Review: Dirty Little Secrets by CJ Omololu
Title: Dirty Little Secrets
Hardcover, 212 pages
Author: CJ Omololu
Publisher: Walker Books for Young Readers (Bloomsbury)
Publication Date: February 2, 2010
Source: Library
Book Summary:
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?
Review:
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.
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haha, i love how this book made you want to clean (which is what i should be doing right now but i am procrastinating…)
it sounds really cool and i am so hoping my library gets it in as i would love to read this. thanks for a cool review.
You’ll see what I mean when you read it! Or if you’ve ever seen the show Hoarders, it’s like that. Very different to think of someone living that way.
This sounds absolutely incredible — I definitely watch the A&E show on Hoarders, and I have this immediate urge to start organizing. What’s fascinating is the condition behind it all that causes this hoarding. I definitely think this might be a good book to read, and I’m putting it on my list. Thanks for putting it on the radar!
If you’ve seen Hoarders you will definitely want to pick up this book – I had never seen the show before but the author certainly paints the picture well.
thanks for the post