Gather initial thoughts and broad opinions about the book.

1. Discuss your overall impression of You With the Sad Eyes. Which were the least and most surprising aspects of Christina Applegate’s story?

2. Compare and contrast Applegate’s memoir with other celebrity memoirs. For example, how do Applegate’s explorations of fame and stardom align with or diverge from titles like Julia Fox’s Down the Drain or Alyson Stoner’s Semi-Well-Adjusted Despite Literally Everything?

Encourage readers to connect the book’s themes and characters with their personal experiences.

1. Applegate details her abusive relationships on the page to spread awareness. Did any of her fraught interpersonal dynamics resonate with or validate your own experiences?

2. Applegate explores Work as a Refuge. Compare and contrast her work story to your own. Has your career offered you a retreat or distraction from reality?

3. Applegate explores the complexity of working at a young age to support her family. Was there a time when you had to take on significant responsibility before you were ready? How did this responsibility impact you in positive or negative ways?

4. Applegate’s relationships with her parents impacted her sense of self. Which of Applegate’s familial relationships resonates most with your own experience? How have your parental dynamics influenced your self-regard, and why?

5. Applegate incorporates positive and negative aspects of her life story into her memoir. In what ways has your life been a compilation of joys and hardships? How does Applegate’s story shed light on your own dichotomous experiences?

Examine the book’s relevance to societal issues, historical events, or cultural themes.

1. Applegate details her eating disorder on the page. Analyze her representations of this mental illness within the context of modern psychology and wider discussions of mental-health awareness. How does Applegate challenge or reinforce stereotypes, and in what ways? Identify key moments from the text.

2. Applegate incorporates descriptions of and allusions to chronic illness throughout the text. Explore how Applegate uses these moments to create a broader awareness about physical illness, pain, and suffering. Consider how her representations of chronic illness challenge stereotypical representations of cancer survival or cultural notions of pain as taboo.

Dive into the book’s structure, characters, themes, and symbolism.

1. Analyze Applegate’s overarching authorial tone. Which tonal registers does she use, and to what effect? How does her tone contrast with other celebrity memoirs?

2. Compare and contrast Applegate’s various romantic partners. How does she represent each of them on the page, and how did each individual contribute to Applegate’s personal evolution?

3. Identify three symbols not explored in the guide, and explore their meaning. For example, what might acting, Married…With Children, Rogues Retreat, or Right Action for Women represent, and how do they further the themes of trauma, identity, and liberation?

4. Applegate heavily features her mother, Nancy Priddy, throughout her memoir. Analyze Nancy’s role in Applegate’s story, and explore how their mother-daughter relationship compares and contrasts with parallel celebrity memoirs—for example, Jeannette McCurdy’s I’m Glad My Mom Died.

Encourage imaginative and creative connections to the book.

1. Applegate incorporates excerpts from her old diaries throughout the memoir. Revisit your own journals and explore how your past experiences have shaped your current identity. Use one entry to launch a self-reflective personal essay that resonates with Applegate’s memoir.

2. Imagine you are adapting Applegate’s memoir into a documentary film. Which scenes or anecdotes which you include, and which key figures would you interview? How would you alter the memoir’s structure to make the documentary your own?