I’m Glad My Mom Died

In the past year, my sister has not stopped talking about I’m Glad My Mom Died, the instantly bestselling memoir by Jennette McCurdy. She read the book twice—both the audiobook and the hardcover—and has been encouraging me to read it, too. Though I generally only read “celebrity memoirs” if it’s a celebrity I actively follow (mainly musicians), I figured this one must be worth the hype. Spoiler: It was.

Review

I’m Glad My Mom Died is a memoir that sucks you in from the very beginning. It’s not a long book, only 320 pages, but it flies by particularly fast due to its short chapters. Each one is like a snapshot of different moments in Jennette’s life, little glimpses of the kinds of experiences that would ultimately shape her.

The memoir starts when Jennette was a child, about six years old. It’s all told in the present tense, and I love how Jennette writes each chapter in the perspective of her younger self. It really gets readers into the mindset of her as a child, as a teenager, and eventually as an adult, and it shows how she thought and felt about things in real time. As a child, she trusted her mom and genuinely wanted to make her happy; as time passes, young Jennette’s understanding of her life and her mom starts to change. It’s fascinating yet heartbreaking to see how things progress throughout the book.

As the title may suggest, I’m Glad My Mom Died gets into some very tough themes. First among them is Jennette’s mother’s abusive behavior. Her mom comes across as a narcissist. She was emotionally abusive with her children, overbearing and not allowing them any privacy (she bathed her kids well into their teenage years!?), and very manipulative. She controlled Jennette’s entire life, getting her into acting because it was her own unfulfilled dream, not because Jennette ever wanted it.

And it gets worse: Jennette was taught disordered eating by her mom around the age of 12. Her mom not only encouraged calorie restricting and anorexic behavior, she enforced it. That Jennette would go on to grapple with anorexia, binging, bulimia, and alcoholism is tragic but unsurprising. Reading about eating disorders and addictions has always been particularly hard for me, and Jennette doesn’t shy away from the gruesome details here. It takes a long journey of therapy to fully recover.

Throughout the ups and downs, the traumas and triumphs, this memoir is written with a dark sense of humor and dry observations. These help make it compulsively readable, maintaining enough lightness to keep the reader going. It’s a book that is full of heart, and the kind of memoir that will leave the reader forever changed.

Final Thoughts

I’m Glad My Mom Died is absolutely worth all the attention and acclaim. It’s full of insights about family, career, and different forms of trauma, but it ends on a hopeful note for what Jennette McCurdy will make of her life next. Beware of several content warnings before going into this, but it is complete worth reading.

Get the Book

You can buy I’m Glad My Mom Died here – it’s available as a hardcover, ebook, and audiobook.

I’m Glad My Mom Died by Jennette McCurdy
Audiobook Narrator	Jennette McCurdy
Audience	Adult
Genre	Memoir
Book Length	320 pages; 6.5 hours
Format I Read	Audiobook
Original Publication Date	August 9, 2022
Publisher	Simon & Schuster

Official Summary

#1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER * #1 INTERNATIONAL BESTSELLER * MORE THAN 2 MILLION COPIES SOLD!

A heartbreaking and hilarious memoir by iCarly and Sam & Cat star Jennette McCurdy about her struggles as a former child actor—including eating disorders, addiction, and a complicated relationship with her overbearing mother—and how she retook control of her life.

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.

Told with refreshing candor and dark humor, I’m Glad My Mom Died is an inspiring story of resilience, independence, and the joy of shampooing your own hair.