Half His Age
Half His Age
Half His Age
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Description
Description
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. A MOST ANTICIPATED BOOK OF THE YEAR: The New York Times, USA Today, Bustle, Town & Country 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.
About the Author
About the 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.
Critical Reviews
Critical Reviews
"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."--Harper's Bazaar "A debut novel that confirms [McCurdy's] gift as a chronicler of disaffected girlhood [and] dares you to flinch, squeal, and/or chuck your book out the window, but ultimately rewards the fearless reader. . . . This is a bold and unapologetic novel for edge-seekers, doom-scrollers, latchkey kids, horn-dogs, and all those who love hard. . . . This is what Half His Age is ultimately about, scandal and sex scenes aside: the dead end of longing, whereby you ask people or things for the love they can't give you, and how lonely this mismatch can feel."--Brittany Newell, The New York Times Book Review "A bleak, often hilarious and uncomfortable triumph that underscores McCurdy's talent for focusing in on the multilayered nature of trauma and artfully unpicking it, one scab at a time."--The Guardian "Proves her memoir was anything but a one-hit wonder. . . . Brimming with teenage angst and McCurdy's signature dark humor . . . This is far from a romance, and it's not a glamorization of age gaps--it's an analysis of consumerism, insecurity, misguided desire, class, and addiction."--USA Today "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 "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
Publishing Information
Publishing Information
Publisher:
Ballantine Books
Pub date:
2026-01-20
Length:
288 pages
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