73 pages • 2 hours read
Jennette McCurdyA modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
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In an attempt to curb her bulimia, Jennette is buying expensive groceries at Whole Foods. She hopes that if her food is costly, she will be less likely to throw it up. Her body has begun to show the effects of bulimia; her teeth are softening, her throat bleeds, and it is harder for her to digest. She is attempting to go back to her old habits of calorie restriction in order to stop binge eating and purging. While bulimia had once felt like the perfect solution, she now misses the simplicity and sense of control that came with anorexia: “Anorexia is regal, in control, all-powerful. Bulimia is out of control, chaotic, pathetic” (323).
Her grandmother calls her and goes on an emotionally manipulative, wailing rant, displaying behavior much like her mother. Jennette asks her grandmother if she can call her back later. Her grandmother responds with vitriolic insults and mocking. Jennette tells her grandmother that if she continues, she will have to block her number. She hangs up, and her grandmother calls over and over until Jennette blocks the number. Arriving home, Jennette ignores her new groceries and binges on junk food before throwing it all up. She feels empty and resigns herself to a life with bulimia.
As her show nears its end, Jennette feels herself increasingly checked out. Despite there only being four more episodes, Jennette is not sure she can even make it that far and is starting to think she will have a bulimia-induced heart attack. She sometimes wishes that would happen, as her thoughts have gotten increasingly dark and depressive. She feels that bulimia has completely taken over, and she can no longer fight it. She dislikes acting and thinks that she couldn’t get an adult acting role after 10 years at Nickelodeon even if she wanted to. She distracts herself with drinking to excess every night.
The mood on set is also low because The Creator has finally gotten in trouble with the network for his emotional abuse. He can no longer be present on the set with the cast, so he sits in a separate room watching scenes from television monitors. There is a general sense that everyone just wants to get this show over with. After finishing shooting for the day, Jennette goes home and gets drunk on whiskey. As she grows bleary-eyed, she sees an email from her management team, letting her know they need to speak first thing in the morning.
Jennette’s management team informs her that the show has been canceled, and Jennette cannot hide her relief. One agent tells her that Nickelodeon is also giving her $300,000 as a parting gift—on the condition that she never speak about her experiences at Nickelodeon with The Creator. Jennette refuses, surprising her team. She tells them that this feels like hush money, and she is met with silence. Jennette has learned that in this business, people rarely say the truth out loud. The call becomes awkward, and ultimately ends. At first, Jennette is proud of herself for having the moral strength to say no. Then, it hits her that she turned down a sizeable amount of money, and wonders if she made a mistake.
The press has run with a story that the show ended because Jennette was displeased that her costar Ariana was making more money than her. Jennette is irritated that this lie is being spread, but ultimately, she is just relieved that it is over. She considers telling people the truth, but all she really wants is to no longer be associated with Nickelodeon or her character. She loathes being known as Sam and being recognized. She hates her whole career, and she knows she has become bitter. She acknowledges how lucky she is, but also knows that this was her mother’s dream, not hers.
Jennette and Colton head to a party at a bar to celebrate her 22 birthday, and all Jennette can think about is the 10 pounds she has gained. When she first developed bulimia, she lost a significant amount of weight, but recently, that has stopped. Instead, her bulimia has “betrayed” her and seems to hold on to whatever weight it can. Jennette doesn’t understand why it is not working anymore. After being at the bar for an hour, she is very drunk, and having a good time until her friend arrives with a birthday cake and candles. Everyone sings to her, and Jennette’s nightmare has come true. She has been dreading this moment, where she must make a wish when she blows out the candles. The thing that she wished for every year, for her mom to live another year, is no longer possible. Her life’s purpose, making her mom happy, is gone. She no longer knows who she is and what she wants. She blows out the candles, takes a bite of cake, and heads to the bathroom to throw it up.
Jennette arrives in Toronto for a new Netflix show, and she feels hope for the first time in a while. While she didn’t love the script that she was originally sent, the prestige of the network convinced her to sign on. She will be in Toronto for three months filming. Excited to begin a new chapter in her life, she buys a collection of self-help books. She feels ready to focus on herself and get better. When she arrives on set and reads her new scripts, she panics. She doesn’t like them and has learned that the budget has been cut. She worries that she will be attached to the first failed project from Netflix.
She calls her agent and learns that the show is only being distributed by Netflix. It is produced by a Canadian company called CityTV. Jennette feels ashamed and embarrassed. As she walks to shoot a scene, she sees the assistant director, Steven, smoking a cigarette. She is immediately interested in him and abandons her goals of self-help as she fantasizes about how the two of them will get together.
Jennette and Steven have been on several dates, and she continues to be interested in him. She finds him both sweet and interesting, a combination she has not experienced before. After their third date, they have sex, and for the first time, Jennette enjoys it. She cries, as she realizes that this is what sex is supposed to feel like. It feels like her life is back on track, as she has never felt this way about anyone before.
Steven and Jennette become official the day she leaves Toronto, much to Jennette’s relief. Being back in Los Angeles, she fears that they will drift apart. She has been somewhat distracted by Steven from her fears about the CityTV show being a failure, but now that she is home, her anxiety is back. She panics that she has no real identity and feels that the things in her life that she needs to quit are the only things that define her. She goes to the bathroom to throw up, and when she returns, she is excited to see that she has a missed call from Steven. He is coming to LA that very day. At first, it is awkward when they see each other, but they have sex, and things settle back in. Steven goes to the bathroom and sees vomit on the toilet seat. He confronts Jennette, who is dismissive, until he says that they cannot be together unless she gets help.
Jennette begins therapy with Laura, a therapist and life coach. She is disarmed by Laura’s warmth and bohemian energy. She tells her about her alcohol abuse, bulimia, and her mother’s death. She also tells Laura about Steven’s ultimatum. Laura tells Jennette that she needs to want to change for herself, not just for Steven. She explains to Jennette that she takes a holistic approach, so Laura and Jennette will be cooking, reading, and spending time together outside of the office. Excited to fulfill her end of the bargain with Steven and comforted by Laura’s presence, Jennette agrees.
As the reader is introduced to Jennette’s relationship with her grandmother for the first time, the parallels between her grandmother and her mother are striking. The incessant calls, guilt-tripping, and rage-induced insults remain in Jennette’s life via her grandmother. However, Jennette seems to be more capable of setting boundaries with her grandmother than she was with her mother, as she proceeds to block her grandmother’s number after she continues to hurl insults at Jennette. Still, the encounter with her grandmother brings her to ignoring her new healthy groceries and instead binge eating junk food in order to throw it up.
Jennette, in an attempt to pull herself out of bulimia, is trying to get back to her anorexic habits. She has established in her mind a hierarchy of eating disorders, where bulimia represents chaos, shame, and a lack of control, and anorexia is the opposite. The pattern that has been present throughout Jennette’s life, a desire to feel control in a world of chaos, guilt, and shame, is displayed in how she contrasts these two eating disorders. Anorexia, essentially the eating disorder taught to her by her mother, is described positively, in terms that Jennette would even use to describe her own mother. Bulimia, on the other hand, reminds Jennette of her own faults and failures. Even worse in Jennette’s eyes is that bulimia is no longer allowing her to keep her weight down, intensifying her sense of powerlessness and self-loathing.
Jennette’s eating disorder is a means of escape that allows her to avoid addressing her feelings. In this way, it works in tandem with her drinking. They help keep her numb to the complicated grief that she feels. When she enters a relationship with Steven, he is a welcome addition to her life. There are a lot of positive aspects to their relationship; she feels a strong emotional and sexual connection. Yet, Steven is also a distraction, a “fixation” (357) that allows her to keep avoiding her intense and frightening feelings. When he gives her an ultimatum about seeking help, it is the first time that Jennette has been confronted with the consequences of her eating disorder. Steven facilitates her seeking help, but her reason for doing so then becomes to appease someone else.
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