Here is a letter Jennette McCurdy got from her mom.
Dear Net,
I am so disappointed in you. You used to be my perfect little angel, but now you are nothing more than a little SLUT, a FLOOZY, ALL USED UP. And to think—you wasted it on that hideous OGRE of a man. I saw the pictures on a website called TMZ—I saw you in Hawaii with him. I saw you rubbing his disgusting hairy stomach. I KNEW you were lying about Colton. Add that to the list of things you are—LIAR, CONNIVING, EVIL. You look pudgier, too. It’s clear you’re EATING YOUR GUILT.
Thinking of you with his ding dong inside of you makes me sick. SICK. I raised you better than this. What happened to my good little girl? Where did she go? And who is this MONSTER that has replaced her? You’re an UGLY MONSTER now. I told your brothers about you and they all said they disown you just like I do. We want nothing to do with you.
Love, Mom (or should I say DEB since I am no longer your mother)
P.S. Send money for a new fridge. Ours broke.
Relatable.
Jennette McCurdy's mother wanted to be an actress, so she made her daughter into one. It worked out about as well as you'd expect.
Jennette's mother was a cancer survivor up until the point that she failed to survive; she made a video of her cancer diagnosis and treatments and made the kids watch it every weekend to remember how amazing she is. She whips out her "stage four cancer survivor" status on every possible occasion, to agents, directors, waiters, and security guards. And that is just the tiniest tip of the iceberg.
She pushes Jennette into acting, which she hates and is temperamentally unsuited for, to the point where she gets the second lead on a Nickelodeon show, iCarly. (Reading this book, I learned that the show was not about an AI named Carly, but three teenagers who make a sort of early vlog.) Jennette makes friends on set, but the creator is a creepy emotional abuser and fame is both her worst nightmare and feeds her worst tendencies.
Based on the title, I expected this book to be about how much Jennette hated her mother. In fact, the problem--well, one of them--was that she loved her mother. They were extremely enmeshed and living each other's lives, and up until her mother died of cancer, Jennette was desperate to please her. The disillusionment came later, when she finally took a breath and looked out at the wreckage of her life.
There's awful stuff in this book but it's also very funny. Jennette has a distinctive, sharp, very modern narrative voice. The chapters are structured like little short stories or TV episodes, often with punchlines. She sees two therapists, and remarkably manages to capture the actual experience of therapy very well. I laughed a lot, but in solidarity. Though her terrible relationship with her mother is bad for pretty much the exact opposite reasons and in the opposite ways that my relationship with my parents was bad, I found it very relatable.
It also has some excellent surprises I don't want to spoil.
Her boyfriend? A God. I burst out laughing when he got religion, and again when he turned out to be Jesus. I also felt genuinely bad for him - it was very traumatic for him and not at all his fault - but it was so hilariously out of the blue. Poor Jennette.
Also, the revelation about her father. WTF! I did miss learning what the hell her brothers thought about it.
I listened to this in audio read by the author, which I definitely recommend.
Thanks for the rec,![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
mildred_of_midgard!
Content notes: Child abuse, bulimia, anorexia, alcoholism, cancer, mental illness, child labor, gross descriptions of vomit which I fast-forwarded.
Dear Net,
I am so disappointed in you. You used to be my perfect little angel, but now you are nothing more than a little SLUT, a FLOOZY, ALL USED UP. And to think—you wasted it on that hideous OGRE of a man. I saw the pictures on a website called TMZ—I saw you in Hawaii with him. I saw you rubbing his disgusting hairy stomach. I KNEW you were lying about Colton. Add that to the list of things you are—LIAR, CONNIVING, EVIL. You look pudgier, too. It’s clear you’re EATING YOUR GUILT.
Thinking of you with his ding dong inside of you makes me sick. SICK. I raised you better than this. What happened to my good little girl? Where did she go? And who is this MONSTER that has replaced her? You’re an UGLY MONSTER now. I told your brothers about you and they all said they disown you just like I do. We want nothing to do with you.
Love, Mom (or should I say DEB since I am no longer your mother)
P.S. Send money for a new fridge. Ours broke.
Relatable.
Jennette McCurdy's mother wanted to be an actress, so she made her daughter into one. It worked out about as well as you'd expect.
Jennette's mother was a cancer survivor up until the point that she failed to survive; she made a video of her cancer diagnosis and treatments and made the kids watch it every weekend to remember how amazing she is. She whips out her "stage four cancer survivor" status on every possible occasion, to agents, directors, waiters, and security guards. And that is just the tiniest tip of the iceberg.
She pushes Jennette into acting, which she hates and is temperamentally unsuited for, to the point where she gets the second lead on a Nickelodeon show, iCarly. (Reading this book, I learned that the show was not about an AI named Carly, but three teenagers who make a sort of early vlog.) Jennette makes friends on set, but the creator is a creepy emotional abuser and fame is both her worst nightmare and feeds her worst tendencies.
Based on the title, I expected this book to be about how much Jennette hated her mother. In fact, the problem--well, one of them--was that she loved her mother. They were extremely enmeshed and living each other's lives, and up until her mother died of cancer, Jennette was desperate to please her. The disillusionment came later, when she finally took a breath and looked out at the wreckage of her life.
There's awful stuff in this book but it's also very funny. Jennette has a distinctive, sharp, very modern narrative voice. The chapters are structured like little short stories or TV episodes, often with punchlines. She sees two therapists, and remarkably manages to capture the actual experience of therapy very well. I laughed a lot, but in solidarity. Though her terrible relationship with her mother is bad for pretty much the exact opposite reasons and in the opposite ways that my relationship with my parents was bad, I found it very relatable.
It also has some excellent surprises I don't want to spoil.
Her boyfriend? A God. I burst out laughing when he got religion, and again when he turned out to be Jesus. I also felt genuinely bad for him - it was very traumatic for him and not at all his fault - but it was so hilariously out of the blue. Poor Jennette.
Also, the revelation about her father. WTF! I did miss learning what the hell her brothers thought about it.
I listened to this in audio read by the author, which I definitely recommend.
Thanks for the rec,
mildred_of_midgard!Content notes: Child abuse, bulimia, anorexia, alcoholism, cancer, mental illness, child labor, gross descriptions of vomit which I fast-forwarded.
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Fort Worth Public Library
I'm Glad My Mom Died • Audiobook
0 of 148 copies available. 298 holds (Estimated wait: 29 days)
I'm Glad My Mom Died • eBook
0 of 43 copies available
154 holds (Estimated wait: 51 days)
Houston Public Library
I'm Glad My Mom Died • Audiobook
0 of 30 copies available
638 holds (Estimated wait: 299 days)
I'm Glad My Mom Died • eBook
0 of 30 copies available
401 holds (Estimated wait: 188 days)
edit And now I'm #155 on the FW list.
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Ok so for the record this phrasing makes me feel like I've wandered into a magical realist novel. XD With the note that I will almost certainly never read this - wait, what? XD XD
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I’ve been meaning to read this one, in small part because of the Judy Bloom-esque cover, which is very apt.
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Based on the title, I expected this book to be about how much Jennette hated her mother. In fact, the problem--well, one of them--was that she loved her mother.
Me too! I was fully expecting it to be more like your memoirs, explicitly, "My mother was terrible and this is how she was terrible." And I was surprised both by the fact that it was a completely different kind of relationship than I'd imagined, and also how she rarely said, "And this was bad because."
She did a lot of staying in the POV of her younger, less-aware self when she talked about what happened, but she selected the details with the benefit of hindsight, so that it was *really* obvious to the reader how fucked up this was.
There's awful stuff in this book but it's also very funny. Jennette has a distinctive, sharp, very modern narrative voice. The chapters are structured like little short stories or TV episodes, often with punchlines.
I know, I just couldn't stop reading because I kept wondering what crazy thing lay in wait in the next episode. Wait, Mom is such a hoarder there are dead raccoons in the garage and Jennette dreams of eviction? Wait, her mother doesn't let her wipe her own bottom when she goes to the bathroom at the age of 10? WHAT NEXT?!
(The best punchline has to be Mom praying, "God, grant me patience. And make it quick.")
She pushes Jennette into acting, which she hates and is temperamentally unsuited for
Except for the part where she the *best* sad face of all the kids and the rare ability to cry on demand! I just kept going, "Oh nooooooo" when I read that.
Though her terrible relationship with her mother is bad for pretty much the exact opposite reasons and in the opposite ways that my relationship with my parents was bad, I found it very relatable.
Yeah, the total lack of boundaries around "self" reminded me more of my grandmother than anyone, although it manifested in a different way. (Sadly for him, she did not die, and he is still living with her and trying to please her. Instead of being her vicarious successful career self, he's functioning as her emotional support animal: not allowed to leave or have a life beyond food, alcohol, and television.)
gross descriptions of vomit which I fast-forwarded.
Oh, right, forgot that would bother you and didn't warn for that specifically. Sorry! Audio probably made it worse.