A review by crybabybea
I'm Glad My Mom Died by Jennette McCurdy

dark inspiring reflective sad medium-paced

5.0

I’m Glad My Mom Died is, at its core, a detailing of author Jennette McCurdy’s experience with an abusive mother, but it’s also a raw and realistic exploration of mental health, coming-of-age, and an important piece of literature for today’s culture. Jennette McCurdy is truly an incredible writer, and this memoir is a testament to everything she has overcome. She writes with an impressive amount of finesse, attacking dark topics with an equal amount of vulnerability and dry wit. She knows which moments to highlight, when to pull back, and deftly weaves together a scene that feels like we’re exploring her memory alongside her. It’s clear where her true passion lies. 

I do think calling this book “hilarious” is a bit of a misnomer, but Jennette McCurdy does have a very unique writing style. She is very matter-of-fact and blunt, which totally aligns with her personality. This is something that brought this book to the next level; Jennette’s voice was clear and strong throughout its entirety. I’m a sucker for beautiful descriptions and purpley prose, but Jennette doesn’t hide behind any flowery language or overarching metaphors. That’s not to say her writing isn’t beautiful; she knows how to write in a way that provokes thought and introspection. At the same time, though, she writes with such candor that only certain people can get away with, and I felt like I could hear her voice in my head so many times while reading. Her strong voice as a writer was made apparent right from the beginning. Can I just say that this book had one of THE BEST prologues I have ever read? She set the tone immediately. She introduced her brothers as their “roles” in her toxic family system, establishing right away what kind of family dynamic we were dealing with. This passage: 
“I’m in the ICU with my dying mother and the thing that I’m sure will get her to wake up is the fact that in the days since Mom’s been hospitalized, my fear and sadness have morphed into the perfect anorexia-motivation cocktail and, finally, I have achieved Mom’s current goal weight for me. Eighty-nine pounds. I’m so sure this fact will work that I lean all the way back in my chair and pompously cross my legs. I wait for her to come to. And wait. And wait. But she never does. She never comes to. I can’t make sense of it. If my weight isn’t enough to get Mom to wake up, then nothing will be. And if nothing can wake her up, then that means she’s really going to die. And if she’s really going to die, what am I supposed to do with myself? 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?” (page x)
My jaw completely dropped. I had to close the book and process it. It was such a raw and brutal way to set up what kind of situation we were going to be dealing with in this book. 

In the first few chapters, Jennette immediately continues the prologue’s theme of setting up the family dynamic. It becomes clear right away that Jennette has a talent for melding together her cynical “adult” voice with her naive “child” voice. She writes about her mom’s insecurities and inserts small but important details that point to how the whole house must walk on eggshells to please her, but with the innocence and pure vision of a six-year-old. Depending on how you approach the way its written, things can come off as sweet and naive, or foreboding and uncomfortable. Jennette’s word choice definitely helps bolster this feeling, particularly her use of the word “peel” and “rip”. I especially loved this quote that I feel sums up Jennette’s relationship with her mom right off the bat: “Mom’s watching me and I’m watching her and that’s how it always is. We’re always connected. Intertwined. One. She smiles at me in a pick-up-the-pace kind of way, so I do. I pick up the pace and finish peeling the paper off my gift.” (page 5). She also sets up her mom’s victim complex, and the way her cancer is used as a bargaining chip to get sympathy and attention. Immediately, we see how much of a role guilt and shame is going to play in Jennette’s life, and how her mother makes herself the center of everyone’s world. I love the simple but effective imagery that Jennette uses, stating that “the air in the house has felt like a held breath.” (page 8). Jennette’s mom makes sure to remind anyone and everyone that she is the fragile one, and she is the one who deserves everyone’s attention and care at all times. Nobody else’s needs matter because mom could die at any moment. Again, Jennette’s imagery says all it needs to say when she ends the chapter using her sixth birthday wish on willing her mother to live another year. The first chapter alone is a shining example to Jennette’s talent as a writer, and it showcases the unique voice she gives to her writing. 

Throughout this section of the book, Jennette’s sarcastic commentary comes through more and more as she explores these memories in a reflective way. A really nice example of this is when Jennette comments on her childhood self’s “acting”. It gives the vibe of a dry coming-of-age film, and you can hear Jennette’s adult voice narrating over the nostalgic childhood scene. This first half of the book follows how Jennette became involved in acting through the pressure and guilt put on her by her mother. She shares with us the beginnings of her extreme anxiety which eventually develops into full-blown OCD, which her mother completely denies and ignores. She talks about growing up Mormon, and how church was a great escape for her due to the extreme anxiety from her tumultuous home life. Jennette does a really great job of laying out these issues plainly, as if she were talking about something as mundane as a grocery list, but still carrying enough of a presence for the reader to understand how deep and serious her issues go. As someone with a dissociative disorder, the way she explains time and time again dissociating from her body and putting on her “mask” was incredibly realistic and hit close to home. I think her writing style plays with her dissociation very well; it’s easy remove yourself and speak about things very matter-of-factly when you are always dissociated or putting on a mask. This dissociation is a repeating theme in the book, often highlighted by the phrase “going through the motions”, something that Jennette has to do very often. 

Something else I really admired about Jennette’s writing was her ability to draw parallels without being too obvious about it. One of the biggest parallels she draws is her relationship with her mother compared to her relationship with acting. The idea of being “on” all the time basically becomes her identity, and she picks up acting easily as she’s used to fixing her expressions, reactions, and emotions to please her mother. It creates a nice flow to go back and forth between acting gigs and auditions, and moments with her mother where Jennette has to put her own feelings aside and lie through her teeth to appease her. At the same time, I love the parallel that she draws of her mother constantly putting on a show as well. I really admire the simple way she points things out, usually with one phrase that is meant to make the reader come to the conclusion on their own. For example, in Chapter 22, <spoiler Jennette talks about learning to cry on cue, and after failing an audition because she couldn’t force her tears out, she opens up to her mother about not enjoying acting. Immediately, her mother starts wailing and guilt-tripping Jennette into taking it back, and when she does, her tears immediately dry up and her mood changes for the better. Jennette points this out by stating simply, “I’m not the only one who can cry on cue.” (page 80). Later on, there’s a big parallel created between Jennette’s mother and other people who come into her life, specifically The Creator, and to a lesser extent, her first boyfriend Joe. These are both people who manipulate Jennette in an eerily similar way to her mother, and she often finds herself doing things she doesn’t want to do to make them happy and for fear of their backlash. She states multiple times that The Creator’s approval means a lot to her, even though she is skeptical of him and feels like he is manipulative, she doesn’t know any other way to be. There was also a mini-parallel drawn between these toxic relationship dynamics and Jennette’s dynamic with her fans, although it wasn’t talked about much. In chapter 33, The Creator asks how Jennette feels about being famous and being recognized, and her mother chimes in with “’She loves it… Absolutely loves it. And the fans adore her, too. They almost always say she’s their favorite character.’” Just like with her mother, and with The Creator, Jennette’s entire purpose is to make people happy, even when she doesn’t particularly like them or when it makes her feel bad. Later on, when Jennette
enters therapy for the first time, this people-pleasing mask is so inherent that she plays the part even in therapy.


Jennette’s portrayal of her trauma and how her brain learned to survive was so well-done and realistic. The way that she writes her thoughts so plainly makes everything feel much more vulnerable, like we are diving into her personal diary entries throughout her life. When you grow up with a narcissistic parent, you learn to people-please early on, and the fawn response becomes your default mode of operation. With the fawn response, you learn to gaslight yourself out of every bad feeling that you feel, especially when it goes against people who have manipulated you into shame, guilt, and breaking your boundaries to please them. I thought Jennette did a great job at portraying that self-gaslighting, and some passages were like a direct stream of consciousness from the mind of an anxious people-pleaser. There were two particular passages that showed this in a really great way; one in chapter 34,
“Fame has put a wedge between Mom and me that I didn’t think was possible. 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. Sometimes I look at her and I just hate her. And then I hate myself for feeling that. I tell myself I’m ungrateful. I’m worthless without her. She’s everything to me. Then I swallow the feeling I wish I hadn’t had, tell her “I love you so much, Nonny Mommy,” and I move on, pretending that it never happened. I’ve pretended for my job for so long, and for my mom for so long, and now I’m starting to think I’m pretending for myself too.” (page 121);
and one just a few pages later in chapter 35,
“I’m tired too. I’ve worked hard lately too. I actually think I’ve worked a lot harder than Mom has. And then I feel guilty for thinking this. She does drive me to and from work, which has to be tiring, a part of me thinks. Yeah, but I do homework on the drive, plus memorize the lines, then spend ten hours on set rehearsing and performing and being “on” under bright lights and intense pressure, while she sits up in my dressing room perusing Woman’s World and gossiping with my co-stars moms, the other part of me thinks. I try and swallow these conflicting parts of me. They’re unhelpful and distracting from the issue that needs to be resolved right now.” (page 123).
If you’ve never experienced the self-gaslighting and self-boundary-denial that comes with chronic people-pleasing and fawn responses, I think these two passages highlight how exhausting it is to constantly fight with yourself on your own needs and emotions. It’s like your brain is constantly running off the rails, and it will always find a way to make you the bad guy, even when you clearly aren’t. Jennette did such a good job at putting this feeling into words. It also speaks heavily to the feeling of being used and abused that comes with people-pleasing; often you give up everything to make the other person happy, and get nothing but pain and betrayal in return. 

Throughout the book, Jennette earns her attention-grabbing title tenfold. There were so many moments with her mother where I felt genuine rage, and had to take a minute before I could continue reading. From little hurts like denying Jennette her own passions and interests, to extremely serious abusive tactics like introducing her to anorexia and calorie restriction, I hated this woman before we even got halfway through the memoir. When it got to the point where Jennette’s mother’s
cancer finally returned,
all I could feel was relief. In a way, it was the rising action that finally led Jennette to the long road of recovery, as it was the first time in eighteen years she was able to spend more than a few hours away from her mother. Near the end of the book, Jennette reaches her breaking point and finally starts setting boundaries with people, including her producers who take advantage of her, and her grandmother who verbally abuses her. I wanted to cry with relief and pride. It is so incredibly hard to break the people-pleasing, self-gaslighting cycle, and finally start putting yourself first. When she finally not only acknowledges her resentment and bitterness, but honors it, real change starts happening and Jennette starts to work towards a better, more authentic life for herself. All I could feel was joy for her in those moments, although I imagine they were chaotic and guilt-ridden for her at the time.

Aside from the issues with her traumatic childhood and her abusive mother, which is obviously the center of the book’s message, Jennette is also sure to shed light on the reality of being a child star, an issue that is rarely talked about despite being such a prevalent part of American culture. She talks candidly about the pressure put on her from such a young age, the traumatic situations she not only had to endure in real life but pretend to endure in order to act, the manipulation and abuse she faced, and the bitterness that comes from having your most awkward and vulnerable moments displayed to the world. There was a very powerful section where Jennette denounced child stardom completely, and she lets the reader know that although millions of people dream of fame and fortune, not all that glitters is gold. 

At the end of this book, I was left with so many emotions. I felt like I was grieving Jennette’s lost childhood alongside her. I felt anger, resentment, bitterness, and sadness alongside Jennette, but overall, I felt so immensely proud of her. Something that was especially poignant to me was the fact that the book ended not with Jennette completely healed and figured out, but acknowledging the fact that recovery is a process. It is messy, and ugly, and painful, and arguably the hardest thing anyone could ever do, but it is necessary and beautiful in its messiness. Out of all of my favorite quotes from this book (and there are so many good ones), my absolute favorite comes at the very end. Jennette writes: “I think of Mom. I don’t want to become her. I don’t want to live off Chewy granola bars and steamed vegetables. I don’t want to spend my life restricting and dog-earing Woman’s World fad diet pages. Mom didn’t get better. But I will.” (page 297). This simple statement is so powerful and hopeful. Being a cycle breaker is difficult and traumatizing, and I am so proud of Jennette for choosing her path. 

In one of the last few chapters, Jennette says this: “I want to do good work. I want to do work I’m proud of. This matters to me on a deep, inherent level. I want to make a difference, or at least feel like I’m making a difference through my work. Without that feeling, that connection, the work feels pointless and vapid. I feel pointless and vapid.” (page 226). I want Jennette to know that she is. She is making a difference, and she should be extremely proud of the progress she has made, and the work she is doing not only for abuse survivors, but anyone else who considers themselves a people-pleaser, and not least of all, her fellow child actors who likely had similar experiences to her. As much as this book was dark and sad, I also found it astonishingly healing and inspiring. It was a vulnerable, true exploration of Jennette’s trauma, and her journey as she began recovery. She was raw, and honest, and I’m honored that she shared her story with us. 
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