Thomas's Reviews > I'm Glad My Mom Died

So many great things about this book. I really liked Jennette McCurdy’s writing style – very show and not tell, focusing on specific scenes and moments from her childhood. She vividly captures her mother’s codependency on her, her encouragement of disordered eating behaviors, and her emotional instability. I think it’s courageous of McCurdy to tell the truth about her mother’s abuse given how as a society we often valorize mothers/the nuclear family. I also enjoyed and appreciated McCurdy writing about her experiences of therapy later on in her life. She has one therapy stint in which she’s not ready to confront the fact of her mother’s abuse. Later on, she’s able to heal through working on her eating disorder recovery with a different therapist and quitting acting altogether.

I think McCurdy’s celebrity, the memoir’s catchy title, and the overall quality of writing have helped make I’m Glad My Mom Died a success. I hope that we can also pay attention to writers of color who have written about their experiences of abuse and recovery, such as Stephanie Foo’s memoir What My Bones Know and Grace Talusan’s memoir The Body Papers .