I’m Glad My Mom Died by Jennette McCurdy
My rating: 5 of 5 stars
It's really hard to read a book like this and give it anything but a 5-star score. Jennette was so candid about every aspect of her trauma, from her relationship with her mother to the abuses she faced in Hollywood to her own struggles with body image and her gradual path towards recovery. Everything is laid out in painstaking, humorous, heartbreaking detail, and in a style that reads like she's speaking directly to you. I can see this book being referenced for years to come as a window into the realities of child acting and the lasting damage that that does to someone.
This was a difficult book to read, but at no point did I feel like I needed to put it down and take a break. The story is unflinching during its most brutal moments, but constantly engaging to a point where I always felt like I had to read on, if only to find a shred of hope that Jennette would find something better. And she did. This is a great book about a hard childhood, a hard adulthood, and choosing to break cycles of abuse and be better than those before you. It's a bleak book with a very hopeful ending, and its very existence is proof that its author is in a better place now. Jennette McCurdy is a fantastic writer and I can't wait to see what she does next.
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