The Examined Year

PREORDER — Expected release: 30 December 2026. This book is not yet available. Dispatch is subject to supplier availability and publication-date changes.

From the #1 New York Times bestselling author of Half His Age and I'm Glad My Mom Died - a deeply personal and introspective guided journal and goal planning system that asks questions to help you build the life you want from the inside out.

'I've succeeded at someone else's idea of a good life. I don't recommend it. To succeed at my own version of a good life, it took honest, sustained introspection. This book is a tool to carry you through a year of it' - Jennette McCurdyMost guided journals and planners fail the reader in one of two ways. They're either too soft, all affirmations and vision boards, beautiful and completely untethered from who you actually are, or too tactical, treating your life like a logistics problem to be optimized while skipping the only question that actually matters: Who are you, really? The Examined Year is a tool to carry you through a year of introspection. It's a guide to understanding what you actu­ally value. A grounded, simple system for setting and accomplishing goals that are genuinely yours. A record of who you're becom­ing, what you're learning, and what you're ready to leave behind.McCurdy developed the self-discovery strategies in this journal from her own hard-earned experience. She asks readers to measure each of their values against concrete evidence from their own lives, catching performative and unrealistic values before they send readers chasing the wrong goals for another year. Readers will then use their core values to inform their goals, ones that McCurdy feels should be process-based rather than outcome-based, internally motivated rather than externally prescribed and tethered to who the reader actually is rather than who they think they should be. With monthly and quarterly check-ins that allow flexibility to abandon and revise goals without shame, The Examined Year is a forgiving and empowering tool that recognises time as an integral part of the self-discovery process.McCurdy's voice throughout is already known and trusted by her readers: sharp, self-aware, funny and unflinchingly honest. Her prompts don't coddle. They don't congratulate. They ask you to get real with yourself.And they don't make you wait for January 1. Whatever day you're holding this book, that's day one.

About the author

Jennette McCurdy starred in Nickelodeon's hit show iCarly and its spin-off, Sam & Cat, as well as in the Netflix series Between. In 2017, she quit acting and began pursuing writing/directing. Her films have been featured in the Florida Film Festival, the Salute Your Shorts Film Festival, Short of the Week, and elsewhere. Her essays have appeared in HuffPost and The Wall Street Journal. Her one-woman show I'm Glad My Mom Died had two sold-out runs at the Lyric Hyperion Theatre and Hudson Theatre in Los Angeles. She hosts a podcast called Empty Inside, which has topped Apple's charts and features guests speaking about uncomfortable topics. She lives in Los Angeles.