Melissa B. (dragoneyes) - , reviewed on 6/15/2023 + 844 more book reviews

Initially, I wasn't going to read this book. I just was put off by the title. Thought it was a bit horrific. Even though I watched a bunch of episodes of iCarly and Sam was my favorite character, I still wasn't very interested. Yet, it kept popping up and friends were giving it great reviews. So I relented and decided to give it a try. Sadly, I didn't get the same thing out of it that my friends got.
First off, I would have to say I am a bit tough on people when it comes to their moaning and groaning. Suck it up and be a better person is my motto. Yet, there are many incidents where there is such horrific abuse that you wonder how they even moved on from it. This was not the case for McCurdy. I do feel that her mother was disturbed and abusive but I also believed there was a point that Jeanette could have pulled herself up from that abuse and make herself better and she chose not to. The worst of the abuse was the showers and the exams from her mother, I thought.
The issues I had with the book was there was constant finger pointing at all these people that was making her life miserable. Instead of making her life better, especially when her mother died, she not only kept going down the same path but started causing even more destruction. She moved on to add loads of alcohol, started making herself vomit, and stayed in a career that she hated all the while blaming someone else. In life, especially when you become an adult, you have the power to make choices. That is why you see kids who were raised by alcoholics and/or abusers deciding whether or not they go down the same path. There are emotional scars from those childhoods. Heck, we all got scars. Some people have bigger ones that others but it is what we choose to do in life from those scars. Either we succumb to it or we grow and be a better person from it. Jeanette picked to succumb and she needs to own it. Eventually, she works on getting better but it was still everyone's fault.
Another issue was how the mom was so horrific, yet no one did anything about it?? Not the father, not the grandparents that were living there, not the older brothers. Are they as messed up? Doesn't seem like it. Why are they not held accountable for not doing anything? I get that the mom focused more on Jeanette but it is not like no one noticed.
All in all is was an okay book. It took me forever to get through it because I tired of the excuses. I tired of how she made lots of money and could have her own home and go vacationing but complained about her fans. I tired of the finger pointing. In the end, I was just tired.

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