I’m sure most of you are familiar with Jennette McCurdy and her role as Sam on iCarly and other shows. I used to watch iCarly quite frequently so I was very interested when I heard Jennette was writing an autobiography, especially with a title like this. I am not usually a nonfiction or biography person, but this book was very interesting and kept me entertained the whole time I was reading it. If you want to get an inside perspective of Hollywood and the children show industry, specifically from an actress you have watched, I highly recommend this book. Quick TW, mention of eating disorders.

The book starts off when Jennette was about 5 years old and describes her family and life circumstances. She grew up in a pretty poor, Mormon family with three older brothers, and idealized her mom. She would do anything to please her mom and keep her happy. Her mother forced her into acting at a very young age because she always wanted to be an actress, but could never do it. Jennette talks about how she never really wanted to act, and preferred writing screenplays and books, but she wanted to make her mom happy. She goes on to describe her life as it continues, and she becomes a bigger child star. Around the time that she got her role on iCarly, her mother helped her develop an eating disorder so that she would remain skinny and small so she could play younger roles. This eating disorder continued long into adulthood for her, even after her mother died, and transformed from anorexia to binging to bulimia. A little later, her mother’s cancer comes back and continues to get worse. Despite this, her mother remains very clingy and controlling of Jennette. Their relationship gets very strained, yet she still does everything to appease her mother.

Eventually, Jennette’s mother gets very sick and becomes permanently hospitalized. She ends up passing away and Jennette feels very conflicted. She has idealized her mother for so long that it is hard to adjust to a life without her. On the other hand, she finally has some freedom and do what she wants. The books goes into much more detail and talks about relationships, jobs, and other things happening in her life.

I really enjoyed this book and found it particularly interesting because I was watching her on TV at the time when all of this was happening. It is kind of weird to think how all of this was going on while I was laughing at her show. I gave this book 4 stars because I really liked her writing and the progression of the book. I found it really fascinating to find out about so many different things she dealt with and went through.

Unfortunately, this book was a hardcover so I can not flop it at all. :(((((    That made me sad, but I still really enjoyed the book. Sometimes I must sacrifice book floppiness for a good book with good writing.