I’m Glad My Mom Died is an emotional and heartbreaking, yet funny, memoir written by former actress Jennette McCurdy that will have you laughing and crying.

The book is a deepdive into her seemingly “perfect” life during the times that we watched her on the hit Nickelodeon show iCarly. While McCurdy was filling all of our childhoods with laughter, she was quietly struggling at home with her abusive mother. 

Throughout this read, it is overwhelming the amount of mental abuse McCurdy was enduring at home while none of the children watching the hit kids show had any idea, along with her castmates and her closest friends.

She definitely knew how to hide it well, but McCurdy was suffering from a number of eating disorders, which were all forced on her by her mother.

It all started off at six years old, when her mother taught her “calorie restricting,” which consisted of eating close to nothing daily and weighing herself after every meal. This obviously was not actually calorie restricting, McCurdy’s mother was teaching her an eating disorder.

Horrible, yes. Obviously, she was not aware of this at the time. Jennette McCurdy’s whole life was based around her mother for years, and she was terrified of not pleasing her, so she did as she was told, to calorie restrict, and she ended up with anorexia and a 10+ year long battle with bulimia. 

“I was shocked at how her mother forced her into being as small as possible and how Jennette was thrown into auditions,” Jack Huot states. As well as basically being forced into eating disorders at the age of 6, McCurdy was also thrown into acting, her mother’s dream, not hers.

After a few years of commercials and very small background parts in shows, Jennette finally booked a starring role in iCarly, the soon to be hit Nickelodeon show. Besides building a lifelong friendship with her co-star, Miranda Cosgrove, McCurdy was absolutely miserable, but this was not even the lowest point of her life. Nobody knew what she was going through. She had to fake a smile everyday to please her mother.

And when her mother passed away from her longtime battle with cancer, it was probably the best thing that could have happened to McCurdy. Finally letting her achieve normal eating habits (although her struggles with bulimia lasted years after this) and letting her do whatever she wants to do without having someone to please. At the end of her mothers life, Jennette McCurdy weighed 89 pounds at 21 years old, which she knew her mother would be so proud of. 

 Readers are shocked as they turn every page of this devastating story. McCurdy’s life could have been so much different and easier for her if her mother did not teach her such unhealthy habits at such a young age that she did not understand these were bad habits.

Overall, this book would be recommended for someone who can handle reading about many disturbing topics, and someone who knows of Jennette McCurdy, but has no idea what she has been through. Be extra nice to people because you never know what anyone is going through.