Book Description

"Lucy’s range of emotions is clearly presented, as is her fear that her family’s secret sets her apart from others: 'It made us too different.' Her final blazing act to ensure a normal life is upsetting but should provoke discussion."— Booklist

“Shocking, tragic, desperate, and believable. Characters, situations, and settings are vivid, and dialogue rings true. As a valuable new addition to heartbreaking but honest books about teens immersed in emotionally distressed families this potent and creatively woven page-turner brings a traumatic situation front and center.”–School Library Journal

“A disturbing appraisal of how a mother’s obsessive hoarding affects her teenage daughter in this frank novel.”—Publishers Weekly

“An emotionally charged novel dealing with the issue of compulsive hoarding tells the story of a girl forced to make an agonizing decision in this nicely realized page-turner. A growing public awareness of this disorder will produce many curious readers, and they will not be disappointed—Lucy is sympathetic and real, her brother and sister equally believable. Her mother is a multidimensional, complicated character. Quick chapters throttle toward an unexpected and morally ambiguous ending. Readers will be rapt.”—Kirkus Reviews

"Keeping faith with a teenager's perspective, this compelling portrait of life with a hoarder doesn't offer any sort of psychological explanation or rationale for her mother's behavior, only hinting that it follows a path through families and showing with frank honesty the often brutal lengths a child will go to in order to hide the condition form outsiders. Lucy's seemingly callous response to her mother's death is utterly plausible in light of their history and the self-protective skin she has developed, making her desire for a normal relationship all the more poignant and rendering her actions almost heroic, even if the only life she managed to save was her own."--BCCB