** spoiler alert ** 
 What might you do if your mother's hoarding is creating a health hazard? That the house is in such squalor that you can't invite anyone over? That the woman who raised you is obviously suffering from a compulsive disorder? 
 If you said a)tell a trusted adult or b) speak to a professional or doctor then you are way off, sister. Eventually your mum's going to die when an avalanche of old National Geographics falls on her; THEN you would call the authorities, surely. NO..not if you want to be popular and keep a potential hot new boyfriend! 
 You open the windows (good thing it's the middle of winter) so your mom's corpse doesn't start to rot. You try to clean the house out because the EMBARRASSMENT of having a mentally ill parent is far worse than, you know, her actual DEATH. 
 So you kill two birds with one stone, and burn your childhood home to the ground. Arson serves the double purpose of 1.) handily cremating your mother's corpse,hiding the fact that you didn't call 911 when you discovered she was dead and 2.) saving you from being EMBARRASSED in front of your friends (and potential BF.) 
 Whatever. Her mom was actually spending money and running up credit cards while denying her the narrator TRIPS to DISNEYLAND. What a heinous bitch! 
 Quite how setting fire to the house absolves the credit card bills is never revealed. 
 The takeaway from this book: mentally ill parents are just SO EMBARRASSING.