Jennifer Aniston plays Jennette McCurdy’s toxic mother in new series
Jennifer Aniston will star as an abusive mother in the film adaptation of Jennette McCurdy’s best-selling memoir, “I’m Glad My Mother Died.”
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Before Half His Age hits stores next week, there are some things that need to be resolved. It’s not a love story.
Also, this is not a victim’s story, Jennette McCurdy told USA TODAY. Half His Age (released January 20 by Ballantine Books) follows Waldo, a resourceful 17-year-old who finds himself in a compulsive and tangled sexual relationship with his teacher. She has a troubled relationship with her mother. She has a severe shopping addiction.
This is a book that makes you feel itchy when you read it. The book is full of outdoor sex scenes that are essentially grimacing considering the age of the participants. I want to provoke, but I’m not interested in glorifying my appearance. It’s more like “My Dark Vanessa” than “Lolita.”
Social media is buzzing with anticipation, for better or worse. Some readers have speculated that “Half His Age” glorifies abuse. Some persuade opponents that if anyone is qualified to talk about abuse, it’s Mr. McCurdy. McCurdy, once known as the wisecracking Sam Puckett on Nickelodeon’s “iCarly,” is now best known as the best-selling author of “I’m Glad My Mother Was Dead,” a memoir about an abusive mother. She recently opened up about her “creepy” experience with age-gap relationships.
Online discussions don’t discourage her.
“I know what’s written on the page, and I trust what’s written on the page, and I trust what I’ve done. I know my intentions. I don’t write anything for shock value. I write for the truth, and the truth is loud, too,” McCurdy says. “I’m interested in exploring abuse that doesn’t look, sound, or feel like traditional abuse. I’m interested in writing it in a way that captures what I think is reality, where abuse can sometimes look like romance.”
‘Half My Age’ is ‘not a victim story’, says McCurdy
They say you should never judge a book by its cover, but there are certainly some books that get bagged because of provocative names like “I’m glad my mom died” and images of people wearing urns. McCurdy does it again in Half His Age.
“I love straightforward, loud titles,” says McCurdy.
Waldo himself can be described as a brash and boisterous character. From the first line, she is moaning in boredom while a man gives her oral sex. As a creative writing teacher talks about her failures, she talks about her “vaginal pulsation.” And while it’s easy to read her relationship with Mr. Corgi as some kind of patronizing “oh honey,” McCurdy certainly doesn’t want us to feel sorry for her protagonist.
In fact, she doesn’t want to write either “good” or “bad” characters. As both a writer and a reader, McCurdy craves that gray area.
“This is not a victim story. What I really wanted was a front-line character who had agency and self-awareness. She’s not just a victim,” McCurdy says. She later added, “[People]can exist in their own complexities and nuances, and that’s what I wanted to do with Waldo. She’s deeply flawed. She’s doing her best, but she makes big mistakes. … She’s not that quirky, she’s not the kind of person who stumbles and goes, ‘Oh, I get it!'” I think she’s a kind of feisty character that you see a lot in the media. ”
Hidden between the atypical moments, like playing house with a high school teacher, are the hallmarks of normal teenage life. Waldo works at Victoria’s Secret in the mall. She is having a fight with her friend. She is trying to figure out who she is and often falls into a spiral of online shopping, drowning in the consequences of overconsumption.
McCurdy’s teenage life could not have been more different. She has been acting since she was a child and became famous by the age of 15.
“To be honest, there are some years where I think I missed out. I had a lot of work to do at that age,” McCurdy says of writing the 17-year-old character. “I think that’s what inspired me to want to write from that point of view. I think it’s a point of view. It’s a time that deserves complex storytelling and rich characters. And I think it’s a time that, frankly, doesn’t get enough consideration. Movies, I often think that when you see a 17, 18-year-old on TV, in a book, it’s a certain way. And I wanted to really buck the trend there and show what I think a 17-year-old is in all of her complexity and all of her. ”
Jennette McCurdy: “I don’t think anger is something you can run away from.”
Writing “Half His Age” also helped McCurdy process anger he didn’t realize he had. She often thought about how women are taught to be polite and appease others.
“There’s another character I was writing for the project who has a lot of anger within her, which is really integral to her arc, her arc. … And there was a guy involved in the project, and this guy had a lot of power. And at one point I was told, ‘Hey, the word anger triggers this guy. Can we use that to describe this character?'” McCurdy says. “I’m sitting here talking about this right now with goosebumps because you’re portraying a character that is fundamentally rooted in her anger and inability to access it. How do you describe this character without using that word?”
“Half His Age” is similarly a story of Waldo’s journey to express his anger. McCurdy emphasizes that while those emotions may be red-hot, they are more of a guiding light.
“Each time I tapped into my anger, it helped me make better decisions and set me on a path that was effective and healthy for me,” McCurdy says. “I don’t think anger is something to run away from or stomp on or squash. I think it’s something that should really be listened to and appreciated.”
Claire Mulroy is USA TODAY’s books reporter, covering hot releases, chatting with authors, and diving into reading culture. please find her on instagramsubscribe to our weekly magazine book newsletter Or tell her what you’re reading cmulroy@usatoday.com.
