Coming Clean by Kimberly Rae Miller

Have you ever left the kitchen sink dishes for another day? Do you have an extra room at home or a basement that's storage for stuff you rarely use but don't have the heart to discard? And do you feel guilty about it? That's nothing compared to Coming Clean.

Kim Miller is your average girl growing up in what appears to be an average family to Kim's friends and teachers, but her parents are hoarders, whose tendencies to keep every little thing escalates as Kim grows older. The Millers' hoarding gets so bad, they won't allow cleaners, repairmen, or anyone into their home. The bathroom is filled with junk and becomes nonfunctional, forcing Kim to shower away from home. The furnace breaks but isn't fixed, making for some chilly winters. Meanwhile, rats scurry through discarded belongings and a derelict kitchen, and the floor slowly disintegrates. As an adult, Kim becomes a neat-freak, obsessed with her clean and tidy apartment. Yet her parents' troubles plague Kim, as she takes on forced purges of their home and the insurmountable task of cleaning and packing required for each move her parents make.

While recounting her traumatizing childhood, readers may recoil at the horrors Kim's parents unwittingly bestowed, but Kim manages to balance her disturbing tale with compassionate pictures of her parents' kindness and the history that led to their hoarding tendencies.