“A bleak, often hilarious and uncomfortable triumph.”
—The Guardian
Cover by Arsh Raziuddin
PRAISE
“In Half His Age, Jennette McCurdy takes what could have been a simple morality tale and turns it into something more complicated and infinitely more interesting—a riveting examination of lust and self-delusion, and a sly reminder that our worst mistakes can sometimes lead us stumbling toward the light. McCurdy is a fearless and darkly funny writer with an unerring eye for the perfect mortifying detail.”—TOM PERROTTA
“Jennette McCurdy writes sentences that glimmer and cut like razors. With Half His Age, she delivers a deeply felt and humorous tale about the dangers of youth and desire—this novel is uncomfortable, unpredictable, and unputdownable.”—ARIA ABER
“Proves her memoir was anything but a one-hit wonder. Brimming with teenage angst and McCurdy’s signature dark humor.”—USA TODAY
“You’ve never met a character quite like Waldo. An explicit, provocative, and sometimes uncomfortable read . . . an unapologetically bare and intimate portrait of the psyche of a girl on the brink of womanhood and a meditation on the generational cycles that shape us. Seventeen-year-old Waldo is simultaneously fascinating and frustrating, naive but nuanced. Maybe you're ashamed of her or embarrassed by her—or maybe you're rooting for her to come out the other side. While the themes of power, desire, and female rage permeate the pages of the novel, the book also serves as a statement on consumerism, class, the loneliness epidemic, and the at-times crushing constraints of suburbia.” —HARPER’S BAZAAR
“[She’s] a connoisseur of the ugly detail.”—THE NEW YORK TIMES BOOK REVIEW
“Share[s] plenty with her memoir: smarts, style . . . Here, 17-year-old Waldo finds herself desperately, foolishly, hopelessly in love with a teacher, a predicament that allows McCurdy to stretch her muscles exploring power and desire in our modern moment.”—TOWN & COUNTRY
“Haunting, hilarious, and heart-rending . . . A coming-of-age story that refuses easy answers—the kind McCurdy tells best.”—BUSTLE
HALF HIS AGE
by JENNETTE MCCURDY
Intoxicating.
Inappropriate. Inevitable.
From the #1 New York Times bestselling author of I’m Glad My Mom Died comes a sad, funny, thrilling novel about sex, consumerism, class, desire, loneliness, the internet, rage, intimacy, power, and the (oftentimes misguided) lengths we’ll go to in order to get what we want.
Waldo is ravenous. Horny. Blunt. Naive. Wise. Impulsive. Lonely. Angry. Forceful. Hurting. Perceptive. Endlessly wanting. And the thing she wants most of all: Mr. Korgy, her creative writing teacher with the wife and the kid and the mortgage and the bills, with the dead dreams and the atrophied looks and the growing paunch. She doesn’t know why she wants him. Is it his passion? His life experience? The fact that he knows books and films and things that she doesn’t? Or is it purer than that, rooted in their unlikely connection, their kindred spirits, the similar filter with which they each take in the world around them? Or, perhaps, it’s just enough that he sees her when no one else does.
Startlingly perceptive, mordantly funny, and keenly poignant, Half His Age is a rich character study of a yearning seventeen-year-old who disregards all obstacles—or attempts to overcome them—in her effort to be seen, to be desired, to be loved.
AUTHOR
Jennette McCurdy is the #1 New York Times bestselling author of I’m Glad My Mom Died, winner of the 2023 American Library Association Alex Award. The book has been published in more than thirty countries and has sold more than three million copies. McCurdy is creating, writing, executive producing, and showrunning an Apple TV+ series loosely inspired by I’m Glad My Mom Died, starring Jennifer Aniston. Half His Age is her debut novel.