A heartbreaking and hilarious memoir by iCarly and Sam & Cat star Jennette McCurdy about her struggles as a former child actor—including eating disorders, addiction, and a complicated relationship with her overbearing mother—and how she retook control of her life.

Jennette McCurdy was six years old when she had her first acting audition. Her mother’s dream was for her only daughter to become a star, and Jennette would do anything to make her mother happy. So she went along with what Mom called “calorie restriction,” eating little and weighing herself five times a day. She endured extensive at-home makeovers while Mom chided, “Your eyelashes are invisible, okay? You think Dakota Fanning doesn’t tint hers?” She was even showered by Mom until age sixteen while sharing her diaries, email, and all her income.

In I’m Glad My Mom Died, Jennette recounts all this in unflinching detail—just as she chronicles what happens when the dream finally comes true. Cast in a new Nickelodeon series called iCarly, she is thrust into fame. Though Mom is ecstatic, emailing fan club moderators and getting on a first-name basis with the paparazzi (“Hi Gale!”), Jennette is riddled with anxiety, shame, and self-loathing, which manifest into eating disorders, addiction, and a series of unhealthy relationships. These issues only get worse when, soon after taking the lead in the iCarly spinoff Sam & Cat alongside Ariana Grande, her mother dies of cancer. Finally, after discovering therapy and quitting acting, Jennette embarks on recovery and decides for the first time in her life what she really wants.

Told with refreshing candor and dark humor, I’m Glad My Mom Died is an inspiring story of resilience, independence, and the joy of shampooing your own hair.

I received a complimentary copy of this book courtesy of the publisher. All thoughts are my own.

This book really surprised me. I went into this memoir knowing almost nothing. I never watched iCarly or Sam & Cat, and Jennette McCurdy wasn’t a familiar name to me. That ended up being a gift. I wasn’t reading this as a former fan or out of pop culture curiosity. I was reading it as a human story. And wow, does it deliver.

What makes this memoir so powerful is how it unfolds. McCurdy doesn’t open with a thesis statement announcing, “This relationship was abusive.” In fact, it opens with her sitting by her mother who is on her death bed, still trying to make her happy. And then we travel back to when she was just a kid and the book walks us through her lived experience. At first, her mother comes across as controlling, intense, and overly invested, but also loving and devoted. As readers, we sit in that confusion alongside the author. We excuse things. We rationalize. We think, “Well, she just really loves her daughter.” And then, gradually, the truth becomes impossible to ignore.

That slow realization is devastating. The author’s desire to please her mother runs through every page, and it’s painfully relatable. That need to be good, to be perfect, to earn love by compliance. I understood it completely. The closeness between them makes sense, even when the behavior doesn’t. That emotional knot is what makes the book hit so hard. Abuse doesn’t always look monstrous from the inside. Sometimes it looks like devotion.

There’s also a surprising amount of humor here. Dark, sharp, uncomfortable humor that lands because it’s honest. I grew up Mormon, and some of the church scenes had me laughing out loud because they were uncomfortably familiar. Singing “Popcorn Popping on the Apricot Tree” was a primary school highlight!

The sections dealing with eating disorders, addiction, and therapy are written with brutal clarity. There’s no glamorizing, no tidy redemption arc wrapped in a bow. Recovery is messy. Progress is uneven. The book respects that reality. It also does something rare. It lets anger exist without apology. That alone feels radical.

What impressed me most is McCurdy’s voice as a writer. It’s clean, controlled, and emotionally precise. She never asks for pity. She just tells the truth and trusts the reader to feel it. By the time you reach the later chapters, the weight of everything that came before is crushing.

This book made me realize I need to read more memoirs. The good ones. The kind that don’t just tell a story, but help you understand how someone came to know themselves. This book is funny, harrowing, eye-opening, and deeply sad. It earns every bit of its reputation.

Believe the hype. It deserves it.