As someone who was also raised white trash being a quarter way through “Half His Age” by Jennette McCurdy is like having a mirror shoved in my face and having someone tell me “the things that happened to you weren’t normal and it made you act fucking weird and it made you weird and everyone could and can still tell”
But like the thing I’ve made peace with as a 25 year old after spending my teens and early twenties shouldering a massive amount of trauma, both generational and personal, and dealing with it through quick fix dopamine, is that your feet will always keep moving, as long as you let them. My heart fucking shatters for Waldo because she is me. She is Jenette. She is countless other girls trapped in horrible cycles and lost in isolation chambers trying to figure out what the right fucking choice is.
I didn’t exactly make it out of my cycles but I’m still here. I’m the closest version to happy that I can be. I’m content and I’m in love with a man that actually hears me when I speak and treats me with decency after a slew of men who left me more fucked up than the last. I found that connection those girls dream of. It hasn’t magically fixed anything but it’s helped me become a real person, it’s taught me healthy cycles by osmosis. It’s taught me how to stand on my own two feet.
I’m so stirred up inside by this book. I think the taboo situation of the age gap is an important element specifically because it highlights that inability to make appropriate choices over what feels good in a world that seems gray and empty. But it also provides a space where this young girl is forced to have a fucked up deeply warped adult themed lens to view life through that’s been crafted through her trauma. She isn’t who she is without these decisions, without these specific situations, without the story being exactly what it is.
Nothing about this book feels heavy handed to me. It feels exactly like what it was like to be a neglected child navigating a world that is all isolation. It’s a painful read that makes my stomach hurt because it really is just like having a mirror up for me.
The person I am now wants to shake Waldo and push her towards something right. The person I am now wants to do the same to 17 year old me.
I don’t know man my everything hurts and I’m not even halfway through it.