'I'm Glad My Mom Died' audiobook by Jennette McCurdy

 

From the BLURB: 

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.

I listened to the audiobook of 'I'm Glad My Mom Died,' read by McCurdy herself. 

I went into this totally none the wiser about who Jennette McCurdy was. I was 20 when 'iCarly' premiered, so I totally missed the boat on this being my childhood. But when I was in New York in August last year, *this* book had just come out and was ~the~ talk of the town. I took pictures of it in bookstore window displays - kinda amused by the title, and very intrigued by the throwback Babysitters Club bubblegum cover - and was assured by booksellers in Australia that it was likewise launching here, and was (based on preorders) already a hit.

And indeed, hit it is. It won a Goodreads Choice award, according to Wikipedia has sold 200K copies (but I'd say that's now an outdated estimate, and was probably US-only. Based on buzz, I'd expect this to have reached 1-million sales worldwide).

What compelled me to finally listen to the audiobook was word of mouth amongst my friends, and seeing snippets of McCurdy appearing on the Drew Barrymore show. If Drew endorses, I do too.

I was therefore though, totally unprepared for what a WALLOP this book is.

Yes, it's about the toxicity of child-stardom (and a must-read for all those parents currently running social-media family accounts), but it's also detailing McCurdy's mental health fight and war through various eating disorders. It's also about her years of childhood sexual abuse at the hands of her mother, which I was really not expecting and took me completely off-guard.

Listening to this in audiobook - hearing McCurdy's voice crack through certain chapters - was such an emotionally wringing experience. Hearing her bring a certain charisma to chapters in which she presents events back in her childish innocence stage, of defending her mother's horrendously weighted and projected child-star expectation on her was really disarming. Even more so when McCurdy details that sexual abuse, but again presents it in the child-like way she used to reason her mother's actions to herself. And the chapters in which McCurdy's mother teacher her daughter how to calorie-count, and gives her a blueprint for eating disorders ... again; it's McCurdy tapping back into her old mindset when she very matter-of-factly recounts these moments - and that makes them all the more confronting and terrifying.

This book was brilliant. I am so glad I listened to the audiobook though, because I think without McCurdy's warm, humorous voice carrying through the dark and sinister moments, I would probably have put this book down and decided 'too hard, not in the right mood,' - and I'd have really been missing out on what has become a truly important moment for celebrity memoir, and a deeply cathartic and honest read in its own right.

5/5