This review discusses child abuse and eating disorders.
There are book titles that make you look twice, and then there is I’m Glad My Mom Died.
Jennette McCurdy’s 2022 memoir has sold more than three million copies, according to Rolling Stone, and having finally read it, I understand why. I loved this book.
A confession first: I went in knowing very little about McCurdy. I was just a tad too old for iCarly when the Nickelodeon sitcom arrived in 2007, so Sam Puckett was never part of my after-school routine.
It turns out that doesn’t matter. You don’t need to have seen a single episode to be floored by this.
‘Before’ and ‘After’
The memoir is split into two parts, “Before” and “After”, with the death of McCurdy’s mother, Debra, from cancer in 2013 as the dividing line.
“Before” is the hard part. McCurdy writes that her mother pushed her into acting at six, chasing the career Debra had wanted for herself.
What follows is a catalogue of control. McCurdy describes her mother introducing her to “calorie restriction” as a child, subjecting her to invasive body examinations and insisting on showering her until she was 16.
She tells it from inside the child’s point of view, in short, sharp chapters. We meet a little girl who adores her mum and wants nothing more than to make her happy, long before she has the language for what is being done to her.
That choice is where the book gets its power. It’s also, somehow, why it is so funny.
Yes, funny. The New York Times called it “alternately harrowing and mordantly funny”, and that is exactly right.
What we thought we knew about child stardom
We’ve all absorbed the cautionary tale of the child star. We think we know how it goes.
What struck me, over and over, was how much McCurdy’s account told me about a story I assumed I already understood.
There’s the fame she never wanted in the first place. There’s the Nickelodeon figure she refers to only as “The Creator”.
And there’s the $US300,000 she says she turned down from the network rather than agree not to speak publicly about her time there.
None of it is delivered as gossip. It reads as evidence, laid out calmly by someone who has done the work to understand it.
About that title
When Debra died, McCurdy was 21 and starring in the iCarly spin-off Sam & Cat.
She writes about being devastated, and then about everything that came after: relief, guilt and a confusion that took years to untangle.
It was through therapy that she came to recognise what she’d lived through as abuse. She walked away from acting, and the “After” half of the book follows her recovery from eating disorders and addiction.
By the final page, the title isn’t a provocation. It’s a conclusion she has earned.
An author, not a former actor
The memoir began life as a one-woman show McCurdy performed in Los Angeles and New York before the pandemic shut down her touring plans.
It went on to win the Goodreads Choice Award for best memoir in 2022. Then, in January this year, she followed it with her debut novel, Half His Age.
Seeing McCurdy build a career as an author has been extraordinary. This is not a celebrity with a book deal: this is a talented writer.
What’s happening with the TV series?
Apple TV ordered a 10-episode series inspired by the memoir in July 2025, with McCurdy writing and co-showrunning alongside Ari Katcher.
It hasn’t been a smooth road. Director Jason Reitman left the project after creative differences with McCurdy, according to Puck.
Then in July this year, The Daily Beast reported that Jennifer Aniston, who had been cast as the mother, had also exited, citing scheduling conflicts.
READ MORE: Everything we know about the Fruit Fly TV adaptation so far
The verdict
I’m Glad My Mom Died is confronting, darkly hilarious and far more generous than its title suggests. If, like me, you’ve been meaning to get to it for four years, stop waiting.
I’m Glad My Mom Died is published by Simon & Schuster and available at Australian booksellers including Dymocks. McCurdy also reads the audiobook herself.
If you or someone you know needs support, contact the Butterfly Foundation on 1800 33 4673 or Lifeline on 13 11 14.