Half His Age

De: Jennette McCurdy

THE SUNDAY TIMES NO.1 BESTSELLER

Half His Age is a highly anticipated, funny, sad, thrilling novel about sex, class, desire, and power – and the (often misguided) lengths we’ll go to to get what we want, from Jennette McCurdy, the three-million copy bestselling author of I'm Glad My Mom Died.

'SHOCKING, HONEST AND UNSPARING' SUNDAY TIMES STYLE

'A HILARIOUS AND UNCOMFORTABLE TRIUMPH' GUARDIAN

'EERIE, UNSETTLING AND BELIEVABLE' GILLIAN FLYNN, AUTHOR OF GONE GIRL

'ABSOLUTE DYNAMITE' ELIZABETH DAY

Waldo is ravenous. Horny. Blunt. Naive. Wise. Impulsive. Lonely. Angry. Hurting. Endlessly wanting. And the thing she wants most of all? Mr. Korgy, her creative writing teacher.

Mr Korgy, 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 that she doesn’t? Or are they actually kindred spirits, sharing the same 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 an incisive study of a yearning seventeen-year-old who disregards all obstacles in her effort to be seen, to be desired and to be loved.

'THOUGHT-PROVOKING, SHOCKING AND DARKLY COMIC' INDEPENDENT

©2026 WAFFLE CONE, INC (P)2026 Penguin Random House LLC

Trying to Say Everything, Saying Nothing

It took a forbidden affair with a 40 something old teacher, loads of sex and self pleasuring at IG images of him, a broken marriage, thousands of dollars spent binge shopping for clothes and makeup that won’t be used for the 17 year old MC from McCurdys debut fiction to discover herself.

See that age, 17? It’s that age which writers use to justify the age gap relationship and to make it less uncomfortable and ‘no she was not being groomed if she made all the first moves’.

There was no need to make the student younger than 18 if this was going to be on the I romanticize this territory. It could have been a regular forbidden relationship with the FMC in her 20s, why make it a minor but also turn the tables to make it look like she is making the choices and moving the pieces?

Our FMC, Waldo, has a shopping problem, she buys things when she is stressed or bored, doesn’t use them once she has them. There’s no value. So, when she meets the one guy she can’t have, she tries her best to have him, sort of an adrenaline rush, which with time wears off. Ever hear the saying anything in excess in poison? This is that.

The book is under 300 pages and the audio 4.5 hrs (with 88 chapters) but it felt like 10 hours at how insufferable the characters were.

The book started off very strong, and makes me think it’s like a reel, if it doesn’t get your attention in the first few seconds, you scroll away, this was like that, the right things like consumerism, self pleasuring, loads of sex to keep the reader engaged, only for it to be repetitive and formulaic (An almost absent mother, English Teacher, I trust you, talks about the trauma, you are matured for your age, introduces to better ‘taste’) and no point towards the end.

It could have been a longer book exploring the relationship dynamics and the character development for us to feel something but everything was so fast paced that we barely had time to register.

An emotionally stunted older man who hit the jackpot with a younger girl, who did dry hump in the beginning and kick start the relationship and the girl that thinks she is in control unaware that she’s fulfilling his fantasies, and who thinks a lot of sex equals compatibility. The only thing they have in common are BOTH OF THEM ARE FREAKY.

It tries to be My Dark Vanessa but comes out as Tampa, uncomfortable but also the female POV not very realistic.

The only person that was truly hurt in the end was the wife, IT’S ALWAYS THE WIVES.

The book had potential, but fell flat with the plot not knowing which direction to take, was it supposed to be about being groomed, or self discovery, or a forbidden age gap affair that was ‘romantic’ where our FMC thinks it’s consent when the other persons body reacts accordingly even though they say No?, was it about consumerism, modern life? Whatever it was, it was rushed and crammed.

And I’d love to personally have a chat with whoever who quoted that this was ‘Hilarious’ ‘Funny’, i don’t get it, did chatgpt come up with that? There’s nothing funny about this.