I'm Glad My Mom Died Audiobook by Jennette McCurdy

Why the audiobook wins

Jennette McCurdy reads her own memoir, and that's the whole case for the audiobook. She knows exactly where the deadpan lands and where the pain sits underneath it, so a line that could read as glib on the page comes through as something closer to survival humor when you hear her deliver it herself. Comic timing this precise isn't something a hired narrator, however skilled, could reconstruct secondhand.

At just under six and a half hours, it's a brisk listen, but a heavy one, and hearing McCurdy narrate scenes from her own childhood, the auditions, the calorie counting, the surveillance dressed up as love, adds a layer of remove and reclamation that only the author's voice can supply. This is a commute-sized listen that will still catch you off guard on a quiet evening.

McCurdy has spoken about how much writing and recording this book cost her; hearing her read it is proof of what she got back. A single Audible credit puts her own telling in your ears.