Review: I’m Glad My Mom Died

Jennette McCurdy was six years old when she had her first acting audition. Her mother’s dream was for her only daughter to become a star, and Jennette would do anything to make her mother happy. So she went along with what Mom called “calorie restriction,” eating little and weighing herself five times a day. She endured extensive at-home makeovers while Mom chided, “Your eyelashes are invisible, okay? You think Dakota Fanning doesn’t tint hers?” She was even showered by Mom until age sixteen while sharing her diaries, email, and all her income.

In I’m Glad My Mom Died, Jennette recounts all this in unflinching detail—just as she chronicles what happens when the dream finally comes true. Cast in a new Nickelodeon series called iCarly, she is thrust into fame. Though Mom is ecstatic, emailing fan club moderators and getting on a first-name basis with the paparazzi (“Hi Gale!”), Jennette is riddled with anxiety, shame, and self-loathing, which manifest into eating disorders, addiction, and a series of unhealthy relationships. These issues only get worse when, soon after taking the lead in the iCarly spinoff Sam & Cat alongside Ariana Grande, her mother dies of cancer. Finally, after discovering therapy and quitting acting, Jennette embarks on recovery and decides for the first time in her life what she really wants.

Told with refreshing candor and dark humor, I’m Glad My Mom Died is an inspiring story of resilience, independence, and the joy of shampooing your own hair.

Review: Whirlaway

Escapees from 9-5, two guys with innate skills for adventure sail to Hawaii for the good life. Robert Wintner chronicles the sweltering challenges in the fantasy chase on a 1-way trip to the secret life some men ponder and some live to regret. WHIRLAWAY is a repellent yet fascinating parable set in a free-booting era, delivering the beauty and the balm, the headwinds and breaking waves, the love and longing of distant shores. Adventure brings wayward souls home when least expected.
WHIRLAWAY is a tale for those who fail to toe the line, who seek a different dream, who roll the bones and go for broke. Martin and Jack know what they’ve been missing. Meant for more than dead-end jobs and withering youth, adrift in fading dreams and graying horizons, they reach a point-a wall facing a yacht harbor, where they smoke a joint to facilitate a vision. A big picture of balmy weather, women and money leaves only two questions: Why not? Why work, when they could be yachting?
Martin knows a guy who wants to fit in with those who don’t. Nuel is a brain surgeon, fairy godfather with a laser wand and an itch of his own. Nuel agrees to back a loan for a sailing yacht. It’s named for a racehorse, after all. Doctors do well on racehorses, so friends might as well embark on the tropical phase of their destiny. This vision too is facilitated.
Martin and Jack never had more than the wits between them, and though they ache from liquor and drug, they surge inside, casting off for open seas and a blue-sky promise. They inherit the wind and nothing more or less.

Review: Blood in the Water : A True Story of Small-Town Revenge

A brutal murder in a small Nova Scotia fishing community raises urgent questions of right and wrong, and even the nature of good and evil, in this masterfully told true story.

Blood in the Water offers a dramatic narrative set in a unique, lovingly drawn setting, where a story about one small community has universal resonance and raises a disturbing question: Are there times when taking the law into your own hands is not only understandable but the responsible thing to do?

This is a story not about lobster, but about the grand themes of power and law, security and self-respect.

In June 2013, three upstanding citizens of a small town on Cape Breton Island murdered their neighbor, Phillip Boudreau, at sea.

While out checking their lobster traps, two Landry cousins and skipper Dwayne Samson saw Boudreau in his boat, the Midnight Slider, about to vandalize their lobster traps. Like so many times before, the small-time criminal was about to cost them thousands of dollars out of their seasonal livelihood.

Boudreau seemed invincible, a miscreant who would plague the village forever. Meanwhile the police and local officials were frustrated, cowed, and hobbled by shrinking budgets.

One man took out a rifle and fired four shots at Boudreau and his boat.

Was the Boudreau killing cold blooded murder, a direct reaction to credible threats, or the tragic result of local officials lacking the resources and authority to protect the community? As many local people have said, if those fellows hadn’t killed him, someone else would have.

Review: The Man on the Mountaintop

dapted from Susan Trott’s best-selling novels, The Holy Man and The Holy Man’s Journey, The Man on the Mountaintop tells the story of Holy Man Joe, a humble and unassuming 72-year-old man who lives in a hermitage at the top of a mountain. Thousands of hopefuls line the single-file path leading to his door, seeking his wisdom. The pilgrims bring a multitude of modern-day problems, sorrows, and grievances. From the arrogant and wealthy man intent on cheating his way to the front of the line to the alcoholic who gradually builds the physical and mental strength needed to quit his addiction, The Man on the Mountaintop is an uplifting parable full of life lessons, powerfully told with compassion, wit, and humor.

Reviews © Copyright 2021 - 2024 Korra Baskerville
Excerpts and cover artwork are copyrighted by their respective authors, publishers, and artists; considered to be used under fair use for the purposes of commentary and criticism under U.S. copyright law.