collected
Nonfiction · Biography & Memoir · Health & Medicine · Psychology
About 6 h 30 min · at 30 minutes a day, about 13 days
Estimated from the page count of this edition. Dense books can take longer than the estimate.
Jennette McCurdy began auditioning at six to fulfill her mother's ambition, learning to equate obedience with love as her mother controlled her eating, appearance, diaries, and earnings. Her memoir follows that relationship through television fame on the Nickelodeon sitcoms iCarly and Sam & Cat, alongside eating disorders, addiction, and unhealthy relationships. It also covers her mother's death and the therapy in which she begins questioning what she grew up accepting as normal.
Short chapters and blunt, darkly funny narration give painful memories a brisk rhythm. Parental abuse and detailed accounts of disordered eating interrupt the humor in this account of family life and child stardom.
Collected’s assessment, not reader ratings. Complexity runs from 1 (least demanding) to 5 (most demanding).
Not really, at the level of prose: short chapters, conversational language, and a chronological structure keep the narration brisk. The difficulty is emotional, with painful memories and humor that can turn abruptly into distress.
Strong parental abuse and detailed accounts of disordered eating make the memoir frequently disturbing. McCurdy describes her mother's control over her eating, appearance, diaries, and earnings; strong sexual content, substance use, and language also feature.
The narration is blunt, darkly funny, intimate, and irreverent. Humor gives painful memories a brisk rhythm, but it can shift abruptly into distress as McCurdy recounts family life and child stardom.
No, prior knowledge of her television work isn't needed. The memoir follows her life chronologically, centering her relationship with her mother alongside her experiences on iCarly and Sam & Cat.
No, it is a reflective memoir grounded in personal experience. Therapy forms part of McCurdy's account as she begins questioning what she grew up accepting as normal, rather than providing a program of advice.
320 pages in the Simon & Schuster 2025 paperback edition.
Simon & Schuster · 2025 · Paperback. ISBN 9781982185831.
About 6 hours 30 minutes at 50 pages an hour, based on the 320-page Simon & Schuster edition. Dense books can take longer.
Jennette McCurdy is an American writer and former actress whose work draws on her experience of child stardom and its effects on her body, family life, and sense of self. In her 2022 memoir, I’m Glad My Mom Died, she recounts her mother’s control over her auditions, eating, appearance, privacy, and income in spare, conversational prose marked by anger and blunt humor. The book follows her struggles with eating disorders, addiction, and unhealthy relationships after her mother’s death, along with her decision to leave acting and seek therapy. McCurdy began contributing articles to The Wall Street Journal in 2011, writing about subjects including Shirley Temple, body shaming, and corporate culture. She later turned to fiction with her 2026 debut novel, Half His Age.
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