Dirty Little Secrets by C.J. Omololu

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:
 
Dirty Little Secrets was such a fabulous and intense read that I absolutely loved and I mean LOVED!

Lucy was a interesting character because on one side she was just a normal teen who facing normal teen issues (fitting in/boy/friend) while on the other she was facing a harrowing and confusing dilemma that catapults many different issues throughout the book. A dilemma that most teens hopefully will never have to face and if they do I sincerely will have the help of others. That dilemma? Well, Lucy's mother has a huge hoarding issue one that has plagued the lives of her loved ones. Believe it or not, I had heard of this little know disease before. Though, I could never have began to imagine how horrible and confusing it could be and how many people can be hurt because of it. Leaving me to seriously applaud C.J. for brining light to this issue. Anyway, getting back to Lucy, I seriously felt so many different emotions while reading this book. Those emotions ranged from hatred to Lucy's mother for letting her problem get so worse to courage for Lucy to overcome all this and live a normal life. And while I did not always agree with all of Lucy's decisions of how to deal with the problem, I still contained to root for her the whole time.

And because of all this drama and intrigue of learning more about this disease I finished Dirty Little Secrets in less then half a day. Since, it was just that good and just that hard to put down. So, you can just imagine all the thoughts and emotions going through me when I finally did hit the last page of this novel.

Though, I did have one tiny problem. A problem with where it end because I really wanted to see what happened to Lucy after her disturbing final decision. But at the same time I felt that it did conclude and wrap up things to the best it could.

Overall, C.J. certainly has a winner contained in this one leaving me to highly suggest you pick up a copy of this as soon as it's released.

Grade: A
 
Dirty Little Secrets will be released Febuarary 2, 2010!
 
Source: Contest Win on Authors Now!. Thanks C.J.!