?

Fazit
Ein faszinierendes Buch mit einer beeindruckenden Protagonistin. Dirty Little Secrets eignet sich durch die niedrige Seitenzahl wunderbar für zwischendurch. Wer mal etwas ganz Neues erleben möchte, sollte hier seine Nase reinstecken.

[5 STERNE]

Optische Gestaltung
Ich bin zwar nicht so ein großer Fan von Gesichtern auf Covern, aber in diesem Fall passt es ziemlich gut. Durch das Cover hatte ich leider keine Chance mir mein eigenes optisches Bild von Lucy zu machen, aber das ist in Ordnung, da die Beschreibung im Buch ziemlich gut zu dem Covermädchen gepasst hat. Ansonsten finde ich das Cover wirklich gut fotografiert und in Szene gesetzt. Das dreckige Fenster passt perfekt zum Inhalt des Buches und auch die Schriftsetzung im Inneren habe ich als besonders angenehm empfunden.

Trivia oder was ich aus diesem Buch gelernt hab
Die Autorin kommt selbst nicht aus einem Messy-Haushalt. Sie hat das Buch einfach mit einer Menge Recherche geschrieben.

Bücher, in denen es auch um Geheimnisse geht
Lock & Key – Sarah Dessen
Speak – Laurie Halse Anderson

[Meg Mirza · Rating 5 out of 5]

16 year-old Lucy Tompkins has been living with a horrible secret. Her mother is a hoarder. Over the years, their house has slowly but surely been transformed into a cesspool of filth. The strain of keeping the outside world from knowing how bad things really are is truly beginning to weigh on her. We immediately see how alien and strange Lucy's world has become when she confesses that she enjoys having a friend, despite how much hard work it is... something she hasn't dared to attempt in years, spending time in isolation at school, lest anyone find out about her horrendous home life. Lucy's older brother and sister moved out of the house as soon as they were legally able, and even they don't realize how much the situation has deteriorated in the short time they've been gone, as they blithely reassure Lucy that she only needs to tough it out another 2 years, then she'll be free... in the meantime, they caution her, don't touch any of mom's stuff, you know how that upsets her.

When Lucy comes home to find her mother dead, buried under a toppling stack of her own magazines, incredibly, unbelievably, the prime driving force of her life, that no one must know, has been so thoroughly, deeply ingrained in her, that rather than calling 9-1-1, or even calling a family member, instead, she decides to try to clean-up the house herself. During the next tense 24 hours, teenaged Lucy attempts to do alone what even a team of fully-geared professional cleaners could not do. As she sifts through her mother's "keepsakes," "collectibles" and "treasures" it's as if she's emptying out a time capsule, slowly going back in time, as she uncovers layer after layer of trash. She reminisces about her mother's increasingly odd behavior, reflects on how it all started (shortly after her dad abandoned the family, her mother's hoarding started in earnest.) She comes across unpaid bills and receipts from her mother's e-bay addiction, toys that she used to love to play with as a girl but lost in the mess, an unappreciated (yet still saved) hand-made gift she made for her mother, and even, incredibly, dead pets buried under the hoard. As Lucy starts to make progress, pitching junk out the window into the yard to dispose of later, even this relatively minor effort does not go unnoticed by the nosy neighbors. Stressed out and overwhelmed, Lucy decides to snatch "one last normal night" for herself, and hits a party with friends, including a boy she's crushing on, reasoning that she will have to figure out a way to deal with her mother's body in the morning. Why is Lucy so callous? It's the way she's been raised. At the heart of her mother's hoarding is her disconnect from other human beings and the way that material objects always seems to take first place.

Returning to her house in the wee hours of dawn, Lucy remembers the final scene from 90's Johnny Depp movie, What's Eating Gilbert Grape? and decides to burn the house down, making it look like an accident.

My one quibble with this book was that so much of the story happened in flashbacks. I wished we could have had more scenes while Lucy's mother was still alive. I wished that Lucy could have directly confronted her mother, rather than skirt around her craziness as she simply tries to survive. I wished too, that the other family members had been less selfish -- that at least one of them could have seen the house at its worst and been shocked by it.

Devastating, sad and as riveting as any episode of the television show Hoarders, this short novel will appeal to readers looking for realistic fiction about how a teen rises to the challenge of dealing with a shocking and disgusting situation.

[Shania Aiello · Rating 5 out of 5]

Life and Secrets as we live and learn from them.





I have recently read the book “Dirty little secrets” by C.J. Omololu. I decided to read the book because my friend told me it was a good book to grab an audience’s attention. I never read any books by this author. Dirty little secrets is both drama and mystery genre because of the suspense and problems brought out in this book. The picture on the cover tells you it will involve a teenager, but it looks like she has something to hide. The title tells you that a lot of secrets will be spoken of and brought about during the story, and that the person isn’t proud of their secrets.
The story takes place in a small town that had a mall were most kids would go and a neighborhood filled with houses and big yards so people have some privacy. Lucy is one off the main characters because she speaks out in the story a lot. Phil and Sara have a role play too being Lucy’s siblings. Lucy is always in constant fear of her reputation being ruined and going back to garbage girl, because her mom is a pack rat and has to save everything. Lucy’s older siblings Phil and Sara escaped the dump their mom has created once they turned 18, leaving Lucy behind to struggle with all the secrets. Lucy is always trying to hide her secrets and keep her friends by being careful to not let anyone to close to her home. Lucy often stays at Kylie’s house to forget the dump she has to call home. Kylie is Lucy’s best friend, but yet barely knows the truth about Lucy, because Lucy is mysterious. Later on in the book Lucy opens up to Kylie telling her some of the problems she has to deal with at home. Lucy and her mom’s relationship have gotten worse as she gets older because her mom tends to blame everything on Lucy. On top of her many secrets Lucy has a chance with her crush Josh Lee making the stressful secrets taunt her.
Altogether, Lucy lives with her mom in a nice neighborhood even though the inside of their home looks like a dump. Lucy feels that the secrets will soon get out again about her home and how her mom is a constant pack rat. All the secrets from the past keeps Lucy from having many friends, her main friend is Kylie and often stays with her to escape her house. One day Lucy comes home to find her mom dead under one of the various stacks of newspapers she saved over the years. Even though this life shocking thing has occurred Lucy keeps the death hidden for a few days and can only think about her friends and Josh Lee. That night she decides to go to a party where her crush is playing in a band, since he invited her. They end up making that night a wonderful memory, but soon enough Lucy has to come home to her mom and the problems she tries to ignore. Lucy finally decided what she has to do… quickly rushing home to start her new plan to just bury all the secrets. Lucy used a heater to slowly start a fire to burn down their home. Later on Lucy feels a bit of relief to bury the problems in the fire and save her future.
This book was a great attention grabber because it draws the reader in. You will definitely stay interested by trying to discover the secrets Lucy has to hide. This book touches emotional standards to by all the stories and memories told. I would suggest this book to anyone because it is unique.
I learned that many people hide secrets even if you think that they don’t, but you shouldn’t judge a person by their home because they can’t change that. The moral to me seems that you should try to stay positive even if your past has problems.

[megan · Rating 3 out of 5]

She was the parent—she could have done something about it. She was the one with the power to make our lives like the people in the notebook, but instead she buried us all under tons of filth and shame.

I have mixed feelings about this book and the quote above. As much as I love the idea of a book focused around the daughter of a compulsive hoarder, I feel that it could have been handled much better. When your mother has schizophrenia, are you embarrassed of her? When your mother suffers from depression, do you hide her from your friends? If you do, shame on you. Compulsive hoarding should be taken as seriously as both of those mental disorders. My main problem is this: instead of acting like her mother was crazy, Lucy should have tried to help her mother.

Lucy is still a sympathetic character despite not finding her mother the help she so desperately needed. I understand why she didn't want to find her mother help. She didn't want rumors to spread and her best friend find out and never talk to her again. (which probably wouldn't have happened because Kaylie seemed like a really good friend) Even worse than her best friend finding out would be her swoon-worthy crush Josh discovering her secret. I found it strange that she was more worried that Josh would find out, but we all have that time in our life when guys are seemingly more important than our girlfriends.

I liked how this book is written: present Lucy mixed in with flashbacks from her childhood. I thought it accurately showed how her mother had a downward spiral, and I liked the story about her going to work with her mother and seeing her out of character. Although I don't completely understand how & why her mother went from cranky hoarder to kind-hearted worker, it was a touching story and made you feel for not only Lucy but her mother.

Another problem I had with this story is that you don't feel this strong sadness and anger from Lucy. When her mother passes away, Lucy should have been a wreck. Although her mother could have been better, a mother is a mother. I know I would have broken down and immediately called 911. I don't know how Lucy controlled her thoughts enough to think beyond that. She also is obviously very angry at her mother and situation in general, but I didn't feel that blinding rage. As everyone is saying, the ending could have been better. I know what Omololu was trying to say and accomplish with that resolution, but there are a lot of plot holes and a feeling of um okay? running through the readers mind.

Like I said, I like the message this book is trying to send. It's powerful, but could it have been stronger? Definitely. With a topic like hoarding that isn't written as much about, Omololu should have had a home-run; after all, there isn't much to compare it to. However, there were just some things that I couldn't overlook.

[india_ink · Rating 1 out of 5]

It's rare to find a book, let alone fiction, dealing with the child of a hoarder, so I was very interested and wanted to like this book. However, I was dissatisfied with both the writing and the story itself, especially the ending. Although Lucy's actions in the end were believable, the ending itself fell outside the realm of believability for me, mainly because it hints that her living situation afterwards would be good. ...with her friends' mom being like, "Of course you can stay with us as long as you want." When in reality, Child Protective services would be involved, not to mention the police. . It left more questions than answers since her decision presented a huge risk of getting her into more trouble, not out of it. And even if she got away with it, she still never really dealt with her biggest problem - not trusting someone safe with her secret. In the end she is still lying to people, only the lies are even bigger. This isn't the hopeful ending the author might have been trying for.

The writing is very narrative-heavy and has a lot of random flashbacks, which fill in helpful information, but could have been handled much better. Overall, the writing comes off as immature and clunky and I ended up skimming large chunks of text to get the the parts I was most interested in, which were how she was going to deal with the hoard itself, since the romance was typically predictable and cliche. (Cute, popular boy very interested out of the blue in the quiet, unpopular, doesn't think she's pretty girl.)

I was surprised by the big story-changer. the death of her mother. It seemed a little out there, keeping the dead body in the house , but I hung on since Lucy was showing herself to be a resourceful person, and I understood the underlying desire not to have people know about the hoard. But,a s I mentioned, I wasn't satisfied with the final resolve of this situation.

The best parts of the book were Lucy dealing with the hoard itself. There were some exquisite snapshots of living in the hoard, such as the tubs full of plastic chips from bread bags, the keepsakes left to rot in cardboard while useless items were stored in plastic tubs, the mixer delivery, the realization that her mother had sacrificed and deprived her children of so many good things so she could waste money on useless items. But a lot of these moments were buried in the narrative-heavy writing. And combined with the ending, the book just left a sour taste in my mouth.

[Riddhi Mazumder · Rating 4 out of 5]

Dirty Little Secrets by C.J. Omololu

Another book I picked up solely for the MMC 2018.
4 stars.
I don't feel like writing a review.
It started off really interesting and but got pretty monotonous by chapter 4. But it picked up in chapter 10.
I was really tired and sleepy when I started reading this. I guess I would have enjoyed this even more than I have if I was reading this at a different time.
Anyway, this book full of details about the regular stuff of the aftermath of Lucy's Mom's death. She is having a hard time cleaning up the mess that has piled up for years.
It's in between all those regular details ---some flashbacks Lucy has about her Mom, stuff she finds out while cleaning, hiding her mom's death to avoid the unnecessary attention of the neighbours and her desperate attempt to stay normal--- that's what makes this book worth reading.
The concept of the book is fresh. I have never read anything like this before. Never.
Before I proceed further, I just want to say that Sara, Lucy's sister is a stuck up bitch. Her Mom is an even bigger one.
I feel bad for Lucy. She is the youngest of all three. She is always left out to handle the mess.
She is only 16, she shouldn't have to go through this mess.
This is a book for patient readers. There are too many unnecessary details. Or maybe it's just me who feels this way.
Anyway, chapter 16-20 are really really worth the wait, the unnecessary annoying details, the sleepless night, everything.


I will definitely come back to this book for the occasional adrenaline rush. I am glad I picked it up.