I'm Glad My Mom Died

When my two kids were young, I used to watch iCarly with them every week.  I'm actually not sure who enjoyed it more, me or them, to be honest!  Anyone who watched the show knows that Jennette McCurdy's character, Sam Puckett, wasn't one to mince words.  Her sarcastic, jaded humor was one of the funniest aspects of the show, and I appreciated that she was a character without pretense - a "what you see is what you get" type.

Fast forward ten years, and now Jennette McCurdy, unencumbered by a character she seems to wish she'd never had to embody has written her own truth. It's raw, unfiltered and without pretense and possesses more than a little of that jaded humor, suggesting that maybe you can never fully escape who you are, even when you're acting.

At its heart, this is a book about Jennette surviving the trauma of her mother, Debra's, abuse and the multitude of ways it impacted her sense of identity, mental health, coping mechanisms and life choices.  It's about a girl who couldn't separate who she was from who her mother insisted she be. It's about a girl who lost the chance to follow her own dreams while her mother vicariously lived hers through her only daughter.  It's about a mom using her survival against cancer and the family's Mormon faith to emotionally entrap and manipulate her daughter into behaving as she wished lest Jennette's 'disobedience' cause Debra's sickness to return.  It's about a girl so enmeshed with her mother that even when she finally moved out into her first apartment, her mother used her illness as an excuse to move in with her.

This isn't run-of-the-mill stage mom stuff. This is a vivid portrayal of the impact a narcissistic, manipulative parent can have on their child. It just so happens the person involved is famous.  Jennette was pushed into a career she didn't want at six years old.  She experienced extreme anxiety, OCD, panic attacks, codependency and sexual, verbal and emotional abuse at the hands of her mother.  She experienced inappropriate overtures and manipulation at the hands of a Nickelodeon figure, simply named "The Creator" in the book, but undoubtedly Dan Schneider, who created iCarly. Perhaps worst of all, and this is something that many who experience trauma will understand, is what she suffered at her own hands trying to cope with the abuse. She developed anorexia, bulimia, alcoholism, questionable sexual relationships, anger issues, and deep-seated insecurity that continued well after Debra's eventual death.

These are darker topics, but what Jennette did so well in this memoir is to lay things bare and be vulnerable with her pain while balancing it with her wit and humor. She takes you through her emotional journey and leaves you with the sense, after much reflection and therapy, that she'll be OK and that those experiencing similar things in their lives can be too.  I listened to the audiobook read by the author herself, and it felt like an intimate conversation between her and her audience.  It's very well written, and I have every confidence it's only the beginning of the writing career SHE wanted!

★★★★