Dirty Little Secrets by C. J. Omololu

Dirty Little Secrets
by C. J. Omololu

Genre: Contemporary Fiction / Young Adult 

Everyone has secrets. Some are just bigger and dirtier than others. For sixteen years, Lucy has kept her mother's hoarding a secret. She's had to—nobody would understand the stacks of newspapers and mounds of garbage so high they touch the ceiling and the rotting smell that she's always worried would follow her out the house. After years of keeping people at a distance, she finally has a best friend and maybe even a boyfriend if she can play it right. As long as she can make them think she's normal. When Lucy arrives home from a sleepover to find her mother dead under a stack of National Geographics, she starts to dial 911 in a panic, but pauses before she can connect. She barely notices the filth and trash anymore, but she knows the paramedics will. First the fire trucks, and then news cameras that will surely follow. No longer will they be remembered as the nice oncology nurse with the lovely children—they'll turn into that garbage-hoarding freak family on Collier Avenue. With a normal life finally within reach, Lucy has only minutes to make a critical decision. How far will she go to keep the family secrets safe?

Everyone has a secret. But Lucy’s has 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.

I finished this book in one night. Though I was fascinated with the overall plot of 'hoarders' in the story, I felt it ended too quickly. There was so much more that I felt needed to be told, but at least you get to enjoy a short interesting story of Lucy's finial decisions of her families "truths". It's a quick read, but you do get some unknown insight into a world many never see.

Likes: All the childhood objects Lucy discovered that triggered memories while cleaning.

Dislikes: Lucy was quite unemotional throughout the story, so I'm assuming it was shock.

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