Half His Age by Jennette McCurdy review: Addictive debut tackles predatory obsession & desirability minefield

WARNING: Distressing content

She already broke the internet with her bestselling memoir I’m Glad My Mom Died - but now former child star Jennette McCurdy has proven she can pen fiction that is just as addictive.

McCurdy’s highly anticipated debut novel Half His Age is set to face criticism it doesn’t deserve - it is not for the teenagers it is written about.

Meet Waldo, a 17-year-old girl who is bored of shallow sex. She moves through life passionless, yearning for a connection that will live up to her obsessive desires while she remains trapped in a school, frozen meal, online shopping cycle.

That’s until she finds herself in Mr Korgy’s English class.

He’s cultured (in a film bro way), his eyes deep and his smile charming. He tells the class he’s a failure, it wasn’t his dream to be a high school teacher. He wanted to be a writer.

Waldo has never felt anything like this. She wants him, all of him. But he is her teacher. He’s married. He has a son. He’s twice her age.

And that should be a problem.

Through the eyes of the victim

Written in first person, we see Waldo’s desperation unfiltered. She never cared for writing before, but now that she wants to impress Mr Korgy, she’s all in and she’s transparent about it.

Those who grew up watching Pretty Little Liars won’t be able to help comparing Waldo to Aria Montgomery - the victim of her predatory English teacher Ezra Fitz.

But any allusion between these works of fiction must end there.

Though Sara Shepard’s book series painted “Mr Fitz” as the predator that he is, the TV show did not.

It leaned into the toxic trope and deliberately fostered a fanbase of young, teenage girls who looked up to the “couple”.

Where Pretty Little Liars romanticises and attempts to justify its predatory teacher plot, Half His Age rears its head.

It’s almost an antidote to a twisted decades-long entertainment campaign hinged on the sick “hot for teacher” storyline.

Because the descriptions in this book aren’t hot.

Although neither Waldo nor her teacher properly address it, what is going on between them is illegal.

And even though it’s Waldo who is completely enthralled by Mr Korgy, telling us about their relationship, McCurdy has woven unshakeable commentary throughout the narrative.

Waldo is blunt because she wants to be. She doesn’t like fussy writing that skirts around what it’s trying to convey. She likes things to the point and honest.

So she is unreserved in her retelling of her “thrilling” encounters with Mr Korgy - but that doesn’t mean this novel romanticises his crimes. Rather, it shows us how they can happen.

And, it’s likely based on McCurdy’s own experience as a teenager in a predatory relationship with a man in his 30s while she was on the set of iCarly, which she detailed in her 2022 memoir.

Objects of desire

It is disturbing how gripping this story is, masterfully told in bite-size chapters that end so quickly it almost never makes sense to stop reading.

It’s about as close as a book can get to being like moreish short-form video algorithms.

And this quick gratification, this tail-to-tail chase for another hit, is what Waldo is up against herself.

In a sleepy Alaskan town with a lacklustre arts scene and an absent mother, Waldo hasn’t been promised a life of excitement. She hasn’t been encouraged to become anything, or told that she can be.

Like so many of us, she has fallen into a routine that prioritises time online, filling up shopping carts with sale items, splurging her meagre Victoria Secret paychecks away on cheap faux leather jackets that smell of fish.

The promises whispered by body lotions and cream blushes are alluring. Though Waldo is self-aware and knows that rubbing different oils into her skin and hair won’t result in a total physical overhaul, in the days between ordering the items and receiving them she allows herself to believe that her life will change when they arrive.

But the fall-out is always the same. The clothes look cheap and don’t sit well, built for a caricature aesthetic that isn’t really “her” and will sink down the trendiness scale within a few weeks.

Regardless, Waldo’s frenzied cycle continues - a crutch in times where her mother’s attention is consumed by the latest hapless man she has taken a shine to while Mr Korgy is caught up in his “family life”.

Fed nothing but microwavable meals and packet food by a parent whose emotions she has had to regulate since she was a little girl, why wouldn’t Waldo try and nurture the only thing she’s ever been praised for - her physical body.

McCurdy uses Waldo’s self-dissatisfaction as a mirror of the toxic seeds today’s beauty and health industries sow in the minds of women - egging them on to spend hours plotting how to achieve maximum desirability.

And importantly, she examines how companies have made the need to be attractive so insatiable that any moral concerns about where the products are coming from and who is suffering in the process of making them are completely outweighed by the promise of what the mirror might reflect back once everything is lathered and layered over the skin.

So to Waldo, buying from Temu, Shein and Amazon is okay. It’s something she has to do, to feel anything at all.

It also fills her time.

Mr Korgy, you’re so mundane

What is most sickening about Mr Korgy is just how predictable he is.

He’s such a well-written character that even through Waldo’s eyes, we can see him for exactly who he is from the very start.

A pathetic, self-important nobody.

McCurdy pins him as an entitled abuser, because how can a person do what he does without having some sick belief that their own “desires” outweigh another person’s rights.

He’s not special, he’s like every other predator.

He has convinced himself he “deserves” Waldo and can do whatever he likes whenever he likes - he thinks it’s exciting.

But just like his incessant need to rehash films Waldo hasn’t seen, his tactics are tired and troublingly obtuse.

With chapters rarely exceeding more than three or four pages in length, the pace of the story counteracts the unsettling monotony of Mr Korgy’s predictably terrible behaviour.

Even Waldo’s graphic fantasies do little stir sentiment in his favour.

Because at it’s core, this story is about a mother neglecting her child. That’s the relationship we are more interested in. We are desperate to see Waldo’s mother step in.

Her abuse of Waldo is far more surreptitious than Mr Korgy’s. Craving constant male validation since the day Waldo’s father left her, any child-prioritising qualities have long been laying dormant.

The family’s financial strife has only been intensified by the erratic and temporary nature of her periods of motivation to achieve success whenever there was a boyfriend in the picture. When they split, it was back to survival mode - that same motivation never applied to taking care of Waldo.

This is certainly inspired by McCurdy’s own relationship with her mother, who abused her horrifically.

And heartbreakingly, Waldo is completely aware of her status as a secondary concern. She knows that to her mother, she is not enough to warrant life-changing effort.

So having Mr Korgy fawn over her, albeit in a limited and clandestine manner, is a welcome burst of attention. McCurdy has shown us how this type of abuse can unfold.

The writer has perfectly framed a window into this unsettling world, everything she writes feels completely truthful. It’s also almost impossibly palatable, written with a wry sense of humour that is commendably and consistently funny despite the heavy subject matter.

McCurdy’s debut novel is a triumph, a bingeable story that captures the experience of chronically online teens and demands that we pay attention to them. In this way it’s perhaps the most unlikely of beach reads - but is one you can get through in just a few days - and one that is worth your time.

Given that the the adults Waldo is supposed to be able to trust continually let her down, there is still scope to label the story as disappointing.

And it is. But you’ll stay for Waldo, whose tragic reflections emerge as the listening ear she doesn’t have at home.

Rating: 4/5

Half His Age is out on January 20 and is available in-store and online.

If you or someone you know needs help, contact 1800 RESPECT (1800 737 732), or Sexual Assault Counselling Australia on 1800 211 028 or Lifeline on 13 11 14.

Young people seeking support can phone beyondblue on 1300 22 4636 or go to headspace.org.au.