Dirty Little Secrets

Dirty Little Secrets, by C.J. Omololu.

I loved the glazed, faraway look people got as they glanced at you with a smile that faded as they quickly realized they didn't know you - their eyes scanned your face and, without a flicker of recognition, moved on to the next person. You were a factor in their life for a nanosecond and then you were gone.

This novel was about Lucy, whose mother was a "hoarder" - she refused to throw practically anything out, and as a result, their house is a mess. Lucy is careful to always go over her friend Kaylie's house and never allow friends or neighbors over to hers, but when she comes home and find her mother dead one day, the game is up. Lucy decides to call 911 in a few days, when she has time to clean up the mess, so that she won't forever be thought of as "Garbage Girl" - at her last school, a Catholic prep school, once one of her former friends had found out her secret, they had started to call her this.

The ending of this book was a little shocking, but I suppose it was still a valid way to end the book. I had never realized that hoarding was an actual disease - the author of this book has done research with an organization called the Children of Hoarders. I tend to collect a lot of things - the U.S. state coins, old memorabilia from high school, etcetera - but luckily I am not a COMPULSIVE hoarder like Lucy's mom was.

3 stars out of 5.