I’m Glad My Mom Died by Jennette McCurdy

“Why do we romanticize the dead? Why can’t we be honest about them? Especially moms. They’re the most romanticized of anyone.”

Jennette McCurdy wrote this heartbreaking and somehow still humorous memoir about her struggles as a child actor. She is best known for her role as Sam in iCarly. I hadn’t watched the show and was not sure if I would have enough background to be engaged in her memoir but I was so wrong. This is a memoir that reveals the true realities experienced by child actors on the job and in the home.

Jennette was six years old when she had her first audition. Her mother’s dream was to be an actress herself but her parents had not let her try. Jennette’s goal in life from an early age was to please her mother, so when her mother told her she thought she should be an actress she went along with it. Every step of the way, everything she did was to please her mother. There is abuse throughout her life as her mother is the root of eating disorders she struggled with for many years (her mother started her on calorie counting at 11 years old). Her mother even showered her until she was 16. When her mother died of cancer, Jennette spiraled but all of it eventually led to her discovering therapy, working through her addictions, and figuring out who SHE wants to be.

This is not an easy book in content, but Jennette uses humor throughout which makes this readable, enlightening, and strangely enjoyable.

Check out I’m Glad My Mom Died by Jennette McCurdy for yourself from the Library (https://catalog.lclibs.org/polaris/search/title.aspx…) or listen through the eLibrary at https://lclibs.overdrive.com/media/8781418.