July 2023 Memoir Pick: I’m Glad My Mom Died
I read this book in a week! When I told my mom about this book she said, “Oh, Sarah. Please don’t keep a book with that title on display in your house. What an awful name for a book.”
Okay, mom. I get it. “I’m Glad My Mom Died” probably isn’t the book you want to be gifting your mother on Mother’s Day. However, I think we all could agree that this is a catchy title. Jennette always knew she wanted the book to have this title, which I think speaks so much to her writer’s mind. This leads me to my next point about this memoir, it’s actually a memoir! Celebrity memoirs hit the shelves incessantly these days. While I believe everyone life’s story is quite interesting, it’s a breath of fresh air to read a memoir that will forever be remembered as being a great memoir, and not just because it was written by a kid on the Disney Channel.
This book is quite compelling because Jennette is a great writer. Her dark humor and sarcasm helps us, as a reader, overcome every unsettling thing she reveals about her relationship with her undiagnosed mentally ill mother. This book is such an important one for mothers, daughters, the topic of undiagnosed mental illness, and how to find humor in the pain. It’s also a very important book for readers to understand what the pressure of being a child actor does to the mind of a child and how so few walk away from life on set as a kid unscathed. Below are 3 more things you will learn from reading this fascinating, witty, deeply honest memoir.
3 Things You Will Learn From Reading This Memoir:
- How easy it is for dysfunction to continue in a household when you’re not exposed to other homes.
Jennette is a child actor who practically lives on a set. She doesn’t go to slumber parties, play at other kids homes, or attend school events. She’s on a Disney show after all, but this sets her personal life back drastically because during her childhood years she’s not exposed too much outside of cameras, directors, scripts, and sound stages. While this is perhaps a DREAM for the majority of little kids in the world, Jennette exposes us to another side of this argument. The downside of spending your youth on a set and what happens when you grow up and realize acting knowledge doesn’t help you much when it comes to life. - Hoarding.
Jennette’s mother is an extreme hoarder. While this memoir is not about hoarding, it’s an important aspect in the book. Jennette shows us how how much anxiety hoarding causes in a person’s mind, and how many mental health challenges are developed from the anxiety that comes with having too much stuff in a living space. - How much a child suffers when their desire to make their mentally ill parent happy is unattainable.
You can’t please somebody who is struggling with their mental health. Unfortunately, this is a life lesson those of us who have a loved one with a mental illness, don’t always learn. Let Jennette’s story with her mentally ill mother serve as a warning. If you try to make somebody happy who refuses to admit they are struggling with their mental health or get help, you’ll never find happiness in life.
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