I'm Glad My Mom Died

There's a lot of hype around this memoir, and I can see why. Jennette McCurdy offers us a view deep into the consciousness of a child star, with all the trauma that we in the public to some degree acknowledge comes with child stardom from seeing so many of them crash and burn into deeply troubled adulthoods. The author has experienced all of those traumas and then some: a complicated relationship with an emotional abusive (and clearly mentally unwell) mother, who battles (and loses) with cancer; the author's own mental illness, including an eating disorder; toxic work environments; toxic romantic relationships; being treated like chattel by an industry that cares more about making money than anyone's health or well-being; and the list goes on. It's rare to get this kind of insight into what goes on behind the scenes of happy-go-lucky children's shows, and the author does a fantastic job of going deep and getting vulnerable in telling her story.

I did enjoy this book, and so so appreciate the author for telling her truth and so wonderfully portraying her complicated feelings around her relationship to her mother. But I didn't love this book. It was definitely very good for a celebrity memoir, but that feels like an asterisk. Maybe it was the author's fairly deadpan delivery, maybe it's that I didn't really know who Jennette McCurdy was before reading this, maybe I can't relate enough to be deeply touched by her story. Regardless, I'm glad she wrote it, and I'm glad I listened to it.