this may very well be the most personal i’ll make a review, ever.

when i was 18, i dated a boy 6 years my senior. we fist met when i was 13; we became “friends” when i was 16. i remember being 17, and older peers—including him—commended how mature i was. he’d say that to me as we hung out with on pseudo dates, and i wanted so badly to cross that line of friendship. i was convinced that i loved him. i didn’t care if it seemed wrong. i wanted him, and when we finally began dating a week after my 18th birthday and i’d finally gotten what i wanted—him—i was over the moon.

only it was kind of miserable. he was moody and difficult and closed off, and his problems were always things i didn’t understand because i was too young, but my needs and my wants were never worth unloading onto him because i was mature enough to be independent. looking back on it now, he knew what he was doing was wrong. his patterns of behavior, the pulling away the radio silence—this was a man who knew that he shouldn’t be doing what he was doing. i didn’t want to admit that, though. i didn’t realize that he should have never entertained the thought of me in the first place. those times when his morals trumped his want for me made me all the more hungry for his attention. when we were together, i remember being riddled with anxiety that i had to be the perfect girlfriend so that he’d convince himself i was worth it. when we weren’t together, i remember being so deeply insecure that his lack of contact meant what i was no longer wanted.

those emotions came back viscerally in a rush while reading HALF HIS AGE. i am not waldo, and in fact i am not like her in any regard. waldo is cynical, crass, greedy, hungry, and she wants everything she knows the world won’t let her have. but i see her, and i understand her.

even if you have never had a relationship akin to waldo and her teacher, i am confident elements of this book will resonate with you. it’s pathetic, isn’t it? how women can relate to the spiraling desperation we encounter when we want just a little more attention, a little more desire, a little more love from someone, especially if it’s someone we, deep down, know should not be with. and the crushing defeat that suffocates us when we realize that whatever he has to offer is not enough. but it’s real, and just because it’s pathetic doesn’t mean it’s shameful.

mccurdy wields her writing like a knife, sharp and crass and brutally honest. this book does not pull punches. the way she writes about sex is vulgar and borderline gross, and even how she describes how waldo eats—it’s borderline animalistic, unrefined. she takes the ugliest parts of the human psyche and dissects it, lets you peer into the wriggling mass of flesh and blood. it’s engrossing but fascinating, sickening but recognizable. this book is not disturbing because it’s out-of-this-world horror. this book is disturbing because it takes all too familiar emotions that none of us want to admit to and forces you to sit with it.

i loved that waldo seeks to satiate her desires through instant gratification—food, sex, clothes, skincare, makeup, hair products. anything she can get her hands on to feel like she’s a little bit more valuable a bit more attractive. yet the gratification, while instant, is fleeting, and leaves her feeling more hollow than before. this isn’t just a story about a young girl pursuing her much older teacher. this is a story about a young girl trying so desperately to find who she is that she loses herself in the process.

i loved how waldo’s perspective on her teacher shifted. it’s quite clever that the parts of him she desired at first become the same things she grows to be disgusted by. this is NOT a romance. what’s fascinating is that waldo says she loves him, thinks she loves him, but there is absolutely zero compelling roamntic undertones. mccurdy’s writing is undercut with obsession, not romance, that we, the readers, see, but waldo herself does not.

it’s worth noting that waldo is an EXTREMELY UNRELIABLE narrator. she frames her coming onto her teacher as her pursuing him and her exerting power over him, she perceives him as a sad, lonely man who is overcome by desire for her. she does NOT see him as a groomer nor does she think he is wrong for being with a minor. as someone who has been in a similar situation, this feels like it could not possibly be more accurate when it comes to the psyche of a high schooler pursuing a much older man.

this is not the best written novel i’ve read; i consider jennette mccurdy to have a very simple, punchy writing style that favors voice over craft (i felt the same about her memoir). but i don’t mind it as long as the writing style serves its purpose, and in this one, it’s to give tangible personality to waldo rather that provide you with superfluous, pretty prose. i think it is effective, especially for a non-pretentious 17 year old girl.

this book is NOT gonna be for everyone, and that’s okay. the only reason this isn’t a perfect for me is because i felt like the ending felt a bit underbaked. i liked where the actual story was going in the final chapters and i thought the ending was fitting, but it felt a bit rushed. i also would have liked to see more with waldo’s mom—the arc with her had potential but fell a little bit flat. the story could have been a smidge richer, i think.