🌟🌟🌟🌟1/2

An engaging memoir (often horrifying), dealing with the crazy, funny, and deeply tragic world of a Nickelodeon TV child actor, Jennette McCurdy, and the hidden depths of the appalling family life that defines her existence.

Hard to put down, it’s even harder to imagine some of the things the author must face, (in particular those at the hand of her narcissistic, manipulative, abusive mother), as she grows from a child aiming to please, to a profoundly damaged adult.

Without giving the plot away (no spoilers here), it may come as no surprise that the traumas encountered growing up, never acknowledged or resolved, leave their mark in ways that will persist, setting in motion physical, mental and emotional behavior perhaps even more damaging than the abuse that caused them.

As the author does her best to survive (unexamined, with her comfortable yet “false” narrative intact) in a profession that might be the epitome of an unhealthy environment for any actor (let alone a traumatized child) it’s not at all clear how (and if) she will survive.

Heartbreaking in its intensely personal coverage of some incredibly dark and terrible secrets, the author introduces us to shame, the most “paralyzing” of all emotions, and the seemingly inescapable spiral it leaves in its wake.

A must read for anyone interested in a deeper look at the terrible path wrought by unconscionable parents, I both loved this book, and found myself deeply saddened by it.