"Dirty Little Secrets" by C.J. Omololu: Revised

The book "Dirty Little Secrets" by C.J. Omololu is a young adult novel in which a teen struggles to hide her private life from the world. Lucy, the protagonist of the book, is extremely embarrassed by her mother who has developed into a full-blown hoarder. This poses a threat to the households health and wellness. When Lucy comes home one day, her problems become a great deal worse when she sees her mom dead on the floor from an asthma attack caused by the growing mold in her house. But Lucy has no idea what to do with the situation since she is to ashamed to call the cops and invite them into her putrid home. With her mom out of the way, however, Lucy can finally clean up the house before anyone finds out. In this complex "dirty" story the author uses the hoard of garbage and manipulates it to act as a sort of "archaeological dig" to make the reader empathize about the characters with buried forgotten memories.
    
Firstly, when Lucy recovers some hidden items in the hoard of her house they bring back some joyful memories. For example, when Lucy finds her third grade teddy bear it brings back a certain remembrance. " It was a Girl Scout project- I even got my sewing badge for doing it. My mom used to make quilts a long time ago- she was a really good sewer, and she showed me what to do. I squeezed the bear's tummy... thinking about the nights Mom and I had sat with our heads bent over the effort of making the stitches... as tiny and uniform as possible."(Omololu, 120) As you can see even though Lucy acknowledged that her mom was not a good one, they still bonded over things in the past and spent quality time together even if it wasn't recently. It also portrays how some people just go downhill and need a lot of help to get back to the way they once were. If Lucy's mom wasn't always a negligent mother and hoarder, that means she didn't have to stay that way. If they could work together to make a bear they could have worked together to clean up their lives. Another part of the story is when her mother heartwarmingly remarks, "Congratulations. You are now an official member of the top secret quilting society."(Omololu, 121) Clearly her mom wanted to be a big, good part of Lucy's life and did once make an effort to do so. By including this phrase, the author showed us how much love and togetherness they once had and could have had still.  One last example of a joyful memory is when Lucy uncovers a pair of her mother's scrubs. She is reminded of what kind of person she was around her "people" (She was a nurse). " Mom always found the most obnoxious scrubs to wear because she said it made her people feel better to look at something cheerful. It had been weird to see Mom so efficient, so capable of taking care of other people."(Omololu, 136) Clearly her mother, in her work place seemed to be a role model to Lucy and others once. Lucy later even says that "I would remember back to the day I was proud of her (referring to watching her work)." This shows Lucy's appreciation and admiration towards her mother's "non-hoarding" personality. It also implies that Lucy doesn't want to take up this role of responsibility, she just wants the mother she knows and loves to do what she's best at with her, taking care of people. Clearly the house is not only filled with garbage but also memories to hold onto as well.
    
 Secondly, Not only does Lucy unearth belongings with great memories, she also reveals items that make her feel distraught, confused, and just downright angry. For example the most disheartening discovery in the hoard is when Lucy finds an envelope of bills. "I ripped the envelope all the way open and took out the papers that were inside. There were pages and pages of charges, and on the first page in big black letters was one of the largest numbers I'd ever seen in real life. I looked up at the date in the corner of the page. This statement was from six months ago, but even then Mom owed $48,562 to this credit card... The scholarships and grants I was chasing because there wasn't enough money to go to a good university without a lot of help. And this is where it all ended up... It had ended in late-night home-shopping bargains on stuff we'd never use"(Omololu, 206) Clearly, finding something as big as this must be truly distressing, Their lost opportunities were just because her mom was a shopaholic. All Lucy wanted was to go to college and her mom's habits had made that chance significantly smaller. The fact that the mom had these dues and was unable to pay for necessities shows that she was truly unfit as a parent , even if she did honestly love her children. Lucy must have felt that material things seemed to have mattered more than her to her mom.

 Overall, The author takes advantage of the mother's hoarding problems and uses that to put meaning into a few of the things in her hoard. This affects the reader by making them feel empathy, good and bad. It also lets reader's delve a little deeper into the perspective of Lucy regardu her mom's actions in the past. Many people can relate to the author's use of old items because most people have items to remember things by, even if they aren't a hoarder. For example, when you go on vacation you often purchase a souvenir. Basically, nostalgia is something everyone creates and hangs on to. By clinging on to items from the past you can relive those moments just by seeing them, but in this story that gets out of hand and ruins the lives of multiple people.

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