Half His Age by Jennette McCurdy explores trauma and a student–teacher affair

Jennette McCurdy's fiction debut Half His Age follows a high‑school student's fraught affair with a married teacher and continues themes of generational trauma first raised in her memoir I'm Glad My Mom Died.

Jennette McCurdy's first novel, Half His Age, is a work of fiction that revisits themes she raised in her 2022 memoir. The book centers on Waldo, a high‑school senior whose sense of self has been shaped by a chaotic mother and family trauma. Much of the plot follows Waldo's pursuit of a married teacher and the unequal power dynamic between them. The tone mixes bleakness with dark humour while examining the effects of blurred parent‑child boundaries and identity loss. Key details: - Half His Age is McCurdy's debut novel and follows on themes from her memoir I'm Glad My Mom Died. - The protagonist, Waldo, is a high‑school student who struggles with identity, dissociation, and compulsive buying. - A central plotline is Waldo's affair with her married English teacher, described as an uneven and fraught relationship. - The book treats themes of generational trauma, blurred parental boundaries, and the legacy of abuse that McCurdy reported in her memoir. - Reviewers note a mix of dark comedy and uncomfortable scenes as the novel explores obsession and power imbalance. Summary: Half His Age continues McCurdy's focus on parent‑child enmeshment and the aftermath of trauma, presenting those issues through a darkly comic and uneasy narrative about a young woman's relationship with an older teacher. Undetermined at this time.