At a glance
Half His Age
| Genre | Literary fiction |
| Format | Paperback |
| Source | Local library |
| Did I finish it? | Yes, in 2 days |
| My rating | 3 / 5 |
| Read if you liked | The age-gap discomfort of Lolita, the inner trauma and human messiness of Normal People, and the visceral tactility of All Fours. |
| Would I recommend it? | ✕ No |
Synopsis
Half His Age follows Waldo, a 17-year-old living in Anchorage, Alaska, with her emotionally absent mother. Lonely, impulsive, and endlessly wanting, Waldo becomes fixated on Mr Korgy, her 40-year-old creative writing teacher — a married man with thinning hair, a growing paunch, and a life that has quietly curdled around him. What unfolds is not a romance but a raw, uncomfortable examination of desire, power, consumerism, and the misguided lengths we go to in order to feel seen.
My review
Half His Age arrived on the back of enormous expectations. Jennette McCurdy’s memoir, I’m Glad My Mom Died, was a phenomenon. Darkly funny, bracingly honest, and genuinely moving. It is hard not to read this debut fiction novel through that lens, and harder still not to feel that if the order had been reversed, this book would not have launched into anything close to the same acclaim.
That said, there is something genuinely brave about what McCurdy is attempting here. The romance section of any bookshop is saturated with a particular kind of man: strong, handsome, charismatic, jocky, great at taking control, even if flawed. Close your eyes, grab a book, and he will be in it. Choosing an MMC, the total opposite of that archetype as the object of a 17-year-old’s fixation, is a bold and deliberate creative decision. It just comes with a cost: their interactions are, by design, unexciting, untitillating, and almost determinedly unsexy.
Both Waldo and Mr Korgy are deeply flawed, lonely, and discontent with lives that are, in large part, of their own making. McCurdy’s analysis of Waldo’s inner world is often insightful and genuinely grim, and her unreliable narrator is one of the novel’s real strengths. Where the book loses momentum is in the extended online shopping sequences. The issue is not that they exist — they serve a purpose as a portrait of Waldo’s compulsive, joyless consumption — but that they go on far too long and read as though McCurdy is explaining the mechanics of online shopping to a reader who has never done it before. The cart, the address, the card details, the purchase, the immediate regret. Once is enough. Not to mention the scene explaining how to microwave food.
The saving grace is the book’s structure. At around 300 pages with short, well-paced chapters, it moves quickly enough that you are carried through even the slower stretches. Though it is worth being honest: there were sections where the dialogue was the only thing worth reading, and the narration in between was easy to skip without losing much.
What I liked / what I didn’t
What I liked: the central conceit is genuinely original, Waldo’s interior voice is sharply drawn, and McCurdy resists the urge to make the relationship glamorous or romantic. The mother-daughter dynamic is also quietly one of the most believable things in the book.
What I didn’t: the shopping sequences overstay their welcome significantly, the relationship at the novel’s core is so deliberately unappealing that it drains tension from the narrative, and the whole thing feels like the work of a very talented writer still finding her footing in fiction.
Final verdict
Half His Age is not a bad book, but it is an uneven one, for me, anyway. McCurdy is clearly a skilled writer with a strong instinct for voice and a willingness to go to uncomfortable places, both of which are to be admired. But ambition and execution do not always meet here, and the weight of expectation following her memoir does the novel no favours. Worth reading if you are curious, as you’ll get through it quickly, and I don’t regret giving it a go, but borrow it from the library rather than buying it.
Where can I read it?
| Format | Platform | Cost | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|
| Physical | Booktopia The Nile | Paid | Available in paperback and hardcover. Both ship Australia-wide. The Nile is Australian-owned. |
| Library | Your local library BorrowBox Libby | Free | Free with a library card. BorrowBox and Libby both offer eBook and audiobook borrowing digitally. Check your local library's app partnerships — availability varies by council. |
| eBook | Booktopia Kindle / Apple Books / Kobo | Paid | Available across all major eBook platforms. At 288 pages it's a short read — well-suited to a screen. |
| Audiobook | Audible Booktopia Google Play Books Libby (library) | Paid / Free* | Narrated by the author. Runs 4 hrs 34 mins. McCurdy's delivery is dry and fast-paced — suits Waldo's voice but divides listeners. Free via Libby if your library has it. |
* Free with a valid Australian library card where available through your library's Libby partnership.
