Dirty Little Secrets a good YA read

 Warning: Some Spoilers!

Lucy is counting the days until she can move out of her mother’s house. This is fairly common among teens, what 16 year old doesn’t fantasize about living on their own, doing what they want when they want and drinking Dr. Pepper for breakfast? What’s not so common is Lucy is counting the days until she can escape the walls of garbage that are closing in around her. Her mother is a hoarder, and the home is a basically biohazard. Lucy goes to great lengths to keep this a secret and lives in constant fear of being found out. When Lucy comes home to discover her mother lying dead amongst the heaps of trash she is determined to let her mother take their secret to the grave.

At first I was skeptical I would find Lucy to be a sympathetic character. I mean what kid keeps their mother’s death a secret so they can keep family secrets from surfacing?

C.J. Omololu did a great job of writing Lucy in a realistic light, you really feel for the kid and find yourself routing for her to succeed in hiding the truth. The book is fast paced and well written. Parts of the book really disturbed me and left me wondering what people are capable of.

After I finished the book I found myself hoping that Lucy would be okay. I’m fully aware she’s fictional, even so I hope nothing but the best for this kid.