Content Note
Today is a full summary of Jennette McCurdy’s memoir, I’m Glad My Mom Died, and it has spoilers from the first page to the last.
First, a content note. This book describes emotional and physical abuse by a parent, invasive body exams, eating disorders, alcohol use and the death of a parent. I will keep my details light and I will not repeat any methods or numbers that could harm someone. If this is a hard topic for you, please look after yourself first. If you are struggling with food or your body, talk to a doctor or a licensed professional. And if you are in crisis in the United States, you can call or text nine eight eight.
One more thing. This is a true story about real people, so I am only reporting what the book says, in her words and from her point of view.
What This Book Is
I’m Glad My Mom Died is a memoir by Jennette McCurdy, the actor best known for the show iCarly. The copyright page says the first Simon and Schuster hardcover came out in August twenty twenty two, and that the names and identifying characteristics of some individuals have been changed.
It has a prologue and ninety one short chapters, written in the first person and mostly in the present tense, so you feel like you are inside each moment. It jumps from childhood in Garden Grove, California, to her twenties.
By my search, the title sentence never appears in the text. The book earns the title in a different way, and I will show you how.
The Prologue and the Birthday Wish
The prologue starts in a hospital. Her mother is in intensive care, the doctors have said she has forty eight hours to live, and Jennette’s three older brothers take turns whispering news into her ear. Marcus, Dustin and Scott. Nothing happens.
Then it is Jennette’s turn, and the news she brings is her weight. She says she is finally down to the goal weight her mother set. It is a shocking scene, and it tells you the whole book in one page: her purpose has always been to make Mom happy.
Chapter one jumps back to her sixth birthday. Her mother, Debra, had stage four breast cancer when Jennette was two, and the family still rewatches a home video about it every Sunday. At her birthday party, Jennette uses her wish, the one bit of power she feels she has, to wish that Mom stays alive another year. She does this every birthday.
Becoming an Actor
In chapter two, her mom clips butterfly clips into her hair and asks if she wants to be Mommy’s little actress. The book says there is only one right answer.
Mom wanted to act, says the book, and her parents would not let her. At six, Jennette signs with an agency called Academy Kids and starts doing background work, including a day on The X Files. Over the next chapters she works her way up to speaking roles, with a talent agent, weekly acting classes and a long list of auditions.
Her mother is always in the room, coaching, and she is tough. Jennette loves the days when Mom is proud, and dreads the days when she is not.
Home, Church and Her Mother’s Temper
Chapters five and six show the home life. They are Latter-day Saints, and church is, in her words, a three hour escape from home. Home is a house so full of her mother’s hoarded things that the kids sleep on gym mats in the living room.
Money is tight, and her mother’s moods swing. In chapter six, a fight ends with her mother chasing her father with a kitchen knife. Jennette’s strategy is to watch her mother’s face and calm her down. She says she learned to read every expression.
The Rituals and Crying on Cue
During a big callback in chapter fourteen, Jennette hears what she believes is the Holy Ghost, telling her to do a list of small rituals. Years later, she wonders whether it is really OCD.
Chapter twenty one is about her special skill, crying on cue, which her mother has her put in bold on her résumé. To cry, she imagines the deaths of people she loves.
Then, in chapter twenty two, she says out loud that she does not want to act anymore. Her mother sobs that this was their chance. Jennette says never mind and sings along to the radio with a fake smile.
Calorie Restriction
This is the hardest part of the book. In chapter twenty five, Jennette finds a lump that turns out to be puberty. Her mother tells her that if she wants to stay small, there is a secret called calorie restriction.
Her mother teaches her, weighs her, measures her and gives her diet books. A doctor raises the word anorexia in chapter twenty five, and a mother from dance class raises it again. Her mother brushes both off.
In chapter twenty seven the book also describes her mother still bathing her and doing body exams on her as a teenager. In the final chapter Jennette names this as abuse.
iCarly and The Creator
In chapter twenty eight, at fourteen, she books iCarly, her first series regular role. She believes her mother’s dream has come true and everything will be better. She meets her co star Miranda, and a real friendship grows over instant messenger.
On the show, she also meets a boss she calls The Creator. He is warm one minute and terrifying the next. In chapter thirty three he promises her a spin off of her own, as long as she listens to him and lets him guide her. In chapter forty one, he rubs her shoulders at dinner, and she is too scared of offending him to tell him to stop.
Fame brings its own stress. Strangers shout lines from the show, and in photos she sees her mother standing to the side, copying the smile she wants Jennette to have.
Nashville, the Tour and Leaving Home
Next, a music career. Jennette signs with Capitol Records Nashville and goes on a radio tour. Her mother’s cancer comes back, and she learns it by reading an email, not from being told. On tour, away from her mom for the first time, she starts to eat freely and feels guilt and chaos about it.
Back home, her mom is thin and frail, and Jennette is afraid of being judged. In chapter forty two she moves into her own apartment, and she senses that her mom wants to move in.
Hawaii and the Final Months
She starts a secret relationship with a coworker, Joe. On a trip to Hawaii she lies to Mom about who is with her. Her mom finds out, and the messages she sends are furious, with dozens of missed calls.
After that, the two of them keep up polite small talk. In chapter forty six her mother asks her to sing a song at her funeral. In chapter forty seven her mother has a seizure after a lunch out, and the book circles back to the ICU from the prologue.
Her Mother’s Death
Mom does not die in forty eight hours. She is moved out of intensive care and lives for months, increasingly unable to speak. Jennette goes to work on a sitcom and goes back to the hospital. Later, her mother is on a hospital bed in the living room of the old house.
Mom dies. The book says Jennette was drinking by then, and that, on that very day, she first made herself throw up. I will leave the details out.
At the funeral, in chapter fifty seven, she cannot sing the song. She starts to cry at the podium instead.
After Mom
This section is about the next several years. Bulimia and drinking become her coping tools. At work, she is offered a chance to direct an episode, and then it is taken away. The network hears accusations of The Creator’s emotional abuse, and in chapter sixty four, her team tells her the network is offering her three hundred thousand dollars on the condition that she never speak publicly about her experience. She says no.
The show ends. At twenty two, she blows out birthday candles with no idea what to wish for, because her wish had always been about Mom.
Steven, Therapy and a Secret
She falls for a crew member named Steven. When she returns home, he encourages her to see a therapist, Laura. In chapter seventy two, Laura suggests that her mother was abusive. Jennette defends her mom, and then quits therapy.
In chapter seventy five, her dad, Mark, tells her that he is not her biological father. Her mother never told her. Later, in chapter eighty four, she meets her biological father once, at a show. The meeting is brief.
Steven struggles with his own mental health, and the relationship becomes codependent.
Recovery
In chapter seventy eight, she finds an eating disorder specialist, Jeff. This part is gradual. She throws out diet food, learns about slips, and works through packets of worksheets. She puts her scale down a trash chute.
She also decides to stop acting. In the author’s bio, the book says she quit acting in twenty seventeen. She turns down the idea of a reboot.
The Last Chapter
The book ends at her mother’s grave. Her headstone lists about twenty adjectives. Jennette asks whether she was any of those things.
She says her mom abused her emotionally, mentally and physically, pushed her into acting, taught her an eating disorder, and never told her who her father was. She also says she still misses her.
She wipes the dirt off her jeans and walks away, knowing she will not come back.
The Takeaway
So what is the book saying? That love and control can look the same from the inside. That grief can come in layers. And that telling the truth about a parent, who is also loved, is possible.
If you want to know whether it is worth reading, I made a spoiler free review, and there are discussion questions and similar books too. Thanks for watching, and subscribe for more.
