I’m Glad My Mom Died Review

E-Book, 320 Pages
Non-Fiction/ Memoir
By: Jennette McCurdy
Rating: 🌟🌟🌟🌟

“I yearn to know the people I love deeply and intimately—without context, without boxes—and I yearn for them to know me that way, too.”

This just won Goodreads choice awards for best memoir and autobiography for 2022 and I honestly had no doubt it will. It was released in August but already has a staggering quarter of a million reviews and an average rating of 4.61. McCurdy is a great author and I am so happy for her.

I grew up watching some of those Disney and Nickelodeon shows like Zack and Cody, Hannah Montana and occasionally parts of iCarly. As a young kid I was always jealous of those young actors because I was naive and thought that they have perfect lives and are already making fortunes at such a young age. This book basically shows us the other side of the equation and how much this success costs these young stars.

I honestly had no clue that McCurdy had to go through all of that and I have much more respect for her as a person for being able to share those things with the rest of the world. The book title is very smart and here we have Jennette explains why her mother made her life a living hell and why she is glad that she died. Through this journey we get to see very heavy topics like manipulation and grooming and one very important which is eating disorders.

As a pediatric resident I get to work with parents and kids and we get to see all kinds of parents. We also usually have patients -usually girls- with eating disorders and this book just made me see them in a very different kind of way.

I am always a bit scared going into books by famous people because there is always a chance they have not really written it or that they wrote it and it is bad but people will devour whatever their idols write. But with McCurdy it did not feel like that at all. It felt like an excellently written book that is very personal with solid and funny writing style. The flow of the narrative was top notch and I did not expect that from someone’s debut. Apparently she always liked books and writing but her mother thought differently and they even tried to offer her hush money when her show was cancelled so that she does not talk about her experience there but ironically she will make good money from that now.

“Why do we romanticize the dead? Why can’t we be honest about them?”

Summary: I really enjoyed reading this memoir and although I haven’t read a lot of those, it is still one of my favorites so far with excellent writing that tackles dark subjects humorously. I don’t know if she has any plans of writing future books but I will read them if she does.

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