Tag: hoarding

The Missing Treasures of Amy Ashton

~ Wendy-Marie ~ Leave a comment

Sometimes you finish a book and wonder what the same plot would be in another author’s hands. This can be very interesting but not the most productive thing when midnight isn’t far off, and you have to be at work the next morning at 6 am.

Enter Eleanor Ray’s The Missing Treasures of Amy Ashton. The cover looked interesting, and the inner jacket copy had me tucking it into the library bag. If the first 20 pages didn’t captivate, I could always just not finish it and get a good night’s sleep for once. Imagine that.

Unfortunately for my sleep app, a good solid seven hours of sleep wasn’t in the cards. You meet Amy Ashton at a leaving-do (or if you are an American like me, drinks to celebrate a coworker’s departure). Amy isn’t psyched to be out or knocking back the drinks and within a few paragraphs I’m really liking Amy. I might not tuck an empty green wine bottle into my bag and then have a train full of people thinking I’m a raging drunk but the level of uncomfortable is familiar.

Then the story takes a turn. Amy is broken by something in her past. And her coping/survival mechanism is to retreat into things. She has a house but it’s literally falling apart and trying to get to the upstairs would honestly be excellent training for an Everest expedition. Sure, one neighbor is super annoying, but lady has a point. Someone needs to step in and stop things before someone gets severely injured.

And here is where Eleanor Ray’s genius lies. You could take this same plot, thirtysomething lady with a mystery past and deep personal issues and put in the hands of another author. Let’s say Marian Keyes because yup, I’ve devoured so many Marian Keyes books both good and bad. Marian Keyes isn’t a bad author; she has her strengths and can write a solid book.  

But Marian Keyes’ Amy Ashton? The book would have been at least twice as long, we would know exactly who Amy and Chantel would be listening to while doing their makeup and watering down Toyah’s liquor cabinet. Also, I have the suspicion the Marian Keys’ Amy would have boinked the baddie and hoarded fancy handbags too.

Laurie Notaro could have done a lovely job, but her Amy would also have a crippling eBay/vintage collection to tuck into any corners not crammed with the local newspapers/bottles/broken pots/cups plus a few adorable elder dogs.

Never ever let me be the Plot Fairy doling out plots to authors.

My point is Eleanor Ray keeps the plot lean. That leanness helps disguise who the baddie is. He seemed to be engaged and wanting to help. And I like that Amy doesn’t magically get better once the main mystery is solved. She is still a hot mess, and she has a hard road ahead even if you can now see the floor of her front hall. And we leave her at the start of her journey. Anything can happen now. Any wonder why I didn’t stop reading even when the spouse wandered into the bedroom for his nasal spray and asked why I was still awake. Sometimes you must finish that book.

Coming Clean

~ Wendy-Marie ~ Leave a comment

I should be puttering around the apartment getting everything all tidy just in case our unit is one of the randomly selected ones for inspection on Monday. There’s stacks of books on the dining room table, some plastic crates of Blacklight’s things, the laptop cases, the iron and the tote bag of tote bags to stash in my car trunk. The bathroom could also use a clean. The clean dishes should be put away before I need to use them to make Blacklight’s breakfast. Basically, our apartment isn’t spotless but it could use some love.

But after reading Kimberly Rae Miller’s Coming Clean, a memoir of being the child of hoarding parents, my apartment doesn’t seem untidy at all. You can walk across the room without needing to block out what sort of filth and rot strata you’re stepping on. All the plumbing works. We don’t have to eat only sealed convenience food because our kitchen isn’t functional. And once Blacklight lurches into the living room, the only thing keeping him from sitting on Mr Couch will be my reluctance to give up my sprawling throw pillow nest and share the darn thing with him.

As an adult, Kimberly Rae Miller strives to be clean and tidy. Maybe she strives a bit too hard because a dear friend notices that she purges things when she’s upset. But as a child, living in houses packed so full the only working bathroom door couldn’t be shut or not having hot water was her normal. And those conditions weren’t because her parents didn’t know any better. Her father has a genius IQ and a need to collect and retain things most people would call trash. Kimberly’s mother, herself the child of hoarders, initially fights the encroaching tide of things but herself falls victim to depression and hoarding when medical issues cause her to become disabled. From early childhood onward, Kim learns to conceal the mess and paper over with a veneer of perfection. In the days before Hoarders and Hoarding: Buried Alive who would believe the straight A student with all the extracurricular activities was living in extreme conditions that forced the neighbors to complain?

Coming Clean is a slight book but man does it carry an emotional heft. There’s fear, shame, hope and trying to make a difference even when her parents can’t seem to change. You don’t know if you should stop by Home Depot for contractor size roll of huge black trash bags and industrial strength rubber gloves to help Kim rescue her parents from another mess….AGAIN…or if you should grab Kim’s phone, stomp it into bits and implore her to just let her parents rot before it ruins her life so badly that there’s no coming back. But what you should do? Read Coming Clean and give thanks to Kimberly Rae Miller for opening up and exposing the raw wounds of her childhood. If her opening up helps one person dealing with a hoarding loved one or gives them comfort that they are not alone? It’s worth it.