There's something we should get out of the way before"Half His Age"hits shelves next week: It isn't a love story.
It's also not a victim narrative,Jennette McCurdytells USA TODAY. "Half His Age" (out Jan. 20 from Ballantine Books) follows Waldo, a witty 17-year-old in an obsessive, entangled sexual relationship with her teacher. She has a messy dynamic with her mother. She's nursing a serious shopping addiction.
It's an itchy book to read – the book is oozing with open-door sex scenes that inherently illicit a grimace, given the age of the participants involved. It wants to provoke, but it doesn't care to glamorize grooming. It's more "My Dark Vanessa" than "Lolita."
Social media is abuzz with anticipation, both good and bad. Some readers speculate whether "Half His Age" will glorify abuse. Others convince naysayers that if there's anyone qualified to speak on abuse, it's McCurdy. Once known as the wisecracking Sam Puckett on Nickelodeon's"iCarly,"McCurdy is now better known as the bestselling author of"I'm Glad My Mom Died,"a memoir about herabusive mother.She's spoken recently about her own"creepy" experienceswith age gap relationships.
The online discourse doesn't discourage her.
"I know what's on the page and I trust what's on the page and I've trust what I've done. I know my intentions. I never write anything for shock value. I write for truth and also truth is noisy," McCurdy says. "I'm interested in exploring abuse that does not look, sound or feel like conventional abuse. I'm interested in writing that in a way that captures what I consider the reality of it, where sometimes abuse can look like romance."
'Half His Age' is 'not a victim narrative,' says McCurdy
They say to never judge a book by its cover, but the provocative name and urn-weilding image on"I'm Glad My Mom Died"certainly put some books into bags. McCurdy does that in "Half His Age" too.
"I love a blunt and noisy title," McCurdy says.
Waldo herself could be described as a blunt and noisy character. From the first line, she's groaning in boredom as a guy is giving her oral sex. She narrates about her "vagina pulsing" as her creative writing teacher talks about being a failure. And while it's easy to read her relationship with Mr. Korgy with a certain patronizing "Oh, honey," McCurdy certainly doesn't want you to pity her protagonist.
In fact, she doesn't want to write "good" or "bad" characters at all. As both a writer and reader, McCurdy yearns for that gray area.
"This is not a victim narrative. I really wanted the character at the forefront who has agency and is self-aware. She's not simply a victim," McCurdy says. She later adds, "(People) can exist in their complexities and in their nuance and I really wanted to do that with Waldo. She's deeply flawed. She's trying her best, but she makes massive mistakes. … She is not that quirky, tripping-over-herself, 'Whoops, OK!' little spunk character that I feel so often we see in media."
There are hallmarks of a normal teen life hidden between the atypical moments of, well, playing house with your high school teacher. Waldo works at a Victoria's Secret in the mall. She has a fight with a friend. She's trying to figure out who she is, often times leading her down on online shopping spirals and drowning in the consequences of her overconsumption.
McCurdy's teen life couldn't be more different. She's been acting since childhood and became a household name by 15.
"To be honest, there are years that I feel like I missed out on. I was working a lot at that age," McCurdy says of writing a 17-year-old character. "I think that did inform wanting to write from that point of view. I think it's a point of view, it's an age that deserves complex storytelling and rich characters. And frankly, I think an underserved age. I think a lot of times when we see 17, 18-year-olds in film, TV, books, it's a certain way. And I wanted to really go against the grain there and show what I considered to be a 17-year-old in all of her complexities and all of her entirety."
Jennette McCurdy: 'I don't think rage is something to run from'
Writing "Half His Age" also helped McCurdy process rage she didn't realize she was harboring. She'd been thinking a lot about how women are taught to be polite, to placate others.
"There's another character that I was writing for a project who has a lot of rage in her, and it's really integral to her arc, it is her arc. … And there was a man involved in the project, and this man had a lot of power. And I was told at one point, 'Hey, the word rage triggers this man. Can you not use it to describe this character?'" McCurdy says. "I'm sitting here with goosebumps running down my body right now as I tell you this because you describe a character who is so fundamentally rooted in her rage and her inability to access that, how am I supposed to describe this character without using that word?"
"Half His Age," similarly, is Waldo's journey to voicing her anger. The emotion may be red-hot, but McCurdy stresses it's more a guiding light.
"Anytime I've come in contact with my rage, it has led me to make better decisions and be put on the path that is effective and healthy for me," McCurdy says. "I don't think rage is something to run from or tamp down or stuff down. I think it's something to really be heard and valued."
Clare Mulroy is USA TODAY's Books Reporter, where she covers buzzy releases, chats with authors and dives into the culture of reading. Find heron Instagram, subscribe to our weeklyBooks newsletteror tell her what you're reading atcmulroy@usatoday.com.
This article originally appeared on USA TODAY:New Jennette McCurdy book 'Half His Age' should make you uneasy
