#54 in Contemporary fiction
Half His Age
- 262
- Pages
- about 5 h
- Reading time
- NYT bestseller · 2 weeks on the list, peaked at #5
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About the book
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. 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.
Where the score comes from
The sources average 6.5 across 169 ratings — not yet many, so the reader vote carries 48% of the weight and the rest pulls toward the Contemporary fiction average of 7.9. That is how 7.2 comes out.
| Source | Average | Ratings | Weight |
|---|---|---|---|
| Hardcover | 6.5 | 169 | 100% |
Reader voices
The most-liked reviews on Hardcover (credited to their authors).
“This honestly disappointed me. It wanted to be like My Dark Vanessa, and touched on some of the same topics as Lolita, however I feel those 2 titles handled the material far better. Although I really liked McCurdy's prose in her autobiography, I didn't enjoy it nearly as much here. The constant tangential observations often felt like filler. Many of the explicit scenes were pure shock content rather than progressing story or character. Themes such as self-image, toxic relationships, and shopping addiction were dealt with in a heavy-handed way - it was a repetitive cycle, all done very litera…”
“perplexed a bit. i love jennette mccurdy’s voice in her writing and i really liked a lot of things about this book, but something’s stopping me from saying i liked the book as a whole. it’s super graphic and i think maybe i found it to end up being a bit repetitive and a bit too long? i do really like what the book had to say as a whole though, and the short chapters were really great. just don’t know exactly how i feel about the execution of it between a 2.75 and a 3 star. can’t decide”
Frequently asked
What is Half His Age rated?
7.2 out of 10, from 169 reader ratings across 1 independent sources.
Is Half His Age worth reading?
Readers give it 7.2/10 from 169 ratings, which puts it ahead of 2 % of the Contemporary fiction shelf.
How long does it take to read Half His Age?
About 5 hours at an average reading pace — 262 pages.
Where does Half His Age rank?
#54 in Contemporary fiction on the current snapshot.
Was Half His Age a bestseller?
Yes — 2 weeks on the New York Times list, peaking at #5. Sales are shown here but never scored.
How long is Half His Age?
It has 262 pages — shorter than 80% of the ranked books in Contemporary fiction.
If you liked this
Same shelf — Contemporary fiction — with scores between 7.2 and 7.5, closest to this book.
