I'm Glad My Mom Died, by Jeanette McCurdy

 

The Book

Jeanette McCurdy played Samantha "Sam" Puckett on Nickelodeon's iCarly. The book follows small, six-year-old Jeanette from the phase of hero worshiping her mother, and becoming an actor to fulfill her mother's personal ambitions to adulthood and learning to live for herself. When Jeanette was two years old, her mother beat stage four cancer. As a result, her mother started living her life with more vigor. She "encouraged" Jeanette to start acting and soon, Jeanette is enrolled in acting classes with a bunch of other kids. Jeanette, feeling grateful for her mother's recovering is willing to do anything, anything at all, in order to make her mom happy. 

Throughout her childhood, Jeanette experienced several forms of child abuse, it seems the most serious of which was the enmeshment between her and her mother. Jeanette goes from wanting to please her mother, to being cast on iCarly. Her mother pushed her until she reached the top. Jeanette is surprised to realize, she's not happy. However, she finds true friendship with her costar, Miranda Cosgrove, and starts to grow up. But, Jeanette, suddenly at the top of the child acting game, is afraid of growing up. As usual, her mother has an answer. 

To prevent Jeanette from becoming an adult, her mother introduces her to "calorie restriction", and convinces Jeanette to become anorexic. This delays Jeanette's puberty and allows her to act in much younger roles. She does not menstruate until she is sixteen, much later than the other girls in her cohort. 

When iCarly ends, Jeanette is cast in the spin off show, Sam + Kat, where she costarred with Ariana Grande.  Jeanette finds herself, as she describes, unreasonably jealous of Ariana after Ariana and not Jeanette gets to play games at Tom Hanks house. She decides she will never like Ariana. (Side note, I hope she changed her mind, but I get it. The two of them didn't have a whole lot in common.) 

During this show, Jeanette gets her own apartment, but her mother, afraid of letting go, worms her way into Jeanette's apartment. Meanwhile, her mother's cancer has returned. Jeanette moves to New York City, while her mother's health declines. Along the way, Jeanette starts to have real relationships with men, much to her mother's dismay. This shifts the dynamic from enmeshment to full on emotional abuse. At this, Jeanette finally begins to shift away from her mother. 

The shift comes with drinking and bulimia. Jeanette's life seems to spiral out of control. She meets her first love, and they start to get serious, but he puts up a line when he says he stand by and watch her be bulimic. Jeanette seeks help. 

Her first counselor is not much help. She moves on. As she moves on, the second counselor encourages her to concentrate on getting better. As she does this, her love's schizophrenia spirals out of control, causing an irreparable break. Finally, at the end of her rope and at the end of a failed Netflix series, Jeanette gives up acting to concentrate on writing. 

My Thoughts

It must be hard to be Miranda Cosgrove or Ariana Grande and hear about Jeanette's life and abuse. No two people experience things the same way. And because abuse can be both highly subjective (what one person legitimately experiences as emotional abuse may not be seen in the same way as another person) and highly secretive, it would take a monster to have no feelings about this memoir. I would hope that they would have enough in common to bind them through it, but I would understand if they didn't. Being a young actor/singer is a hard thing. There are pressures everywhere. There is the nonstop commentary on your physical appearance. And it's not hard to see how this leads to several types of eating disorders and the like. 

I found the book difficult to read. The abuse she chronicled difficult. But I did find she has a clear voice, a good grip of pacing, and a way of explaining things in a way that are both captivating and revealing without going to far into cringe. In fact, I might describe her authorial voice as seductive. 

My kids grew up without iCarly and Sam + Kat, but...I did know who Jeanette was. We'd seen an episode or two of iCarly after we moved to Illinois, but the majority of the show took place before my kids were ever exposed to cable TV. Hey, one of he advantages of being poor is watching your local PBS station. I can't say I ever saw enough episodes to have a clear opinion of Jeanette or her acting, but I do understand how year after year, and generation after generation misses just how awful being a child actor can be. I would like to see the practice ended. And I'm an adult who wanted to be an actor as a kid. 

How Much My Library Card Saved Me

This book came to me from DesPlaines Pubic Library (Hi Cam!). The  304 page first edition is in great condition. The pages are stiff, so it feels like it hasn't been read a whole lot. Jeanette has a new book coming out, so I think this book will stay in the collection. The inside cover of this book released in August of 2022 says the book cost $27.99. This is the number I will use. 

This Book                                                         $27.99