Half His Age

The 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, Sunday Times bestselling author of I'm Glad My Mom Died.

'SHOCKING, HONEST AND UNSPARING' SUNDAY TIMES STYLE

'A HILARIOUS AND UNCOMFORTABLE TRIUMPH' GUARDIAN

'THOUGHT-PROVOKING, SHOCKING AND DARKLY COMIC' INDEPENDENT

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.

Reviews

'A bleak, hilarious and uncomfortable triumph. Underscores McCurdy’s talent for focusing in on the multilayered nature of trauma and artfully unpicking it, one scab at a time’ Guardian

‘Shocking, honest and unsparing. A sardonic voice, finely tuned to the push and pull of tragedy and humour' Sunday Times Style

'Thought-provoking and shocking, darkly comic and witty' Independent

'Dark, raw, funny and razor-sharp' Red Magazine

'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, author of Good Girl

'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, author of Election

PRAISE FOR I'M GLAD MY MOM DIED…

'Jennette McCurdy is the queen of lemonade from lemons, using her trauma to weave a painfully funny story that also illuminates the commodification of teenage girls in America. An important cultural document just as much as a searingly personal one' Lena Dunham

“How can a book be so sad and also so funny? It's an art, and Jennette McCurdy has mastered it' Jenny Lawson, New York Times bestselling author of Furiously Happy

'A vivid, biting, darkly comic writer' Vogue

'McCurdy reveals herself to be a stingingly funny and insightful writer, capable of great empathy and a brutal punchline' Time

'A coming-of-age story that is alternately harrowing and funny' The New York Times

'A magnum opus. Sharply funny and empathetic' The Washington Post

'The publishing sensation.' Guardian