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A review by abooknomad
I'm Glad My Mom Died by Jennette McCurdy
emotional
hopeful
reflective
sad
5.0
A few days ago, in a review of another memoir (Somebody’s Daughter by Ashley C. Ford), I mentioned that one of the reasons why I enjoy reading memoirs is the unflinching honesty with which authors choose to tell their life story. With “I’m Glad My Mom Died”, Jennette McCurdy reaches another level of bareness, because how do you even find the courage to talk so openly about such a deep level of pain and hurt inflicted on you by the person we are all taught to love and respect the most and who brought us into this world? As Jennette shows in her memoir, it’s almost as if her instincts and brain were not programmed to face the possibility of the adjective “abusive” being used to qualify the noun “mom”. And if ever such a thought crossed her mind, it was quickly bottled up, denied, and pushed down.
Beyond recounting her troubling relationship with her manipulative, narcissistic, and abusive mother, Jennette delves deep into her own psyche. She doesn’t sugar-coat what it was like to live with an eating disorder, adopt unhealthy coping mechanisms to numb her emotions, and the anxiety and panic attacks that chased her whenever she found herself in the eye of the storm that is show business. One thing that pleasantly surprised me was how much of Jennette’s therapy sessions made it to the memoir – I’ve realised this is something that’s often mentioned but quickly brushed aside in many memoirs.
Another thing this memoir does impeccably, and what makes Jennette a great writer, is the way she rendered her thought process and the many events that shaped her so clear to the reader. The many conversations and moments she recalls throughout the years with her mother, friends, colleagues, and partners are told in such a detailed and vivid way that the reader has no choice but to be a participant, and not merely an observer, of those moments – this intimacy, added to the candour of her words about her general situation and the very dark space she was in after her mother's death, only made the emotions on the page more powerful.
There were many emotional scenes in this (audio)book; one that will stay with me happened when Jennette was recalling the moment she heard the word “abusive” and “mom” in the same sentence for the first time and she finally realises she had been telling herself lies since she was a little girl. At that moment, her voice starts shaking. She has to take a deep breath. But she recovers and keeps narrating. And I’m so grateful she chose to leave that moment unedited. To me, it reflects her resilience and her still ongoing journey, not towards forgiving her mother but forgiving herself.
I was not a fan before, I knew about iCarly but was never a regular watcher, but I’m a fan now. Jennette says she wants to be a writer, I’ll be here to read.
Beyond recounting her troubling relationship with her manipulative, narcissistic, and abusive mother, Jennette delves deep into her own psyche. She doesn’t sugar-coat what it was like to live with an eating disorder, adopt unhealthy coping mechanisms to numb her emotions, and the anxiety and panic attacks that chased her whenever she found herself in the eye of the storm that is show business. One thing that pleasantly surprised me was how much of Jennette’s therapy sessions made it to the memoir – I’ve realised this is something that’s often mentioned but quickly brushed aside in many memoirs.
Another thing this memoir does impeccably, and what makes Jennette a great writer, is the way she rendered her thought process and the many events that shaped her so clear to the reader. The many conversations and moments she recalls throughout the years with her mother, friends, colleagues, and partners are told in such a detailed and vivid way that the reader has no choice but to be a participant, and not merely an observer, of those moments – this intimacy, added to the candour of her words about her general situation and the very dark space she was in after her mother's death, only made the emotions on the page more powerful.
There were many emotional scenes in this (audio)book; one that will stay with me happened when Jennette was recalling the moment she heard the word “abusive” and “mom” in the same sentence for the first time and she finally realises she had been telling herself lies since she was a little girl. At that moment, her voice starts shaking. She has to take a deep breath. But she recovers and keeps narrating. And I’m so grateful she chose to leave that moment unedited. To me, it reflects her resilience and her still ongoing journey, not towards forgiving her mother but forgiving herself.
I was not a fan before, I knew about iCarly but was never a regular watcher, but I’m a fan now. Jennette says she wants to be a writer, I’ll be here to read.