Author: Jeannette McCurdy
Year published: 2022
Category: Adult nonfiction (memoir)
Pages: 320
Rating: 4.5 out of 5
Location: (my 2026 Google Reading map): USA (CA)
Summary: 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.
Review: I have a daughter who is just the right age that I know Jeannette McCurdy's work on TV. I watched quite a bit of iCarly and even a few episodes of Sam and Cat. I've heard such good things about this memoir and I'm glad I finally got around to reading it. For goodness sakes, it's got 4.43 stars on Goodreads.
While the title and much of the content in this memoir are negative or tough to hear, this book is funny, sensitive, interesting, and really well done. I did a read/listen combination, and McCurdy narrates, which is fun (she imitates Miranda Gosgrove, her co-star, perfectly).
McCurdy's mom is the ultimate stage mom combined with deep mental health issues. McCurdy tells the story from when she was age 6 and thrust into acting (which she didn't want to do) through her late 20s, when she left the acting business after a successful career. She did a great job at showing how her mom's mental illness was just her "normal" and that she didn't realize that it was wrong until after her mother died and McCurdy got into therapy.
Between McCurdy's anorexia (starting at age 11), bulemia, alcohol abuse, and OCD, she's got a lot to contend with and is really honest about her struggles to get better. And, she is honest about the fact that admitting to the unhealthy relationship with her mother was the biggest hurdle.
I am not a big celebrity memoir reader, but this one was totally worth it.
Challenges for which this counts:
- 20 Books of Summer
- Cover Lovers--something you'd see in a house of worship (urn for ashes)
- Nonfiction--health
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