I'm Glad My Mom Died

Template:Short description Template:Use American English Template:Use mdy dates Template:Infobox book I'm Glad My Mom Died is a 2022 memoir by American writer, director and former actress Jennette McCurdy based on her one-woman show of the same name. The book is about her career as a child actress and her difficult relationship with her abusive mother who died in 2013. This is McCurdy's first book and was published on August 9, 2022, by Simon & Schuster.

Background

McCurdy had been a professional actress from age six until she announced that she had permanently stopped acting in 2017. From 2009 to 2012, she was signed to Capitol Records Nashville, who released her self-titled debut studio album in 2012.

McCurdy had previously written pieces in publications such as The Wall Street Journal and began writing personal essays shortly after. She sent some of the essays to her manager at the time, who encouraged her to write a book about her experiences. Rather than write a book, McCurdy created a one-woman show titled I'm Glad My Mom Died which she performed in Los Angeles and New York City. Plans to tour the show in other cities were canceled due to the COVID-19 pandemic, and she decided to write her material into a memoir.

McCurdy stated that she had rejected $300,000 from Nickelodeon to not talk publicly about her experiences at the network, including actions of a producer at Nickelodeon described pseudonymously as "The Creator".

Book cover

The cover features McCurdy looking up and holding a pink urn with decorative paper spilling out. About the decision to use the photo for the book cover, McCurdy told Entertainment Weekly:

Synopsis

In the memoir, McCurdy discusses her childhood as a successful child actress, her brief foray into a career in country music, and the troubled and controlling relationship she had with her mother, Debra, who died from cancer in 2013. She describes a strained relationship with a producer at Nickelodeon she referred to only as "The Creator", whom BuzzFeed News and other sources speculated to be Dan Schneider.

The book is divided into two sections, "Before" and "After", which describe the events of her life before and after the death of her mother.

Reception

The book sold out within 24 hours of going on sale at retailers such as Amazon, Target, and Barnes & Noble. That same month it became a number one New York Times Best Seller for non-fiction in both hardcover and E-book, selling over 200,000 copies across all formats in its first week of release. As of early October 2023, it remained on the hardcover list 60 consecutive weeks. According to Deadline, the book has sold nearly two million copies as of February 2023.

I'm Glad My Mom Died was met with "rave" reviews from critics, with review aggregator Book Marks reporting that none of the nine reviews were negative or mixed. In a starred review, Publishers Weekly called the book "Insightful and incisive, heartbreaking and raw." Kirkus Reviews, which also gave a starred review, wrote that the book is, "The heartbreaking story of an emotionally battered child delivered with captivating candor and grace."

Nana Li Coomes of The Atlantic called it "a layered account of a woman reckoning with love and violence at once." Dave Itzkoff of The New York Times wrote that the memoir was "a coming-of-age story that is alternately harrowing and mordantly funny."

In popular culture

Sections of the book were referenced and discussed in the fourth episode of the docuseries Quiet on Set: The Dark Side of Kids TV.

Accolades

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Year	Award	Category	Results	Template:Ref heading
2022	Goodreads Choice Awards	Best Memoir & Autobiography	Template:Won

Release history

Release history and formats for I'm Glad My Mom Died

Country	Release date	Edition	Publisher	Template:Tooltip
Various	August 9, 2022	Template:Hlist	Template:Hlist
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Translations

• Template:Langx. Translated by Lucia Popovici. Iasi: Alice Books. 2023. .
• Template:Langx. Translated by Soraya Borges de Freitas. São Paulo: nVerso. November 15, 2022. .
• Template:Langx. Translated by Magdalena Moltzan-Małkowska. Warsaw: Prószyński i S-ka. January 24, 2023. .
• Dutch: Ik ben blij dat mijn moeder dood is. Translated by De vertaalzusjes. Amsterdam: Spectrum. February 9, 2023. ISBN 9789000387823.
• Template:Langx. Translated by Matteo Curtoni and Maura Parolini. Milan: Mondadori. March 14, 2023. .
• Template:Langx. Translated by Julia Gillberg. Stockholm: Bookmark Förlag. April 3, 2023. .
• Template:Langx. Translated by Saara Pääkkönen. Helsinki: Johnny Kniga. August 10, 2023. .
• Template:Langx. Translated by Daiva Krištopaitienė. Vilnius: Alma littera. August 24, 2023. .
• Template:Langx. Translated by Kjersti Velsand. Oslo: Kagge Forlag. August 30, 2023. .
• Template:Langx. Translated by Sára Moyzesová. Bratislava: IKAR. September 19, 2023. .
• Template:Langx. Translated by Corinne Daniellot. February 7, 2024. .
• Template:Langx. Translated by Hana Samardžija. Zaprešić: Fraktura. February 2024. .
• Latvian: Priecājos, ka mana mamma nomira. Translated by Kristīne Spure. Rīga: Helios. July 29, 2024. .

See also

• Mommie Dearest (1978) – a memoir written by Christina Crawford about her strained relationship with her adoptive mother Joan Crawford.
• Quiet on Set: The Dark Side of Kids TV (2024) – a documentary television series about Dan Schneider's tenure on Nickelodeon, featuring testimonials from former actors and crewmembers.