Title: I’m Glad My Mom Died

Author: Jennette McCurdy

Publisher: Simon & Schuster 2022

Genre: Memoir

Pages: 304

Rating: 4/5 stars

Reading Challenges:

Jennette McCurdy was six years old when she had her first acting audition. Her mother’s dream was for her only daughter to become a star, and Jennette would do anything to make her mother happy. So she went along with what Mom called “calorie restriction,” eating little and weighing herself five times a day. She endured extensive at-home makeovers while Mom chided, “Your eyelashes are invisible, okay? You think Dakota Fanning doesn’t tint hers?” She was even showered by Mom until age sixteen while sharing her diaries, email, and all her income.

In I’m Glad My Mom Died, Jennette recounts all this in unflinching detail—just as she chronicles what happens when the dream finally comes true. Cast in a new Nickelodeon series called iCarly, she is thrust into fame. Though Mom is ecstatic, emailing fan club moderators and getting on a first-name basis with the paparazzi (“Hi Gale!”), Jennette is riddled with anxiety, shame, and self-loathing, which manifest into eating disorders, addiction, and a series of unhealthy relationships. These issues only get worse when, soon after taking the lead in the iCarly spinoff Sam & Cat alongside Ariana Grande, her mother dies of cancer. Finally, after discovering therapy and quitting acting, Jennette embarks on recovery and decides for the first time in her life what she really wants.

CW: All the warnings! Sexual assault, Disorder eating, Child abuse

This was so tough to read and yet I did laugh at a few parts. McCurdy starts at the beginning to show us what exactly it was like growing up in her family. All the family secrets are laid bare as we struggle to understand how these people could treat a little girl like that. And then things get even worse as she ages. I was absolutely appalled at a few scenes and it was very difficult to read them. But you need to to understand why McCurdy then makes the choices that she does in her late teens and early 20s. Everything makes so much more sense. I was glad to see that she is finally on the road to recovery. But I think I would have like another 5 years or so before she wrote this book. I would have liked to hear a bit more about her recovery before reliving all this trauma.

Next up on the TBR pile: