I've seen this book everywhere so I decided to read it even if I had no idea who Jenette McCurdy was (we did not have Nickelodeon on TV when I was a kid). Oh, this book is a rollercoaster...
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| ★★★★★ |
A 5 star kind of roller coaster - which also means my review will be all over the place because all I want to say is "YOU HAVE TO READ THIS BOOK! YOU JUST HAVE TO!".
Jennette Who?
The popularity of this book and especially the controversial title made me pick it up myself. I know now who Jennette is and I also know that many media articles I've seen regarding this book have zero critical reading skills!
I absolutely loved it and this goes to show that you don't need to know who Jennette McCurdy is in order to care for her book. And it's so gripping that I read it in two days!
"I’m done being a good sport. I resent being a good sport. If I wasn’t such a good sport to begin with, I wouldn’t be in this predicament in the first place. I wouldn’t be on this shitty show saying these shitty lines on this shitty set with this shitty hairstyle. Maybe my life would be entirely different right now. I fantasize about it being different."
Mommie Dearest
The memoir is split in two parts - before and after her mother's death, and it's an intense tale of abuse at the hands of a narcissistic mother forcing her child to become an actor to fulfil her wish and take the family out of poverty, plus a lot of other heavy subjects including eating disorders (at the age of eleven!) and alcoholism. You really should check all the trigger warnings for this book because it's a long list.
"Why do we romanticize the dead? Why can't we be honest about them? Especially moms, they're the most romanticized of anyone.Moms are saints, angels by merely existing. No one could possibly understand what it's like to be a mom. Men will never understand, women with no children will never understand. No one buts moms know the hardship of motherhood and we non-moms must heap nothing but praise upon mom because we lowly, pitiful, non-moms are mere peasants compared to the goddesses we call mothers."
Jennette never wanted to be a child actor, but after she almost lost her mother to cancer, she learnt to do everything just to please her, and that included liking what her mother likes (from music to ice cream flavour) and, of course, doing whatever mother wanted. As a child she was hyper aware of changes in her mum's mood and adjusted her wants and needs to make her mum happy. She became a child actor, a country music singer, and started counting calories and paying attention to what she ate when she was eleven years old to stop herself from growing up. Then one day she made it - she became a series regular in the famous iCarly show on Nickelodeon. Paychecks were regular now. Anything for mommie dearest.
"She wanted this. And I wanted her to have it. I wanted her to be happy. But now that I have it, I realize that she’s happy and I’m not. Her happiness came at the cost of mine. I feel robbed and exploited."The second half of the book is after her mother's death, but somehow she is still present in her life through her life choices - bulimia and alcoholism. But fortunately she is dealing with them and seeks professional help.
Jennette is also highly aware of the privilege and money she got from being a child actor. The book also talks about the film industry, especially when it comes to child actors and Nickelodeon.
Not Your Usual Celebrity Memoir
I've read more celebrity novels and I know it's a trend for celebrities and influencers to come up with memoirs when they are still pretty young just because they are famous, but this is not the case with Jennette McCurdy's memoir. Not only does she have something to say, but her writing is impeccable as well. The book starts in her childhood and the narrative voice actually feels like a child that grows and develops alongside the story.McCurdy's book is full of heavy subjects and themes but presented with a somewhat cold and dry humour, yet not devoid of emotions. It's a raw and honest memoir and one of the best memoirs I've read.
"This feeling of sadness and ending is really common on sets. You get to know the people around you so intimately because you’re around them more than you’re around your family. For a period of time. And then you aren’t anymore. And little by little, you realize you start talking less and less to the people you thought you were so intimate with. Until you don’t talk to them at all anymore. And it makes you wonder if you were ever really intimate with them in the first place or if it was all just a facade. If the connections were as temporary as the sets they were made on."
It deserves the popularity it got and I hope it makes us think twice about how we view child actors and especially how we treat them in the media.
I'm Glad My Mom Died by Jennette McCurdy was first published in August 2022