book review i'm glad my mother died

Don’t Judge I’m Glad My Mom Died by Its Title

The actor Jennette McCurdy’s memoir is a confessional feat that asks what, if anything, adult children owe an abusive parent.

In every memoir-writing class I’ve attended, someone has inevitably asked: I want to write about this thing that happened to me, but I’m afraid of what my family will think. Should I still do it? To this I’ve heard a few answers. First, there’s the write your truth no matter what approach. In creative-writing workshops and MFA classes, I’ve almost always heard this advice from people for whom dealing with familial consequences appeared to be a thin afterthought. Then there’s the write your truth but also ask for permission response, which could lead writers to a surprising cooperation but could also scupper their whole project. Once, though, I watched an instructor listen to a student describe a manuscript that dealt frankly with family mental illness and abuse. There was no way to obfuscate the identity of the other family members. The writer was still deeply tied to their family, and the risk of estrangement was not an option. There, I heard the most honest answer of all: Maybe you should wait until they’re dead .

The actor Jennette McCurdy did just that with her best-selling instant hit of a memoir, I’m Glad My Mom Died . McCurdy is most recognizable as a child star of Nickelodeon’s late-2000s sitcom iCarly , where she played the brash and funny Sam. Now, as a memoirist, she paints a picture devoid of the high-fructose colors and seeming glamor of a life in Hollywood. In her book’s first pages, an adult McCurdy is hovering over her mother, who has cancer and is in a coma. McCurdy and her three brothers are in the hospital, taking turns whispering to their parent’s prone form, hoping to stir signs of life. When it’s time for McCurdy to speak, she chooses to tell her mother that she currently weighs 89 pounds—the goal that McCurdy’s mother wanted her daughter to reach.

It’s a moment of hilarity and heartbreak. On one hand, the utterance is a punch line, unexpected and sharp, just like the book’s title. On the other, it starts to signal one of many instances of mental, physical, and emotional abuse that McCurdy suffered from her mother. For the reader, the moment also encapsulates what they’ve signed up for: a layered account of a woman reckoning with love and violence at once. This will not be a flippant exposé of childhood stardom, nor an angry diatribe directed at an abuser. This complexity is what makes I’m Glad My Mom Died feel real. It’s also why it had to be a memoir.

Today, celebrity revelation is frequent, and can take many forms . Paris Hilton has used her YouTube documentary This Is Paris to discuss the mental and physical abuse she says she endured at the psychiatric residential treatment center where she attended school at 17. (The facility changed ownership in 2000; its current CEO told The Salt Lake Tribune that its mental-health treatment methods have since changed, but did not address Hilton’s specific allegations.) More recently, Marcus Mumford, of the band Mumford & Sons, released a solo song about being sexually abused as a child. Whereas celebrities might once have been at the mercy of tabloids, social media and self-made confessions allow them a tightly controlled disclosure. The famous will display their vulnerable side—to the extent they choose. McCurdy opted to make her revelation a full, multilayered book. Despite the memoir’s provocative title, she isn’t trying simply to say I was abused . The arc of her memoir is really trying to navigate the complicated question of what, if anything, a child owes a caregiver who mistreats them.

Read: That’s it. You’re dead to me.

McCurdy does this, in part, by carefully inhabiting her child-self’s point of view. In an early vignette, she recounts going to hated acting classes as a young kid, yet remarks: “I’m glad Mom gets what she wants, to watch me act. But it does add stress to me.” In another striking moment, McCurdy enters puberty and realizes she’s beginning to grow breasts. She understands immediately that her growing up—and by extension having her own desires, leaving her mother’s sphere of influence—must be avoided at all costs. She asks her mother if anything can “stop the boobies from coming.” And she recounts her mother telling her the secret to staying small, a secret that McCurdy felt would “cement and validate our wonderful best friendship, the way only secrets can.” That secret is calorie restriction, which, as McCurdy grows older, spirals into anorexia, binge eating, and a protracted struggle with bulimia.

What’s remarkable about this scene isn’t just that McCurdy’s mother pushes her daughter to disordered eating. It’s that McCurdy has the self-awareness to recall this instance as her younger self interpreted it: as a memory of love, closeness, maybe even gratitude. When McCurdy draws on her child voice, the reader instinctively takes the position of the discerning adult to see both the wrongness of the situation and the flawed, desperate love young McCurdy has for her mother. That complicated truth—of having adored and feared someone, of missing them and being relieved that they’re gone—deserves the more than 310 pages McCurdy takes.

Some supposed literary types will think the immense popularity of I’m Glad My Mom Died —the hardcover initially sold out at many major bookstores—is merely the result of McCurdy’s former stardom and modern culture’s thirst for a sensational take. With its bold headline and bright cover featuring a smirking McCurdy holding a pink urn, the book feels deliberately marketed for virality, perfect for sharing on the internet and catching the eye of bookstore browsers. I’ve mentioned the title of this memoir to some people who have dismissed it out of hand, remarking that being glad one’s parent is dead is crude and a sentiment that should be kept to oneself. But those people haven’t read the book. McCurdy takes her time to remember difficult and complex moments of her life, staying true to her younger self while ultimately trying to come to terms with who she is as an independent adult. It’s a triumph of the confessional genre.

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I'M GLAD MY MOM DIED

by Jennette McCurdy ‧ RELEASE DATE: Aug. 9, 2022

The heartbreaking story of an emotionally battered child delivered with captivating candor and grace.

The former iCarly star reflects on her difficult childhood.

In her debut memoir, titled after her 2020 one-woman show, singer and actor McCurdy (b. 1992) reveals the raw details of what she describes as years of emotional abuse at the hands of her demanding, emotionally unstable stage mom, Debra. Born in Los Angeles, the author, along with three older brothers, grew up in a home controlled by her mother. When McCurdy was 3, her mother was diagnosed with breast cancer. Though she initially survived, the disease’s recurrence would ultimately take her life when the author was 21. McCurdy candidly reconstructs those in-between years, showing how “my mom emotionally, mentally, and physically abused me in ways that will forever impact me.” Insistent on molding her only daughter into “Mommy’s little actress,” Debra shuffled her to auditions beginning at age 6. As she matured and starting booking acting gigs, McCurdy remained “desperate to impress Mom,” while Debra became increasingly obsessive about her daughter’s physical appearance. She tinted her daughter’s eyelashes, whitened her teeth, enforced a tightly monitored regimen of “calorie restriction,” and performed regular genital exams on her as a teenager. Eventually, the author grew understandably resentful and tried to distance herself from her mother. As a young celebrity, however, McCurdy became vulnerable to eating disorders, alcohol addiction, self-loathing, and unstable relationships. Throughout the book, she honestly portrays Debra’s cruel perfectionist personality and abusive behavior patterns, showing a woman who could get enraged by everything from crooked eyeliner to spilled milk. At the same time, McCurdy exhibits compassion for her deeply flawed mother. Late in the book, she shares a crushing secret her father revealed to her as an adult. While McCurdy didn’t emerge from her childhood unscathed, she’s managed to spin her harrowing experience into a sold-out stage act and achieve a form of catharsis that puts her mind, body, and acting career at peace.

Pub Date: Aug. 9, 2022

ISBN: 978-1-982185-82-4

Page Count: 320

Publisher: Simon & Schuster

Review Posted Online: May 30, 2022

Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 2022

BIOGRAPHY & MEMOIR | FAMILY & RELATIONSHIPS | ENTERTAINMENT, SPORTS & CELEBRITY | GENERAL BIOGRAPHY & MEMOIR

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More About This Book

SEEN & HEARD

by Stephanie Johnson & Brandon Stanton illustrated by Henry Sene Yee ‧ RELEASE DATE: July 12, 2022

A blissfully vicarious, heartfelt glimpse into the life of a Manhattan burlesque dancer.

A former New York City dancer reflects on her zesty heyday in the 1970s.

Discovered on a Manhattan street in 2020 and introduced on Stanton’s Humans of New York Instagram page, Johnson, then 76, shares her dynamic history as a “fiercely independent” Black burlesque dancer who used the stage name Tanqueray and became a celebrated fixture in midtown adult theaters. “I was the only black girl making white girl money,” she boasts, telling a vibrant story about sex and struggle in a bygone era. Frank and unapologetic, Johnson vividly captures aspects of her former life as a stage seductress shimmying to blues tracks during 18-minute sets or sewing lingerie for plus-sized dancers. Though her work was far from the Broadway shows she dreamed about, it eventually became all about the nightly hustle to simply survive. Her anecdotes are humorous, heartfelt, and supremely captivating, recounted with the passion of a true survivor and the acerbic wit of a weathered, street-wise New Yorker. She shares stories of growing up in an abusive household in Albany in the 1940s, a teenage pregnancy, and prison time for robbery as nonchalantly as she recalls selling rhinestone G-strings to prostitutes to make them sparkle in the headlights of passing cars. Complemented by an array of revealing personal photographs, the narrative alternates between heartfelt nostalgia about the seedier side of Manhattan’s go-go scene and funny quips about her unconventional stage performances. Encounters with a variety of hardworking dancers, drag queens, and pimps, plus an account of the complexities of a first love with a drug-addled hustler, fill out the memoir with personality and candor. With a narrative assist from Stanton, the result is a consistently titillating and often moving story of human struggle as well as an insider glimpse into the days when Times Square was considered the Big Apple’s gloriously unpolished underbelly. The book also includes Yee’s lush watercolor illustrations.

Pub Date: July 12, 2022

ISBN: 978-1-250-27827-2

Page Count: 192

Publisher: St. Martin's

Review Posted Online: July 27, 2022

BIOGRAPHY & MEMOIR | ENTERTAINMENT, SPORTS & CELEBRITY | GENERAL BIOGRAPHY & MEMOIR

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by Brandon Stanton

by Brandon Stanton photographed by Brandon Stanton

by Brandon Stanton ; photographed by Brandon Stanton

LOVE, PAMELA

by Pamela Anderson ‧ RELEASE DATE: Jan. 31, 2023

A juicy story with some truly crazy moments, yet Anderson's good heart shines through.

The iconic model tells the story of her eventful life.

According to the acknowledgments, this memoir started as "a fifty-page poem and then grew into hundreds of pages of…more poetry." Readers will be glad that Anderson eventually turned to writing prose, since the well-told anecdotes and memorable character sketches are what make it a page-turner. The poetry (more accurately described as italicized notes-to-self with line breaks) remains strewn liberally through the pages, often summarizing the takeaway or the emotional impact of the events described: "I was / and still am / an exceptionally / easy target. / And, / I'm proud of that ." This way of expressing herself is part of who she is, formed partly by her passion for Anaïs Nin and other writers; she is a serious maven of literature and the arts. The narrative gets off to a good start with Anderson’s nostalgic memories of her childhood in coastal Vancouver, raised by very young, very wild, and not very competent parents. Here and throughout the book, the author displays a remarkable lack of anger. She has faced abuse and mistreatment of many kinds over the decades, but she touches on the most appalling passages lightly—though not so lightly you don't feel the torment of the media attention on the events leading up to her divorce from Tommy Lee. Her trip to the pages of Playboy , which involved an escape from a violent fiance and sneaking across the border, is one of many jaw-dropping stories. In one interesting passage, Julian Assange's mother counsels Anderson to desexualize her image in order to be taken more seriously as an activist. She decided that “it was too late to turn back now”—that sexy is an inalienable part of who she is. Throughout her account of this kooky, messed-up, enviable, and often thrilling life, her humility (her sons "are true miracles, considering the gene pool") never fails her.

Pub Date: Jan. 31, 2023

ISBN: 9780063226562

Page Count: 256

Publisher: Dey Street/HarperCollins

Review Posted Online: Dec. 5, 2022

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2023

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Washington Square News

Review: ‘I’m Glad My Mom Died’ offers a new take on memoirs

“iCarly” comedian Jennette McCurdy lays everything bare in her debut novel.

Susan Behrends Valenzuela

“I’m Glad My Mom Died,” by Jennette McCurdy, is a memoir detailing the author’s life as a child actress and her relationship with her abusive mother. It was published by Simon & Schuster on Aug. 9.

Madeline Kane , Staff Writer November 4, 2022

Content warning: This article discusses eating disorders and sexual, physical and emotional abuse.

Although broken interpersonal dynamics may be common when it comes to child stardom, the camera often fails to capture them. Former Nickelodeon star Jennette McCurdy’s new memoir, “I’m Glad My Mom Died,” lays bare the hostile and abusive relationship she had with her late mother, Debra, who died in 2013 after a second battle with cancer.

Raised in the small suburb of Garden Grove, California, McCurdy grew up in a poor Mormon family consisting of her parents, Debra and Mark, and three older brothers. Her mother, whose own parents discouraged her from becoming an actress, forced McCurdy into the acting profession at the age of six.

Despite not wanting to pursue acting, McCurdy felt obliged to keep her mother’s emotions at bay. Throughout the memoir, McCurdy writes about how Debra would show the greatest pride when she succeeded, yet also displayed emotional aggression whenever an audition didn’t come to fruition. To gain a sense of control, Debra began reaching out to Hollywood executives in hopes of convincing them to cast her daughter — much to McCurdy’s embarrassment.

Working her way through the acting circuit, McCurdy began her career as an extra in several television series. Gradually, she received leading roles, most notably on “Malcolm in the Middle.” It wasn’t until 2008 when she was cast in Nickelodeon’s hit show “iCarly” that McCurdy became a household name.

Despite portraying Sam Puckett, a character with an affinity for food, McCurdy’s real-life relationship with food was much different. Her mother closely watched her weight with a regimen that consisted of weekly weigh-ins, strict calorie counting, and a diet of shredded low-calorie lunch meats and pieces of lettuce barely sprayed with dressing. McCurdy blames her development of bulimia, anorexia and binge eating on her mother.

Besides the relationship she had with her mom, McCurdy talks at great length about the horrors of being a child star. When “Sam and Cat,” a spin-off of “iCarly” and “Victorious” that McCurdy co-starred in with future pop star Ariana Grande, was canceled in 2013, McCurdy claims that Nickelodeon offered her $300,000 in “hush money” to not speak about her experiences working for the network. McCurdy rejected the offer, according to the book.

She describes several events where an “iCarly” producer, referred to only as “The Creator,” mistreated the underaged actors that were on the show. In all of these anecdotes, one thing was common: “The Creator” established a hostile and toxic on-set environment. Despite the unwelcoming conditions she worked in, McCurdy also looks back on “iCarly” with some fondness, as she became close friends with her co-stars — notably with Miranda Cosgrove.

Of many heartbreaking anecdotes, the hardest one to read described Debra supervising McCurdy in the bathroom until she was 17. Jennette writes about how Debra gave her “breast and vaginal exams” that made her “body stiff with discomfort.” She writes, “I felt violated, yet I had no voice, no ability to express that.” All in all, by acknowledging her mom’s toxic tactics, McCurdy acknowledges that her “mother emotionally, physically and mentally abused me in ways that will forever impact me.”

What makes McCurdy’s book different from other memoirs is her balance between hard-cold truth and dark humor. She does not write about her memories as a pity fest, but instead acknowledges the emotions she experienced at the time with cold candidness. There are punchlines McCurdy includes throughout that make the reader question whether or not it’s appropriate to laugh. While she looks back on her mom’s abuse with resentment, she also acknowledges how she admired her mother. It took years of self-inquiry and reflection for McCurdy to acknowledge the abuse and manipulation she was subjected to, as she didn’t know anything differently.

This memoir rejects the idea that childhood stardom is a fun and envy-worthy experience. While audiences see child stars getting laughs on television and attending red carpets and other fancy events, child actors often face traumatic industry hardships. “Once you become a celebrity, you are no longer a person, but an archetype,” McCurdy writes. 

As a result of the stress from both her mother’s declining health and her acting duties, McCurdy fell victim to a trap many child stars have found themselves in: finding a sense of self. Behind the scenes, McCurdy struggled with not only eating disorders but also drug and alcohol abuse, unfulfilling love relationships, depression and isolation. McCurdy reflects on the difficulties of processing her traumas and eventually taking control of her own life, free from her mother’s presence.

If strained family relationships are so common, their discussion should not be taboo. According to a 2020 study , a quarter of adult Americans are estranged from at least one parent. While families fall apart for many reasons — death, disease, divorce, differences in beliefs — it is difficult to speak up on these struggles, as we are raised in a society where one must respect their elders.

We are currently in a time when other former child stars are speaking out about what they experienced behind closed doors, revealing stories of abuse and horror. McCurdy’s book comes in the middle of numerous popular celebrity revelations. From Paris Hilton’s YouTube documentary , “This is Paris,” about her experience in the troubled teen industry to fellow former Nickelodeon star Alexa Nickolas’ recent protests outside Nickelodeon’s headquarters , celebrities are speaking out in large numbers about their toxic work experiences. Even with all the trauma she’s experienced, McCurdy acknowledges she will slowly grow despite her past.

“Mom didn’t get better,” she writes. “But I will.”

Contact Madeline Kane at [email protected] .

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With I’m Glad My Mom Died, Jennette McCurdy lays bare the horrors of child acting

The former Nickelodeon star burns her bridges in her new memoir.

by Constance Grady

The new memoir from former child star Jennette McCurdy has an attention-grabbing title: I’m Glad My Mom Died .

Over the course of the book, McCurdy, who built her name on Nickelodeon’s iCarly and Sam and Cat , more than makes her case, detailing years of her mother’s mental and physical abuse. The result is a detailed look at a very specific and individual childhood of horrors, but it also points to a major systemic problem. I’m Glad My Mom Died doubles as a damning indictment of the child star system.

McCurdy became a working actress at age 6, when, she writes, her mother asked her, “You want to be Mommy’s little actress?” She started as an extra, then graduated to work on commercials and guest star roles on shows like Malcolm in the Middle and CSI . In 2007, at age 15, she was cast in a supporting role on the Nickelodeon kid’s sitcom iCarly . Five years later, she got her own spinoff, Sam and Cat , co-starring Ariana Grande. Throughout the process, McCurdy says, she existed in a state of misery, struggling with eating disorders and substance abuse issues.

McCurdy’s mother Debra died of breast cancer in 2013, but it would be years longer before McCurdy was able to understand her mother as abusive, and to grasp that she herself had never really wanted to act. The child star system, though, is what enabled McCurdy’s mother and worsened McCurdy’s mental health. Working as an actress from a young age taught McCurdy to understand her body and her emotions as commodities — commodities on which her family depended because she was their breadwinner.

Early on in I’m Glad My Mom Died , McCurdy’s agent tells her that she didn’t score a callback to Because of Winn Dixie because “they’re looking for an ethereal beauty, and Jennette reads more homely.” On the other hand, she doesn’t land the guest starring role of a hermaphrodite on Grey’s Anatomy because she’s too pretty. Child acting as an industry teaches McCurdy to understand her appearance on a scale of attractiveness. 

McCurdy first develops anorexia as an 11-year-old, when she’s beginning to grow breasts. Hitting puberty, McCurdy understands, is a liability in her line of work: She is more employable because she is undersized for her age and can play younger, meaning she can stand in for children younger than herself who are worse at taking direction and legally entitled to more break time. Frantic, she goes to her mother for advice on how to stay small, and her mother introduces her to the world of calorie reduction.

Meanwhile, the intense dysfunction of McCurdy’s home life means she’s become an expert at crying on command; between her mother’s abuse and her father’s neglect, she’s got plenty of fuel for tears. This ability is, McCurdy writes, “ the skill you want in child acting” and makes her highly in demand. McCurdy’s emotional reaction to her own abuse is, like her body, a commodity, one she is determined to sell in order to look after her family.

After McCurdy lands her role in iCarly , she’s put under the wings of Nickelodeon’s hitmaker, Dan Schneider. (McCurdy refers to him on the page only as The Creator.) Schneider would be pushed out of Nickelodeon in 2018 amid reports from former co-workers that he was verbally abusive and internet rumors questioning whether he may have been sexually abusive to the young actors he worked with.

Schneider has denied all allegations of inappropriate behavior, and McCurdy doesn’t tell any stories about him that are as lurid as some of the internet rumors would suggest. What she does recount is consistent with her professional sense of her body as being a commodity no longer entirely under her control — now in slightly sexualized ways.

McCurdy describes being pushed into wearing a bikini on the set of iCarly at age 15 even though she begs to wear a one-piece. “I hate this feeling, the feeling of so much of my body being exposed,” she writes. “It feels sexual to me. I’m ashamed.” She has her first kiss in a kissing scene filmed for the show, with Schneider screaming at her to move her head more. When he pitches her on her own spinoff, he goads her into drinking spiked coffee and massages her back. “I want to say something, to tell him to stop, but I’m so scared of offending him,” McCurdy writes.

Perhaps most striking is McCurdy’s clear-eyed realism when it comes to the kind of career her child stardom can grant her. She knows that Nickelodeon kids almost never make it to the big time and that her co-star Ariana Grande’s flourishing pop career is the exception that proves the rule. Her mother is convinced she’s a future Oscar winner, but McCurdy doesn’t kid herself. “Who’s gonna wanna hire me when I’ve spent almost ten years on Nickelodeon?” she writes.

But the business has also left her without escape routes. “I never went to college and have no real-life skills, so even if I wanted to get a profession outside of the entertainment industry, I’m years away from that being a realistic option.” This is the end of the line for McCurdy’s acting career, and she has to fight to find a way to pivot herself out of it. She asks the Sam and Cat staff to let her direct an episode so that she can get some TV directing credits under her belt. They agree at first, then tell her they can’t do it: Someone they “can’t afford” to lose has threatened to quit if the producers let her direct.

Today, McCurdy has managed to pull herself out of the child star trap. She’s in treatment for her eating disorders, and she has a career writing and directing short films and hosting a podcast . But in I’m Glad My Mom Died , she paints a vivid picture of child stardom as a system in which children find themselves turned into walking piles of other people’s cash, and summarily dismantled when they lose their value. It’s damning both for the horrors she experienced as an individual and the systemic failures to which her story points.

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I’m Glad My Mom Died by Jennette McCurdy: a startlingly impressive, assured, and funny memoir

There’s more humour, pathos and anger on the cover than most books manage on their insides.

Author Jennette McCurdy and Ariana Grande in Sam & Cat, a teen sitcom.

There is nowhere else to start when discussing Jenette McCurdy’s new memoir than its title. Let us not mince words: naming your memoir I’m Glad My Mom Died is a truly dazzling choice, and one which sparkles in a crowded field. These five words – five syllables – flatly underlined in a chintzy, hot pink typeface, turn its cover into a 1970s recipe card, complete with desaturated photo of the author cheerily clutching a confetti-filled urn.

I’ve encountered album sleeves by Norwegian Black Metal bands which have prompted less of an involuntary flinch, and I mean that as the highest compliment

I’ve been sent pictures of this book for weeks now, as waggish staff have regularly placed it next to my own memoir of maternal bereavement in US bookstores. Its effect has not waned. I’ve encountered album sleeves by Norwegian Black Metal bands which have prompted less of an involuntary flinch, and I mean that as the highest compliment. There’s more humour, pathos, and anger on the cover of I’m Glad My Mom Died than most books manage on their insides. Luckily, however, for people who like reviews a little longer than the above, I’m Glad My Mom Died remains just as funny, sad, and angry, once opened.

Jennette McCurdy found childhood fame as one of the stars of mega-hit Nickelodeon sitcom iCarly, feted by millions of adoring young fans over its years-long run. During that time, she was relentlessly criticised and controlled by Deb, her wheedling and manipulative mother, and subjected to a litany of micro and macro emotional abuses. I’m Glad My Mom Died charts a course through these experiences and the profoundly destabilising effects they had, and continue to have, on her life. Make no mistake, many aspects of this book are harrowing, and all the more powerful for being rendered in a present tense that places you firmly in her child’s eye view for much of the book’s length.

Her short, crisp chapters have a zinging economy of language, whether in the painfully astute self-observation of her narration, or her dialogue, which has the zip and swing of sitcom writing at its most polished

The grateful innocence of this perspective makes for moments of searing poignancy, as McCurdy accepts her mother’s critiques of her appearance, her promotion of disordered eating, and even her insistence on showering her by hand well into her teens, with an unceasing spirit of denial, acceptance, and even gratitude.

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Jennette McCurdy as she is today. Photograph: Ahmed Gaber/The New York Times

The book is made both more and less bearable by the neatly understated humour of McCurdy’s writing. Her short, crisp chapters have a zinging economy of language, whether in the painfully astute self-observation of her narration, or her dialogue, which has the zip and swing of sitcom writing at its most polished. Since she worked her entire childhood on sitcoms, this makes sense, and sets up a jarringly rewarding tension between events and their descriptions. At one point, I noted the dagger-sharp arguments between McCurdy’s parents were so darkly comic and brilliantly paced, they could be cut straight from an episode of Malcolm In The Middle, only to turn the page and read her account of booking an audition for that very show.

It’s obvious from the start that Deb’s behaviour is pathological and there are enough early signposts that her situation is nothing to laugh about – we have, after all, seen the front cover of the book – even before the exact degree of her mother’s numerous betrayals and cruelties comes into greater focus.

But witnessing a gormless matriarch insisting on supervising her daughter’s dance classes, or haranguing agents and directors for casting other actresses, one can’t help being struck by her place within a long-familiar TV comedy archetype. We have watched hundreds of overbearing stage moms on screen, and our first glimpses of Deborah McCurdy – especially in a book as funny as this – conform to many of these cliches.

While the lion’s share of opprobrium must fall on her mother, we are given a searingly clear-eyed view of an entire industry which sustains itself on an endless conveyor belt of vulnerable young performers

In sitcoms, the pushy stage mom, the bickering couple, the overbearing mother, all own up to their sins and are forgiven by episode’s end. Lessons are learned, the guilty apologise, and tears dry to the applause of a live studio audience. McCurdy has no such luck, and while the lion’s share of opprobrium must fall on her mother, we are given a searingly clear-eyed view of an entire industry which sustains itself on an endless conveyor belt of vulnerable young performers. And one within which such pressure cooker parenting, institutional abuses, and systemic invasion of privacy, are not merely condoned but incentivised. It is hard, after all, to look at a four or five-year-old “star” and imagine a credible scenario in which they want to be an actor as much as their parents want them to be one.

It is likely that some will encounter I’m Glad My Mom Died’s excellent title and surmise that it is either gleeful or crude. It is neither. It is a startlingly impressive, assured and funny memoir. For that, if nothing else, its writer has every right to be glad.

As a survivor of narcissistic abuse, here's what Jennette McCurdy's I’m Glad My Mom Died means to me

By Nylah Burton

In Jennette McCurdy's memoir, I’m Glad My Mom Died – about surviving emotional and sexual child abuse by a narcissistic parent – the author recalls sitting by her mother’s death bed and thinking, “My life purpose has always been to make Mom happy, to be who she wants me to be. So without Mom, who am I supposed to be now?”

I’ve been estranged from my mother for almost eight years now — a third of my life. In the early years of the estrangement, I remember describing what it felt like as “having no origin, no beginning.” In losing my mother, I had lost all sense of myself. I was infinite and empty at the same time, free from her and tethered to nothing.

My relationship with my mother wasn’t always so clearly toxic. It escalated in the way water slowly rages itself into a boil, and the frog sitting there is still reminiscing about the days when the water was warm and welcoming. In the first section of her book, McCurdy paints a vivid picture of how a young child views an abusive parent — still through the lens of pure love. “Oh, Mom. She’s so beautiful,” a six-year-old McCurdy thinks in wonder. In another scene, after her mother tells her that she’s her best friend, young McCurdy thinks, “This is my purpose… to be the closest person in the world to her. I feel whole.”

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McCurdy, who previously starred in several wildly popular Nickelodeon teen shows like iCarly and Sam & Cat, details how her mother forced her into child acting to fulfil her own deferred dream of being a star, how Jennette’s desire to please her mother and inability to say no to her abuser led to years of her stuck in a career that actively deteriorated her mental health . The memoir is also a heart-wrenching but honest account of living with an eating disorder ; Jennette’s mother taught her “calorie restriction” at age eleven, leading to her early struggles with anorexia, then binging, then bulimia. As a narcissist, McCurdy’s mother viewed this starvation as part of the connective tissue that formed their bond.

When your parent has narcissistic traits , you’re often pulled further than the love a child has for their mother because they make you their sole source of companionship and emotional support. I remember how often my mother, who homeschooled me on and off when she wanted purpose in her life, would insist to me and others that she was my “best friend.”

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“Mom’s watching me and I’m watching her and that’s how it always is. We’re always connected. Intertwined. One,” McCurdy recalls. When I read that line, I recall something too. Standing in my mother’s foyer, after finally calling her evil and abusive. Her in my face, screaming, “If I’m evil, so are you b[****}. Everything you are, I made you.” It has taken eight years of therapy to try to begin to convince myself that my mother and I are not intertwined; we are not one. Even miles and years apart, sometimes I can still feel her — what she’s thinking, what she’s doing.

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One of the most powerful — but under-discussed, especially amidst social media reactions to a small portion of the book discussing Jennette McCurdy’s working relationship with pop star Ariana Grande — aspects of the book is her relationship with writing. She details an incident when she was eleven and wrote a screenplay, realising that she unequivocally preferred writing to acting.

 “Through writing, I feel power for maybe the first time in my life,” McCurdy writes. “I don’t have to say somebody else’s word. I can write my own. I can be myself for once.” But it’s another dream dashed by her mother, who manipulates her into sticking with acting and giving up writing, saying, “Writers dress frumpy and get fat.”

But now, years after her mother’s death and years after McCurdy’s exit from acting, writing has been a core part of discovering her identity and forging a new path that’s her own. She’s written and directed three short films: Strong Independent Woman , about a mother that helps her daughter recover from an eating disorder; Kenny , about a thirty-something-year-old man dedicating his life to caring for his mother; and The McCurdys , based on McCurdy’s own dysfunctional upbringing. McCurdy’s voice is out there, not the words of Nickelodeon writing rooms or the voice of her mother, but a voice that is authentically hers, honing with each new project.

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By Beth McColl

I’m Glad My Mom Died started off as a one-woman show of the same name, written and performed by McCurdy. And now, it’s a bestselling book — sold out in stores and online, with people finding themselves 7th, 10th in line at their local libraries. McCurdy told Good Morning America that writing the book helped her heal and reframe her relationship with her mother. And, she stresses, the book wouldn’t exist if her mother was still alive because her “identity would have still been dictated by her.”

When I became estranged from my mother, it took years for me to regain any semblance of identity. In many ways, I’ve had to build myself from scratch. My mother isn’t dead, but the same result has been achieved. I escaped, and something and someone had to die for me to live. For McCurdy, her mother died. For me, it was just I who died, an old version of myself.

I’m Glad My Mom Died is a revelatory memoir by a dynamic young artist who is using her pain and experiences to forge a new identity. It’s also a book that speaks to countless victims of child abuse, including myself, giving us language to describe our experiences and further validation of those complicated feelings.

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Book Review: I’m Glad My Mom Died By Jennette McCurdy

By Jacquelyn Gray Posted on 11.14.22

[cw: eating disorders; physical, emotional, and substance abuse]

One of Hollywood’s worst-kept secrets is its widespread exploitation of child actors. The issue is so well known and publicized that laws were passed in an attempt to ensure that child actors don’t reach adulthood indigent due to their guardian’s money mismanagement or greed (Jackie Coogan, Gary Coleman, and Shirley Temple come to mind). Obviously, this has been all but a panacea when it comes to the child-actor-to-troubled-adult pipeline. Over the years, child actors have spoken out about how they were overworked, abused, and deprived of mental health and emotional support.

Former Nickelodeon star Jennette McCurdy adds her voice to that chorus of child actors in I’m Glad My Mom Died , which not only details how her late mother robbed her of her identity and childhood for fame, but also how her mother introduced her to an eating disorder that she struggled with throughout her early 20s. McCurdy, star of the 2000s breakout sitcom iCarly , weaves funny and relatable narratives with traumatic ones detailing her mother’s relentless abuse.

I’m Glad My Mom Died shows that there are commonalities in abuse, regardless of fame or status. Readers will find themselves enthralled by anecdotes about Hollywood and dating, but they will also take away a valuable point: that healing from abuse doesn’t have to include forgiving your abuser.

Parental and Emotional Abuse Is Abuse

McCurdy details how her mother showered her until she was 17. She also recounts instances in which she had to shower with her 16-year-old brother even as she reached puberty. She said she was extremely uncomfortable with the arrangement, but she hesitated to express her displeasure because her mother had a meltdown when her brother said he wanted to shower alone.

“I was conditioned to believe any boundary I wanted was a betrayal of her, so I stayed silent. Cooperative.”

According to McCurdy, her mother also claimed she was giving her breast and vaginal exams to check for cancer. McCurdy’s mother had cancer for years before her death in 2013. She writes about how she didn’t challenge her mother on this because, as a young child, she didn’t know any better. She also saw her mother’s bouts with cancer (she was in remission when McCurdy first started acting) and feared meeting the same fate. McCurdy’s mother would use this trust — and her authority — to manipulate her, especially throughout her teenage years.

McCurdy, who played roles younger than her age, also recalled how her boundaries were further undermined when her mother introduced her to anorexia as a way to stave off her menstrual cycle. McCurdy claims her mother also dealt with an eating disorder, but she essentially forced one on her daughter so she could still land younger roles. McCurdy comes to realize that what she believed was her own dream — fame — was really her mother’s, and her mother was willing to sacrifice her mental and physical wellness to get it.

The Power of Therapy

Throughout I’m Glad My Mom Died , McCurdy details how several people expressed concerns regarding her behavior (OCD and an eating disorder), only to be silenced or intimidated by her mother. In one scene, McCurdy recalls crying in the front yard while playing with her grandfather, who laments how she hasn’t been allowed to be a child.

Following her mother’s death, the two people who challenged McCurdy to acknowledge the trauma she experienced were therapists. McCurdy cut ties with her first therapist after the therapist forced her to acknowledge that her mother’s food monitoring was abusive. She was originally defensive, as she couldn’t fathom that her mother, who she long thought was her protector, would do anything to put her in harm’s way.

McCurdy’s second therapist challenged her to address her relationship with food and alcohol. She recalls how this therapist made her journal about the feelings she ascribed to certain foods, and what may have been triggering those feelings. While in therapy, McCurdy realizes that the best thing she could do for her mental health is to quit acting.

Death Doesn’t Absolve or Deify an Abuser

McCurdy didn’t cry when her mother took her last breaths in front of her. She realized that while her mother’s health was deteriorating, she was experiencing her first glimpses of freedom. Over time, she discovers that her mother — and her abuse — had imprisoned her. That her hangups about her body and success were insecurities her mother curated and forced upon her.

Essentially, McCurdy came to the realization that her mother was her first and most significant bully.

“Maybe I feel this way now because I viewed my mom that way for so long. I had her up on a pedestal, and I know how detrimental that pedestal was to my well-being and life,” she writes.

In I’m Glad My Mom Died , McCurdy, who is now 30, also highlights how her mother’s harm didn’t disappear with her death. She reveals how she turned to bulimia and alcoholism in her 20s as she continued to struggle with body issues. She also grappled with the idea of resenting her mother because she naively thought that her harm and wrongs could be fixed if she were still alive.

“That pedestal kept me stuck, emotionally stunted, living in fear, dependent, in a near constant state of emotional pain and without the tools to even identify that pain let alone deal with it. My mom didn’t deserve her pedestal. She was a narcissist. She refused to admit she had any problems, despite how destructive those problems were to our entire family.”

I’m Glad My Mom Died isn’t an easy read, but it is a necessary one. It gives the reader space to grapple with difficult topics by introducing a unique form of humor and levity that doesn’t detract from the gravity of her trauma.

During a recent interview, Drew Barrymore — whose own tumultuous experience as a child actor is well-documented — asks McCurdy how someone can tell their own truth if the source of their trauma is still alive.

McCurdy tells her, “If saying the truth ends a relationship, then it is probably a relationship that needed to end.”

You can learn more about the book in this episode of our podcast .

So sorry that this happened to her. Without any mockery, should make a movie of it. The world loves to read but they also love to watch a good movie that’s relatable.

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I’m Glad My Mom Died by Jennette McCurdy audiobook review – a painfully funny memoir

The Nickleodeon star describes a dysfunctional childhood spent trying to please her narcissistic mother in this darkly comic autobiography

J ennette McCurdy was six years old when she began her career as an actor. She was talked into going to auditions by her mother, Debra, whose own acting aspirations were thwarted by her disapproving parents. “I want to give you the life I never had, Net,” Debra would tell her. “I want to give you the life I deserved.” McCurdy went on to land roles in the Nickelodeon sitcom iCarly and later in Sam and Cat, alongside Ariana Grande. But her comic turns on screen masked a malaise that manifested in disordered eating and alcohol abuse. It was only later that McCurdy understood how Debra, who forced her to diet and wouldn’t allow her to shower on her own until her late teens, was not like other mothers.

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Read by the author, I’m Glad My Mom Died finds McCurdy reassessing her childhood and voicing her mother as only marginally less deranged than Joan Crawford in Mommie Dearest . The book opens with the adult McCurdy and her brothers crowded around a hospital bed where Debra, who has cancer, is in a coma. In an effort to rouse their mother, each sibling fills her in on family news. When it is McCurdy’s turn, she leans in to deliver the bombshell that will surely jolt her mother into consciousness: “Mommy, I am … so skinny right now.” McCurdy’s memoir is full of these comic moments, expertly placed to counterbalance the bleakness elsewhere. The title is provocative but don’t be deceived: rather than a flippant chronicle of childhood resentment, McCurdy’s memoir an insightful portrait of narcissism, familial dysfunction and the ways cruelty can be mistaken for love.

I’m Glad My Mom Died is available via Simon & Schuster Audio, 6hr 26min

Further listening

The Island of Missing Trees Elif Shafak, Penguin Audio, 11 hr 44 min Daphne Kouma and Amira Ghazalla narrate this heartfelt novel about two Cypriot teenagers who fall in love but whose lives are pulled in different directions. Act of Oblivion Robert Harris, Penguin Audio, 15hr 42 min Tim McInnerny narrates this story of a civil war-era manhunt. Following the restoration of Charles II, two Roundhead leaders find themselves with a bounty on their heads for regicide and flee to America.

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Jennette McCurdy Is Ready to Move Forward, and to Look Back

In her memoir, “I’m Glad My Mom Died,” McCurdy, best known for her role in“iCarly,” reflects on her time as a child actor and on her troubled relationship with her mother.

• Share full article

By Dave Itzkoff

When Jennette McCurdy was 16, she was in her third year on “iCarly,” the hit teen sitcom on Nickelodeon. Millions of young viewers admired her for her comic portrayal of Sam Puckett , the wisecracking pal of its title character, and she was proud that her lucrative work was helping to support her family.

McCurdy was also living under the stringent control of her mother, Debra, who oversaw her career, determined her meals — her dinners consisted of shredded pieces of low-cal bologna and lettuce sprayed with dressing — and even administered her showers.

Her mother gave her breast and vaginal exams, which she said were inspections for cancer, and shaved her daughter’s legs while McCurdy remained largely uneducated about the changes her body was experiencing.

She struggled with obsessive-compulsive disorder, eating disorders and anxiety triggered by the constant attention she received as a celebrity, but she felt trapped in her work. She also believed she owed her unfaltering loyalty to her mother, who had recovered from breast cancer when Jennette was very young, only for her cancer to return in 2010, at the height of her daughter’s fame.

Debra McCurdy died in 2013, and Jennette, now 30, is still reckoning with the gravitational pull exerted by her mother, who steered her to the trade that gave her visibility and financial stability while she controlled virtually every aspect of her daughter’s existence.

When Jennette McCurdy wrote a memoir, which Simon and Schuster will publish on Aug. 9, it was clear to her that her relationship with her mother would provide its narrative force. “It’s the heartbeat of my life,” she said recently.

The book is titled “I’m Glad My Mom Died,” and its cover bears the image of McCurdy, a narrow half-smile on her face, holding a pink funeral urn with confetti strands peeking over its rim. The presentation might be off-putting to some readers; the author is well aware. But she also feels it accurately encapsulates a coming-of-age story that is alternately harrowing and mordantly funny.

When you have grown up as she has, feeling tenderness and anger toward a person you’ve seen wield immense power while fighting for her own life, she said, “You can’t believe how hard and how laughable it is at the same time. That’s completely my sense of humor.”

“I feel like I’ve done the processing and put in the work to earn a title or a thought that feels provocative,” she added.

Though McCurdy may have the résumé of a seasoned Hollywood veteran, she carried herself like a wide-eyed tourist on a visit to New York in late June. Over afternoon tea at the BG Restaurant in midtown Manhattan, she gazed at fellow patrons, asked for Broadway theater recommendations and chided herself about a transcendental meditation class she’d taken near her home in Los Angeles.

“So far, I haven’t seen any results,” she said with a chuckle, “but we’ll see.”

When it comes to new endeavors, McCurdy said, “I think things should feel natural. So much of my life was about forcing or pushing things. So when something feels like it’s working, I’ll let that be, and anything else can fall by the wayside.”

As McCurdy recounts in her memoir, she was 6 when she started auditioning for acting roles, having been shepherded into the work by her mother, who was herself discouraged from becoming an actress by her own parents.

Growing up in Southern California, McCurdy was cast in TV commercials and shows like “Mad TV,” “Malcolm in the Middle” and “CSI” before landing “iCarly,” which had its debut in 2007. Yet she never had any illusions about who was really benefiting from these accomplishments. As she writes of the moment she learned she had booked “iCarly,” “Everything’s going to be better. Mom will finally be happy. Her dream has come true.”

McCurdy endured various embarrassments and indignities at Nickelodeon, where she writes of being photographed in a bikini at a wardrobe fitting and being encouraged to drink alcohol by an intimidating figure she simply calls the Creator. In situations where her mother was present, Debra did not intervene or speak up, instructing Jennette that this was the price of showbiz success: “Everyone wants what you have,” she would tell her daughter.

When McCurdy was promised an “iCarly” spinoff, she assumed she’d be given her own show — only to receive a co-starring slot on “Sam & Cat,” which paired her with the future pop-music sensation Ariana Grande.

There, she says her superiors on these shows prevented her from pursuing career opportunities outside the show while Grande thrived in her extracurricular work. As McCurdy writes, “What finally undid me was when Ariana came whistle-toning in with excitement because she had spent the previous evening playing charades at Tom Hanks’s house. That was the moment I broke.”

As McCurdy grew older and more independent, her relationship with her mother became further strained. The book reproduces an email in which her mother calls her “a SLUT,” “a FLOOZY” and “an UGLY MONSTER,” then concludes with a request for money for a refrigerator. When Debra had a recurrence of cancer and died, Jennette, then 21, was liberated — and left to navigate a complex world without her guidance, contending with destructive romantic relationships, bulimia, anorexia and alcohol abuse.

“iCarly” ended its original run in 2012, and “Sam & Cat” ran just one season from 2013-14, after which, McCurdy writes, she turned down a $300,000 offer from Nickelodeon if she agreed never to speak publicly about her experiences at the network. (A press representative for Nickelodeon declined to comment.)

She was free to reclaim her personal life and pursue other projects, like the Netflix science-fiction series “Between.” But she found it difficult to let go of the resentment from how she’d been treated when she was younger. As she said in an interview, “It felt like all these decisions were being made on my behalf and I was the last one to know about them. That’s really infuriating. It led to a lot of rage.”

Even now, McCurdy found that revisiting the era of her child stardom resurfaced raw feelings about a parent, and an industry, that had failed to protect her.

“My whole childhood and adolescence were very exploited,” she said, her eyes brimming with tears. “It still gives my nervous system a reaction to say it. There were cases where people had the best intentions and maybe didn’t know what they were doing. And also cases where they did — they knew exactly what they were doing.”

Marcus McCurdy, the oldest of Jennette’s three brothers, said that their mother was consistently volatile when they were growing up.

“You were always walking on eggshells — is it going to be nice mom or crazy mom today?” he said. “One day she’d be fine, the next day she’d be yelling at everybody. Every holiday was super overdramatic. She’d lose her mind on Christmas if something wasn’t perfect.”

Friends and colleagues from Jennette McCurdy’s time as a child actor said they could sense the tension in her relationship with her mother, even if they did not yet know the exact details.

“Jennette can be outgoing, very forward and bright and electric,” said David Archuleta, the pop singer and “American Idol” finalist. “I could also tell she was very guarded, very protective of her mom and they were very close.”

Archuleta, whose career was closely controlled by his father when he was a minor, said such arrangements can be destructive for children.

“Because you’re always with that parent, they don’t really let you around anyone else,” Archuleta said. “You don’t look at it as a control thing — you look at it as, ‘Oh, they’re looking out for me.’ And they make you feel like everyone is against you.”

Over time, Archuleta added, the parent may turn toxic. “It gets to where it’s like, ‘You can’t make any decisions on your own. You can’t do anything on your own. You’re too dumb.’”

Miranda Cosgrove, the star of “iCarly,” said that though she and McCurdy quickly became close on the show, she was initially unaware of many difficulties her friend was facing, which McCurdy only revealed as they became older.

“When you’re young, you’re so in your own head,” Cosgrove said. “You can’t imagine that people around you are having much harder struggles.”

In a softer voice, Cosgrove added, “You don’t expect things like that from the person in the room who’s making everyone laugh.”

For McCurdy, opening up about herself to the wider world has been a long-term process. In her late teens and early 20s, she wrote essays for The Wall Street Journal that shared some of her insights into child stardom. But today she feels she was not fully candid.

“If I had been truthful at that time,” she explained, “I would have said, ‘Yeah, I wrote this and then I went and made myself throw up for four minutes afterward.’”

A few years ago, McCurdy started writing a new series of personal essays, including several about her mother, and shared them with her manager at the time. “My manager sent me back a nice email that said, ‘This is great — I don’t really know what to do with this.’ I’ll never forget the ‘xoxo’ at the end.” (McCurdy no longer works with that manager.)

Instead, she began performing a one-woman show, also called “I’m Glad My Mom Died,” in Los Angeles. Though the pandemic impeded plans to take the show on the road, McCurdy used some of her down time to craft the memoir. “I really wanted to build it out a lot more, get more into the childhood aspect of the story and work through the arc in a way that you only can with a book,” she explained.

Marcus McCurdy said he supported his sister’s decision to write her memoir, even if her calling it “I’m Glad My Mom Died” has caused some consternation in the family.

“Our grandmother is very upset about that title,” Marcus said, adding that he and his sister share a similar sense of humor. “It’s more of a coping mechanism,” he said. “You can either be like, ‘Woe is me, my life is horrible.’ Or you find the humor in these things that are really tragic.”

Archuleta also said it was empowering for McCurdy to write her book. “It’s given her back some of her strength, her confidence,” he said.

McCurdy is writing another set of essays about coming into her own in her 20s, as well as a novel. (Its protagonist, she said, is “either who I wish I could be in some aspects, or who I hope I never am in other aspects. But it’s probably me, right?”)

Aside from a few watch parties that her family held for her earliest episodic TV work, McCurdy told me, “I’ve never seen any of the shows that I’ve been on.” For her, these were fraught documents of her suffering and unwelcome reminders of the helplessness she felt at the time.

A few years ago, after the cancellation of her Netflix series, McCurdy decided to take a break from acting. As she writes in the memoir, “I want my life to be in my hands. Not an eating disorder’s or a casting director’s or an agent’s or my mom’s. Mine.” She did not take part in a recent revival of “iCarly” on Paramount+. But McCurdy said that her experience with her one-woman show has shown her there might be ways that performance could be constructive for her in the future.

“It felt significant in repairing some of the really weighted, complicated relationships that I had with acting,” she said. “It felt like finally I’m saying my words and saying things I want to be saying. I’m myself.”

Though McCurdy can still find it uncomfortable to reflect on her past, it also makes her hopeful to focus on the present and to see the friends and colleagues who are part of her life because she alone chose for them to be in it.

“I have people around me now that are so supportive and so loving,” she said. “It makes me tearful with joy. I feel so safe. I feel so much trust and so much openness.”

Dave Itzkoff is a culture reporter whose latest book, “Robin,” a biography of Robin Williams, was published in May 2018. More about Dave Itzkoff

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Table of Contents

• Rave and Reviews

About The Book

About the author.

Jennette McCurdy starred in Nickelodeon’s hit show  iCarly  and its spin-off,  Sam & Cat , as well as in the Netflix series  Between . In 2017, she quit acting and began pursuing writing/directing. Her films have been featured in the Florida Film Festival, the Salute Your Shorts Film Festival, Short of the Week, and elsewhere. Her essays have appeared in HuffPost  and The   Wall Street Journal . Her one-woman show  I’m Glad My Mom Died  had two sold-out runs at the Lyric Hyperion Theatre and Hudson Theatre in Los Angeles. She hosts a podcast called  Empty Inside , which has topped Apple’s charts and features guests speaking about uncomfortable topics. She lives in Los Angeles.

Product Details

• Publisher: Simon & Schuster (August 9, 2022)
• Length: 320 pages
• ISBN13: 9781982185824

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Raves and Reviews

“[A] layered account of a woman reckoning with love and violence at once…[Not] a flippant exposé of childhood stardom, nor an angry diatribe directed at an abuser. This complexity is what makes I’m Glad My Mom Died feel real…Some supposed literary types will think the immense popularity of I’m Glad My Mom Died —the hardcover initially sold out at many major bookstores—is merely the result of McCurdy’s former stardom and modern culture’s thirst for a sensational take. With its bold headline and bright cover featuring a smirking McCurdy holding a pink urn, the book feels deliberately marketed for virality, perfect for sharing on the internet and catching the eye of bookstore browsers. I’ve mentioned the title of this memoir to some people who have dismissed it out of hand, remarking that being glad one’s parent is dead is crude and a sentiment that should be kept to oneself. But those people haven’t read the book. McCurdy takes her time to remember difficult and complex moments of her life, staying true to her younger self while ultimately trying to come to terms with who she is as an independent adult. It’s a triumph of the confessional genre.” —Nina Li Coomes, The Atlantic “Not many people rise to her level of fame or are so deeply abused, but McCurdy’s narrative will feel familiar to anyone who has navigated poverty and trauma. Taking advantage of the store discount at your dad’s retail job, tuning out screaming matches between parents, avoiding calls from debt collectors … this is what childhood is like for millions of Americans. Like many, I recognized myself in her words.” —Sabrina Cartan, Slate “Unflinching…This year’s most candid book… I'm Glad My Mom Died made me laugh; it made me cry. It's such a funny, dark, moving, honest, real, uncensored book, and it's unlike anything I've ever read.” —Mary Elizabeth Williams, Salon “ [The] number-one New York Times -bestselling memoir that has also achieved pop-cultural phenomenon status… I'm Glad My Mom Died is more than source material for a deluge of headlines about Grande and the slimy advances of a Nickelodeon svengali McCurdy calls simply ‘The Creator.’ McCurdy distinguishes herself from standard-issue celebrity memoir fare with a vivid, biting, darkly comic tone and an immersive present tense.” —Michelle Ruiz, Vogue “For McCurdy, this book isn't just her writing debut. It's a reckoning with guilt and grief after her mother's premature death. It's healing from multiple eating disorders and processing decades of trauma. It's finally doing what she wants for the first time: not acting. Writing…Healing from trauma looks different for everyone: For McCurdy, writing this memoir symbolized empowerment over her narrative. And understanding that it's OK not to forgive her late mother provided her peace.” —Jenna Ryu, USA Today “Judging simply by the shocking title of Jennette McCurdy’s debut memoir, I’m Glad My Mom Died , you may think the book is a no-holds-barred, scathing takedown of her mother and everyone else who perpetuated the horrifying upbringing that the former iCarly star endured, but you’d be wrong. McCurdy’s book is certainly revealing, describing the abuse she endured from her mother, who pushed her into acting at age 6, then guided her directly into an eating disorder and much worse until her death in 2013. But beyond that, it’s a measured, heartbreakingly poignant, and often laugh-out-loud-funny memoir with McCurdy showing more sympathy for her complicated mother than most people could even imagine mustering. However, what is perhaps most important about her memoir, which is smart, well-written, and powerful, is just how much hope and help it will surely provide to those suffering similar abuses right now.” —Scott Neumyer, Shondaland “The new memoir from former child star Jennette McCurdy has an attention-grabbing title: I’m Glad My Mom Died . Over the course of the book, McCurdy, who built her name on Nickelodeon’s iCarly and Sam and Cat , more than makes her case, detailing years of her mother’s mental and physical abuse. The result is a detailed look at a very specific and individual childhood of horrors, but it also points to a major systemic problem. I’m Glad My Mom Died doubles as a damning indictment of the child star system…She paints a vivid picture of child stardom as a system in which children find themselves turned into walking piles of other people’s cash, and summarily dismantled when they lose their value. It’s damning both for the horrors she experienced as an individual and the systemic failures to which her story points.” —Constance Grady, Vox “McCurdy’s book must be written by someone. Why? It must be done because there is someone out there right now who truly believes that life will never be any different. They truly believe that they will live under their parent’s thumb, never have the life they wanted, not trust their own agency, their own minds, and people like Jennette exist to tell them: You are not wrong, you can trust yourself. You can do this too.” —Erin Taylor, Observer “A stunning memoir…[McCurdy] reveals herself to be a stingingly funny and insightful writer, capable of great empathy and a brutal punchline. It’s a document not just of all she’s endured, but also of the wisdom she accrued along the way.” —Sam Lansky, Time “A coming-of-age story that is alternately harrowing and mordantly funny.” —Dave Itzkoff, The New York Times “[A] magnum opus…sharply funny and empathetic.” —Ashley Spencer, The Washington Post “McCurdy strips away the candy-coated facade of her sitcom experiences.” —Vanity Fair “[The] US summer publishing sensation that—in short, punchy sentences delivered with a high level of self-perception—could transform the trauma memoir business…[T]he book, and the reception it has received, could return the focus of the trauma narratives to the mother and create new demand for mother-daughter accounts.” —Edward Helmore, The Guardian “[An] explosive debut…insightful and incisive, heartbreaking and raw, McCurdy’s narrative reveals a strong woman who triumphs over unimaginable pressure to emerge whole on the other side. Fans will be rapt.” — Publishers Weekly ( starred review) “McCurdy asks readers a question: When and how does one rid oneself of the cage created by others and walk freely? Her stunning debut offers fierce honesty, empathy for those that contributed to her grief, and insights into the hard-fought attachments and detachments of growing older.” — Booklist (starred review) “Delivered with captivating candor and grace.” — Kirkus (starred review) “Jennette McCurdy is the queen of lemonade from lemons, using her trauma to weave a painfully funny story that also illuminates the commodification of teenage girls in America. An important cultural document just as much as a searingly personal one.” —Lena Dunham “Jennette’s road to finding herself—removed from the expectations of her mother—is impressively funny. She fuses nuanced relationships, complex grief, religious whiplash and Hollywood trauma into a bold story with a specific comedic voice.” —Jerrod Carmichael “How can a book be so sad and also so funny? It's an art, and Jennette McCurdy has mastered it here. I’m Glad My Mom Died is hysterical and heartbreaking and fascinating all at the same time.” —Jenny Lawson, New York Times bestselling author of Furiously Happy: A Funny Book About Horrible Things and Broken (in the Best Possible Way) “ I'm Glad My Mom Died is furious, sad, brave, knowing, honest, heart-wrenching, and utterly compelling. McCurdy writes with a keen insight and startling compassion. Whether showing how dysfunction can seem normal to those most affected, the torture of eating disorders, or the mindfuck that is child stardom, McCurdy brings readers deep into the milieu so often hidden from outsiders. This is a beautifully crafted coming-of-age story as fearless as its author.” —Lauren Hough, New York Times bestselling author of Leaving Isn’t the Hardest Thing “Jennette McCurdy’s book is a coruscating picture of her life as a child actor, devastatingly honest and with great understanding of the psychology and emotions operating at a deep level. It’s a riveting read, entertaining and very touching.” —Hayley Mills, New York Times bestselling author of Forever Young “Jennette’s career as an actor was simply a character in a much more important story. She is a natural writer with a wonderful sense of humor. Her story is heartbreaking with a nice balance of hopeful. I could not put this book down.” —Laraine Newman, original cast member of Saturday Night Live and author of May You Live in Interesting Times

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I'm Glad My Mom Died Kindle Edition

• Print length 319 pages
• Language English
• Sticky notes On Kindle Scribe
• Publisher Simon & Schuster
• Publication date August 9, 2022
• File size 2162 KB
• Page Flip Enabled
• Word Wise Enabled
• Enhanced typesetting Enabled
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• ASIN ‏ : ‎ B09JPJ833S
• Publisher ‏ : ‎ Simon & Schuster (August 9, 2022)
• Publication date ‏ : ‎ August 9, 2022
• Language ‏ : ‎ English
• File size ‏ : ‎ 2162 KB
• Text-to-Speech ‏ : ‎ Enabled
• Screen Reader ‏ : ‎ Supported
• Enhanced typesetting ‏ : ‎ Enabled
• X-Ray ‏ : ‎ Enabled
• Word Wise ‏ : ‎ Enabled
• Sticky notes ‏ : ‎ On Kindle Scribe
• Print length ‏ : ‎ 319 pages
• #4 in Biographies of Actors & Actresses
• #4 in Parenting & Relationships (Kindle Store)
• #8 in Dysfunctional Families (Books)

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Melissa A. Gabrielli

About the author

Jennette mccurdy.

New York Times Bestselling Author Jennette McCurdy has been showcasing her multitude of talents for over 20 years, with more than 100 credits under her belt between film and TV. Most recently, Jennette has chronicled the unflinching details surrounding her life and rise to fame in her memoir I’m Glad My Mom Died, which stayed at #1 on the NYT bestseller list for 52 consecutive weeks and has been in the top 5 on the NYT best seller list for 44 straight weeks. In the inspiring book of resilience and independence, Jennette uses candor and dark humor as she dives into 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.

In addition to her impressive acting resume, Jennette is an accomplished creator. Her darkly comedic one-woman show “I’m Glad My Mom Died,” which she wrote, directed, and stars in, had a sold-out run at Lyric Hyperion Theatre. Jennette has been at the forefront of writing and directing Strong Independent Women and Kenny, which was featured on Short of the Week and nominated for the Grand Jury Prize for Best Short Film at the Florida Film Festival. Her works have also been published in the Huffington Post, the Wall Street Journal, and The Hollywood Reporter.

Jennette is currently writing her debut fiction novel, set to release in 2024. Jennette has also been honored as part of the 2022 TIME100 Next list, a compilation of emerging leaders from around the world who are shaping the future and defining the next generation of leadership.

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I'm Glad My Mom Died

73 pages • 2 hours read

A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.

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Chapters 1-4

Chapters 5-6

Chapters 7-10

Chapters 11-14

Chapters 15-20

Chapters 21-28

Chapters 29-33

Chapters 34-40

Chapters 41-47

Chapters 48-55

Chapters 56-61

Chapters 62-70

Chapters 71-77

Chapters 78-85

Chapters 86-91

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Summary and Study Guide

I’m Glad My Mom Died, a memoir by Jennette McCurdy , details the author’s experiences as a child star on Nickelodeon and her relationship with her mother. Published in 2022, Jennette’s first book explores complex experiences with body image, love, family, religion , and the child acting industry. This guide refers to the 2022 first edition of the memoir.

Content Warning: This text deals extensively with emotional abuse, alcohol abuse, eating disorders, and mental health. It reproduces some sexual and abusive language, some of which is referenced in this study guide in direct quotation.

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Jennette McCurdy lives in Garden Grove with her parents, maternal grandparents, and her three older brothers. She has an extremely close relationship with her mother, who was diagnosed with cancer years ago but is in remission. At the age of six, Jennette began her acting career at the behest of her mother, whose dream was to be an actress. Jennette is disinterested in acting but feels that her purpose in life is to make sure that her mother is happy and calm.

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For several years, Jennette acts in small roles in commercials and television shows. After struggling with anxiety over auditions, she develops a voice in her head that she attributes to the Holy Spirit. This voice instructs her to perform certain rituals that calm Jennette down. When Jennette’s grandfather suggests that Jennette may have Obsessive Compulsive Disorder, her mother is dismissive.

After noticing that her body is changing, Jennette fears that she is growing up and will no longer be cast in children’s roles. She worries that she will disappoint her mother. She asks her mother how she can stop her body from changing, and her mother teaches her about calorie restriction.

Jennette lands a leading role on the Nickelodeon show iCarly. She plays Sam Puckett, the blunt best friend of Carly Shay. She and her costar develop a strong friendship despite their different socioeconomic backgrounds. The show’s creator, Dan Schneider, is known for being emotionally manipulative and aggressive. iCarly finds success, and Jennette pursues a country music career at the behest of her mother.

Jennette’s mother’s cancer returns as she is about to promote her album. She goes on tour alone, and while away from her mother for the first time, begins eating in excess. She also has her first real kiss. When she returns, she has gained weight, and her mother has become frail. She vows to her mother that she will diet. She gets her own apartment closer to set, but her mother reacts to the attempt at distance by sleeping at Jennette’s apartment almost every night.

Jennette begins dating a much older coworker, but keeps it secret from her mother, who she knows would not approve. Her mother senses that Jennette is hiding something from her and that they are growing apart, and she responds with violence and name-calling. When she discovers the relationship, Jennette’s mother sends her a barrage of abusive messages that attack Jennette’s character and declare her worthless. When Jennette returns to her mother, they pretend it never happened.

Jennette’s mother continues to grow weaker, and Jennette begins binge eating and drinking. On the day her mother finally dies, Jennette is numb with alcohol.

Jennette develops bulimia. While on set for a new TV show in Canada, she falls in love with an assistant director named Steven . After discovering her eating disorder, he delivers an ultimatum that forces Jennette to meet a therapist. However, when her therapist expresses concern about Jennette’s relationship with her mother, she fires her.

Steven becomes a born again Christian and expresses a desire to be celibate. Jennette grows further dissatisfied in her career. She meets up with her father, who confesses to her that he is not her biological father. Shocked, Jennette tries to talk to Steven, only to find that he has begun suffering from the delusion that he is Jesus Christ. Jennette realizes that her life is falling apart and seeks new treatment for her eating disorder.

Steven begins psychiatric medication and seems to be doing better but refuses to address his chronic drug use. As Jennette succeeds in recovery, she finds herself growing further apart from him. Ultimately, she chooses to break things off. As she continues to improve and develop healthier habits, she meets her biological father and steps away from acting.

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