Special edition: Off my bookshelf.
I finished three books this week. Here are my thoughts on all of them.
Maybe it was the Monday off. Or maybe nothing in the years of content on YouTube appealed to me. But I dove deep into books this week. So instead of spreading these reviews out over a long period of time like a sensible person, I’m giving them to you all at once.
CW: CSA, narcissist parents, addiction, ED
I’m Glad My Mom Died by Jennette McCurdy: I know, I’m super late to the party on this one. But if there’s anything you should know about me, it’s that I’m stubbornly anti-hype. Whenever something gets really popular, really fast, I immediately wonder if it’s actually that good to begin with. And then of course, when I finally read/watch/otherwise participate in said thing long after its popularity peak and I love it, me talking about it isn’t as exciting. Such is the case with this book.
I never really watched iCarly, but you absolutely do not have to be a fan of the show to appreciate this book. It’s not a salacious Hollywood tell-all. And despite the title, it’s not a character assassination of McCurdy’s mother, who died in 2013. It’s the story of a child given too much responsibility at too young of an age, pushed into a path they didn’t choose because of a parent’s need to meet their own unfulfilled dreams through their kid, and of a young woman finally reckoning with the darkness and abuse of her family of origin. Even if your childhood was nothing like McCurdy’s, there is a part of her story that will probably resonate with you.
Unlike McCurdy, I was a huge theatre kid and I desperately wanted to be a working child actor. Looking back, I’m very thankful I wasn’t. There has been a lot of discourse about “child stars” over the past few years—from Britney Spears and Alyson Stoner to Christy Carlson Romano and Demi Lovato. While there were some former child performers who were publicly discussing their experiences beforehand, Stoner and Carlson Romano in particular, McCurdy’s book blew the doors wide open, and it’s clear to see why. She can really freaking write.
Even if you don’t care about the Hollywood stuff, this book is a masterfully written memoir. It speaks volumes that even though Spears’s memoir (released a year-ish later) delivered similar sales numbers, this is the book people are still talking about.
⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ - 5 stars
CW: SA, toxic relationships, miscarriage, mental health conditions, suicide, loss of a young person
Disclosure: This author is a friend of a friend, but we have never met and I don’t think she knows about this Substack.
Adelaide by Genevieve Wheeler: One of the best things about this year is that I’ve discovered several novels written by millennial women that have reignited my love for reading and writing fiction. This is one of them.
If you are a young person—or have ever been one—there will be something in Adelaide Williams’s story that you’ll relate to. It’s a love story, but it’s more than a love story. It’s a story about totally losing yourself in the wrong relationship, trying to be everything for everyone else at the expense of your own mental health, struggling to build a life for yourself in a strange city far away from your support system, the mix of jealousy and self-loathing in constantly comparing yourself to your partner’s ex, and the freedom that comes from letting go of the one you love that cannot love you back.
What I love about Wheeler’s writing is how specific she is. She knows what you’re drinking when you’re with the person you think is the love of your life and what you’re drinking with your girlfriends when you haven’t heard from him in a week. We track the tiny moments in which Adelaide makes another compromise, shoves down her real feelings, burns the midnight oil—all in hopes that the elusive, emotionally distant Rory will declare his love for her.
But he doesn’t. And while the book beautifully documents Adelaide’s grief, the end is nothing short of triumphant—and not in the cheesy, rom-com ending way, but in the cathartic, soul-cleansing way of dancing in your apartment with your roommates to Ariana Grande’s “thank u, next.”
Grab your tissues. Read this book. Do it now.
⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ - 5 stars
The Heart of Perfection: How the Saints Taught Me to Trade My Dream of Perfect for God’s by Colleen Carroll Campbell: I had heard about this book years ago when Carroll Campbell was interviewed on an episode of The Catholic Feminist Podcast (RIP, but Claire Swinarski still has a fantastic Substack). I added it to my TBR list, and there it sat. And sat. Until this week.
Carroll Campbell, an accomplished journalist and former presidential speechwriter, realized how much joy her perfectionism was stealing from her after she became a mom. As I listened to her narrate this audiobook, it was a gentle yet firm talking-to as a young wife praying to have children in the near future. There were so many aspects of Carroll Campbell’s story that reminded me of my own, and it was the first time I’d really considered that the way I talk to myself and treat myself when I make mistakes is how my children will learn to talk to themselves. My perfectionism will become their perfectionism, and I want more for them.
This book introduced me to more saint friends, like Jane Frances de Chantal, and reinvigorated my love for old saint friends, like Thérèse of Lisieux. And this book, like an old friend, will be one I’ll purchase and come back to whenever I need a reminder that my value is not based in what I accomplish and how effortless I look doing it, but in the fact that I was created and willed into existence by the God of the universe, and that He delights in me, even when others don’t.
⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ - 4.75 stars
Want to see what I’m currently reading? Follow me on Goodreads!
Thank you so much for reading! Let me know what other topics you’d like to see from me, and I will see you next time.
Now I want to read again!