When I first glanced at the book, I’m Glad My Mom Died, I read the title aloud to my mom. She proceeded to look horrified that someone’s child could ever say such a thing about the person who brought them into this world.
Now, after having read the book, I’m glad Jennette McCurdy’s mom died too.
Like many people my age, I grew up watching McCurdy as Sam Puckett on the hit sitcom iCarly every morning before school. It can be difficult to distinguish an actor from their characters when they are extremely loved or hated. For me, Ellen Pompeo will always be Dr. Meredith Grey from Grey’s Anatomy, Ralph Fiennes will always be Voldemort from Harry Potter, and Jennette McCurdy will always be Sam Puckett from iCarly and its spinoff, Sam & Cat.
At least she was before I read her book, a memoir about her life that specifically spans from age six to her late twenties.
At the point in the book where McCurdy is 21 years old, reeling from the death of her mother, and trying to find life after Sam Puckett, she says, “I hate being known as Sam. I absolutely hate it. I’ve tried to find some peace with it, but I haven’t.”
“I know I’ve grown bitter. I know I’ve grown resentful. But I don’t care. I feel like that show robbed me of my youth, of a normal adolescence where I could experience life without every little thing I did being critiqued, discussed, or ridiculed.”
It is hard to reconcile the beloved character from the television screen of my childhood with the now adult woman who hated every second she was on it.
In those formative years, she was forced into child acting, struggled with eating disorders taught to her by her mother at age 11, developed a resulting bad relationship with alcohol, and had to start the work of repairing the damage from all of this abuse in her twenties after her mother died from a breast cancer recurrence.
I think about how the older I get, the faster time goes. The years you spend as a child seem like they will go on forever until they are gone.
I imagine if all of the years of playing with the neighbourhood kids, family vacations, and eating ice cream in my own childhood were filled instead with emotional manipulation, forced financial responsibility, and calorie restriction.
I don’t know if I would be able to write about it all with the poise, clarity, and humour that McCurdy has accomplished in 300 pages.
She tells stories from her point of view as a little girl with a reflective, mature tone but still manages to convey the innocence and confusion of her six-year-old self.
McCurdy does the impossible work of juggling the rollercoaster of young toxic relationships, her religious deconstruction, mental health disorders, workplace harassment, and grief in a way that kept me laughing and crying.
It is a complex story that is not just a confessional of her abuse but is the story of a woman trying to find herself and happiness when she no longer has to consider anything but herself. She lived through many of the same coming-of-age moments young women experience and retells them in a relatable way, a difficult task when telling them through a lens of grief and actualization.
While I will miss the days of watching iCarly reruns guilt-free, I will eagerly await what McCurdy does next. Writing, acting or otherwise.
I’m Glad My Mom Died is equally unnerving and inspiring, and definitely is a must-read.