Prompts Filled: (31) A book with a title that is a complete sentence
Tags: Memoir, Celebrity Memoir, Child Stars, Child Actors, Hollywood Moms, Stage Moms, Child Abuse, Child Neglect, Sexual Abuse, Child Sexual Abuse, Child Exploitation, Hoarding, Homeschooling, Mental Health, Mental Illness, Abusive Parents, Eating Disorders, Anorexia, Bulimia, Addiction, Alcoholism, Anxiety, Obsessive Compulsive Disorder (OCD), Unhealthy Relationships, Codependent Relationships, Sexual Assault, Rape, Cancer, Therapy, Grief, Healing, Acting, Nickelodeon, iCarly, Sam & Cat
Jennette McCurdy played the best friend character on the Nickelodeon show iCarly and eventually got her own spin-off show Sam & Cat. And all the while, she was being emotionally, physically, and sexually abused by her mother, Debra McCurdy.
I’m Glad My Mom Died is Jennette’s memoir about her relationship with her mother and acting. McCurdy shares all the details of her abusive relationship with her mother in excruciating, heartbreaking detail. Her mother always wanted to be an actor, so when Jennette is six years old, her mother begins to bring her to auditions. Her mother’s behavior is erratic and frightening to Jennette, so she learns to do anything to please her mother. When she begins puberty at 11, she is frightened that it will upset her mother, so she asks for help, and her mother “helps” her by introducing her to “calorie restriction.”
When her mother finally dies of cancer, Jennette is angry and depressed and spirals further into bulimia and addiction, until a boyfriend tells her to get help. She starts therapy and is confronted with the fact that her mother abused and exploited her.
The healing process is a long road, but her mother dying allows her to quit acting and become her own person at last.
Sparked Joy: 4/5 “Joy” is perhaps not the right word. This book made me furious. I’m also glad McCurdy’s mom died.
Jennette, and probably also her brothers, were sexually abused by their mother. Reading the chapters about that abuse made me think about the book It’s Perfectly Normal and the challenges it has faced. Jennette and her brothers were homeschooled, and Jennette’s reactions to her body changing during puberty made me think she and her brothers did not have access to any form of sex education. I wonder if It’s Perfectly Normal and other books like it would have helped them, the way it helped a 10-year-old girl in Delaware who was being abused by her father.
I’m not against homeschooling altogether; given the restraints of our current underfunded public school system, sometimes it’s necessary for students with different needs. But my god, does it need to be regulated, and sex education needs to be included.
Something I Learned: I learned a lot of things—I’m Glad My Mom Died is basically a tell-all memoir—but the most interesting and innocuous thing I learned is that background actors don’t get the same perks as principal actors. They don’t get as many breaks, and they don’t get access to things like the food service on set, even if they’re children. I dunno, I just think child actors should get more out of what they’re doing.
Something I’m Inspired to Do: I want to thank my mom for not letting me do auditions! As a child, I really wanted to be Britney Spears. I wanted to act and sing. I once recorded an acapella song that I wrote on my tape recorder, in the hopes that we would send it out to agents. In middle school, I took performing arts as my elective. Of course, it was then that I discovered I had terrible stage fright and performance anxiety. I had maybe two speaking lines in my entire three-year career in the performing arts class, and I was glad to not have any more.
I’ve known for a while that child stars have a rough go of it and face a lot of abuse from their parents and the industry, but reading this really hammered the point home.
I’m Glad My Mom Died was published in 2022. Here is Jennette McCurdy’s website. Support your local bookstore if you can, or visit your local library!
El's Reading Journal 