This is an amazing memoir. Telling how Jennette has to go through, especially during her career as an actress. Knowing that her mother pushed her into acting. In addition, she had to go on this strict low-calorie diet. Jennette suffers physical and mental abuse, eating disorders and mental health problems.

Thanks to NetGalley and Simon & Schuster for allowing me to read this memoir in exchange for a review.

This was avery heartbreaking and incredibly personal story. I know everyone is going to be reading this one even if it's just because of the surprising title.

This was very difficult to get through. Broke my heart having to read the mistreatment that this young girl had to go through. Effectively portrayed.

Jennette’s honesty is brutal and tender. Having the strength to recount the ways in which she suffered for her family (at the hands of her mom) left me in awe. Her VERY REAL depictions of working on one’s self to overcome harmful habits and just how big of a feat that is is so, so validating. Her prose is so strong, including elements of humor that were unexpected due to the subject matter but welcomed nonetheless.

I’m Glad My Mom Died perfectly outlines an adult coming to terms with your parent being an imperfect human (obviously amplified here with abuse + exploitation of your child), and not a superhero.This is a BEAUTIFUL book that I feel everyone should read. Thank you NetGalley for the digital galley of this title.

This is a memoir of abuse, eating disorders and child acting. Sometimes it's difficult to read. However, I think this could be an inspiration to others that they are not alone and there is hope. I applaud Jennette for breaking the cycle of abuse and for being honest about her experiences. I enjoyed her as an actor, but now think of her as a fantastic writer.

I’m not usually one to give a star rating to a memoir, but this is a gripping five star read. The basis for my rating is in the bravery, honesty, and the fearlessness that Jennette McCurdy had in sharing her childhood anguish in this book.

While reading this book I was completely amazed at how the funny and carefree character on TV was actually an abused child. I applaud her for coming forward with this book and showing what struggles others may be going through.

The chapters in this book are short, you will just fly through it. Due to the heavy topics and events in this book I thought it was going to be a hard read, and while it was emotional, the inner monologue of the author in parts of the book really kept the pages moving. Overall it was a great read and I’ve been raving about it to everyone.

This is simultaneously easy and brutal to read. Her writing style is clear and enjoyable and propulsive, but the material itself….can be pretty rough. You really feel the anxiety that pervaded her life. I would have liked more reflection in the “After” section -did her relationships with her brothers change? How did the family move forward? Were there any other catalysts that helped shift how she viewed her mother after her death?

Many thanks to NetGalley and Simon and Schuster for providing an ARC.

Authentic and articulate representation of her difficult journey navigating her life! I love how it highlights how she’s managed to make the best of a disheartening situation!

This was so intensely gut wrenching and frustrating to read (stay with me here). As I made my way through the book I felt the build-up of anger that I can only assume Jennette had been feeling her entire life. The way her mother treated her was just unbelievable to me and it puts so much into perspective on how we view celebrities. I was an iCarly kid 100% and seeing what we saw no one could've ever guessed she was experiencing so many terrible things outside of the small bubble we saw her in. The repositioning of grief and accepting that, you can miss the good things about someone who did so much wrong after they passed while still acknowledging that they wronged you in ways that will effect you for the rest of your life I think will be so important for so many people to read.

beautiful - so honest and raw. this is what a memoir should be. we truly never know what someone else is going through and hearing someone else’s experience is so eye opening. her treatment was so unfair and it’s so exciting to see how far she’s come.

During this reading experience, I was struck by brutality and heartbreak. Having finished McCurdy's memoir, I've been unable to stop thinking about it, thanks to her unflinching analysis of her mother's lying, gaslighting, manipulation, mental, emotional, and sexual abuse, as well as Jennette's struggles with OCD, anorexia (encouraged by her mother), bulimia, and depression. McCurdy doesn't sugarcoat or edit her own experience to make it look better. I recommend reading this book if you can deal with the trigger warnings for all of the above experiences. It is an amazing look at how dark childhood acting can be along with coping with horrible family figures,

Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for providing me with this arc in exchange for an honest review.

Highly readable, highly recommend.

For something that is steeped in tragedies and abuses, this is a lighthearted, enjoyable read. There are so many good choices here with presenting the events, from timelines to point of view, it all works. As much as you feel for young Jennette, can see what is happening and wish you could help her, it's easy to keep reading and not be bogged down in the sadness because you are in young Jennette's head, and she doesn't see this as bad or sad.

Deciding to write this must have been difficult, knowing that your story is yours to tell but it is also entwined with others and by nature you have to bring them into it. Still, every one is treated with grace. As Ariana fans find this book, they seem to be up in arms that she isn't in it more or with more glowing praise, but even Jennette's anger and jealousy is treated clearly as "this is my problem, and the fact that I feel allowed to be angry or bitter or anything less than a cheerful doormat is good and righteous". Her being able to experience and express these negative emotions feels like a victory, you know?

So this is not a gossipy celebrity memoir, it absolutely could say more about "The Creator" but it wouldn't be saying anything we don't already know. It's more about a personal journey told with unflinching honesty but no cruelness. I am pretty excited about the next era of McCurdy's career, and hope we see some interesting things there.

This was a brutal, heartbreaking read. I have not been able to stop thinking about McCurdy's memoir since I finished it, thanks to her unflinching examination of her mother's lying, gaslighting, manipulation, mental, emotional, and sexual abuse along with Jennette's struggles with OCD, anorexia (encouraged by her mother), bulimia, and depression. McCurdy is not here to sugarcoat anything that has happened to her, nor does she edit her experience to make her own poor choices, jealousies, and mistakes look better. If you're able to read this book (lots and lots of trigger warnings for all of the above experiences) it's a powerful look at the very dark side of childhood stardom, negative body image, and the pain that narcissistic family members can inflict on those around them.

It's truly wild to learn what Jennette McCurdy went through while portraying spunky and tough Sam on iCarly. It is deeply clear how wounded her inner child is by her narcissistic mother, who forced her into child acting, facilitated an intense eating disorder, and muted any possibility of Jennette using her voice.

I appreciate the memoir and its title — familial relationships are complicated, messy, and not always healthfully loving. It's okay to feel a gamut of emotions after a loved one dies, including relief, anger, and confusion. Godspeed to Jennette as she continues her eating disorder recovery, setting boundaries, and figuring out life post-child stardom.

***Thanks to the publisher and Netgalley for providing me with a digital copy of this book in exchange for an honest review***
Startling and somewhat sad, but written with a bit of humor and hope.

Brutal, unflinching, and very well done. Jennette McCurdy does not shy away from anything regarding her deeply narcissistic mother, the abuse her mom inflicted upon her and acknowledging the complicated feelings that come with loving someone who treated you in such an awful way. It was hard to read at times but also very funny in other parts. PS that cover is fabulous.

This memoir was chilling, raw, and absolutely unabashed. The list of trigger warnings is long, but if this is a feasible read I 100% recommend it. McCurdy’s storytelling capabilities really shine, which makes it even harder to read about the abuse she went through with how immersive her writing is. Overall this was an incredibly well done memoir that really challenges your perception of Hollywood and child actors.

Wowza - as someone who has experienced more than their fair share of childhood trauma, this one hit home. I have pictured/questioned what it will be like when my abuser dies and struggle to know that people will expect me to not feel any sort of positive emotion. While I don't have the need-to-please relationship with my abuser that Jennette had with her mother that would lead to that level of grief, I can empathize with the difficulty of navigating that kind of event when that person left behind craters of negativity rather than the warmth expected.

This is a tough read - but written to candidly and so well. Highly encourage this read.

This book feels like you’re slowly boiling in a pot of water and a voice keeps telling you it’s just lukewarm. McCurdy details her relationship with her abusive mother. Her mother forced Jennette into acting at age six to vicariously fulfill her own dream and financially support her family. Jennette develops a set of self-destructive skills to get her through her exploitation and abuse which she has to reckon with once her mother dies and she quits acting. McCurdy’s writing is darkly witty, emotionally vulnerable, and deeply captivating.

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?

I only know what iCarly, a former Nickelodeon TV show about three friends who start a webshow, is (I’m 1,000 years older than its target audience) because when I was first living in Germany it was always on TV dubbed in German and it was basically the only level of German I could understand a few words of. I generally knew who Jennette McCurdy was from that. She would go on to co-star alongside Ariana Grande in a spinoff, Sam & Cat, before quitting acting to a lot of public speculation a few years ago.

Her mother, Debra McCurdy, who passed away from cancer in 2013, was the driving force in all of Jennette’s decisions — that classically infamous overenthusiastic showbiz mother living out her own thwarted dreams of stardom through her kid. That would be stressful enough, but hanging over all of this was a melee of harrowing domestic issues, including her mother’s hoarding, guilt about whether she caused her mother’s cancer (because her mother told her so), and the family’s constant stress of whether they could pay the rent, until as a child Jennette herself started supplying the funds to pay it through her acting work.

But things got even darker: in response to the restrictions and abuse her mother inflicted on her, Jennette developed obsessive-compulsive disorder and later, anorexia, bulimia, and alcohol abuse. It’s a heartbreaking but not unsurprising response to having her life dictated by someone who refuses her any autonomy of her own, even moving in and sleeping next to her, and insisting on bathing her and “checking for cancer” in what amounts to sexual abuse.

To learn what she went through, and how it’s shaped her life is frequently jaw-dropping. I can’t imagine what it took to even write this, to bare so much about what her life was. While reading I kept feeling like the bottom must’ve been hit by now, but then the next page brought some fresh horror. To think this was her life and yet the public appearance she kept up! But it’s important and helpful – there’s so much to resonate here just about growing up female in America under pressure, even putting the entire child star element to the side.

I know “brave” gets overused to the point of being meaningless or even mildly insulting, but I kept thinking that while reading this – how unimaginably brave she was to tell this story. She already knows how being a child star paints you with that brush forever – she says she knows it’s what people will always see when they look at her. To add the dark, ugly details and how it related to her mother on top of that already fraught situation is just so brave.

People are already reacting to the book’s title and cover and shaming her for telling this story (people who obviously haven’t and won’t read it, that is). But she had to know there’d be that kind of backlash, there always is if you challenge societal expectations around loving your mother. Yet she did it anyway, and pulled it off marvelously and often hilariously. That’s right, despite what I’ve described so far, this is frequently hilarious too. And she’s very blunt about why her mother’s death was the only way for her to be her own person:

Mom made it very clear she had no interest in changing. If she were still alive, she’d still be trying her best to manipulate me into being who she wants me to be.

I hope that she’s healing — certainly telling this story had to be a step towards that. But she also seems open that it’s a big messy ongoing process, especially the disordered eating aspect of it. This might be the part that struck me the most, having been through disordered eating for a decade and a half myself. I hurt for her reading this, and she put so many of my own thoughts into words about it. I feel grateful to her for that.

It’s incredibly eloquent and well written in general, not at all what I was expecting from a celebrity memoir. If performing wasn’t ever her dream and isn’t what she wants to do, it’s clear that she has immense talent for writing.

Through writing, I feel power for maybe the first time in my life. I don’t have to say somebody else’s words. I can write my own. I can be myself for once. I like the privacy of it. Nobody’s watching. Nobody’s judging. Nobody’s weighing in. No casting directors or agents or managers or directors or Mom. Just me and the page.

What was most exceptional here, among many exceptional things, is how successful Jennette is in making you understand what she felt and why it mattered. Whether that’s in her descriptive ability (the air in her childhood home felt “like a held breath” as they waited for cancer to recur) or explaining how her first kiss was for TV and thus hurt her emotionally, in addition to being what just sounds like an alarming experience, with a man she refers to as “The Creator” (easily identifiable) ordering her around during this difficult moment.

I think of what it would be like if everyone was famous for a thing they did when they were thirteen: their middle school band, their seventh-grade science project, their eight-grade play. The middle school years are the years to stumble, fall, and tuck under the rug as soon as you’re done with them because you’ve already outgrown them by the time you’re fifteen.

But not for me. I’m cemented in people’s minds as the person I was when I was a kid. A person I feel like I’ve far outgrown. But the world won’t let me outgrow it. The world won’t let me be anyone else.

That makes me cringe to even consider yet it’s her lived reality. I would say that I can’t imagine, but she shows exactly what it’s like.

She also explains why she quit acting: throughout her story, she emphasizes how little control and power she had in anything in her life, and what joy it was for her to have the smallest element of choice over something. Now, “I’ve finally started to take some control of my relationship with food, and the healthier that relationship becomes, the more unhealthy a career in acting seems for me.” A wise girl who knows herself.

Although her recovery and healing process seem ongoing, her progress is clear. I can’t wait to read more of her writing.