Books Like You with the Sad Eyes

Tina Fey

Like Applegate's book, it mixes sharp self-mockery with an honest account of working as a woman in comedy and television. Fey's stories about sketch writing and sitcom life will feel familiar to fans of Applegate's set-life chapters.

Amy Poehler

Poehler tells her own story with the same warm, unpolished humor and a willingness to talk about failure and self-doubt. Readers who enjoyed Applegate's candour about being a working performer will find the same tone here.

Mindy Kaling

Kaling writes conversationally about insecurity, body image and building a career in television, with jokes that land because they come from real vulnerability. It suits readers who valued the self-doubt and humour running through Applegate's account.

Carrie Fisher

Fisher's memoir is a funny, frank look at fame, addiction and a famous family, told in the same unflinching style Applegate uses for her childhood on set. Readers drawn to the darker side of Applegate's story will appreciate its honesty.

Drew Barrymore

Barrymore recounts becoming a child star, early fame and the difficult home life that came with it. It echoes the childhood-in-public thread of You with the Sad Eyes, seen from a performer who started young.

Susanna Kaysen

Kaysen's memoir of a psychiatric hospital stay in her youth is sharp, wry and unsentimental about mental health struggles. Readers who valued the depression and self-examination in Applegate's book will find a similarly clear-eyed voice.

Roxane Gay

Gay writes candidly about her body, trauma and how others judge it, in prose that is direct and emotionally exact. It speaks to the body dysmorphia and self-scrutiny that Applegate describes, with the same refusal to offer easy answers.

Cheryl Strayed

Strayed's account of rebuilding herself after loss is raw, funny in places and driven by personal reckoning. Readers moved by Applegate's story of finding a new way of living after illness will connect with its arc of hardship and renewal.

Joan Didion

Didion writes with precision about grief and the disorientation of a life suddenly changed. Readers who found the quieter, reflective passages of Applegate's memoir resonant will find a close, searching companion in this book.

Patti Smith, Patti Smith

Smith's memoir captures a vivid, bohemian New York scene and the friendships that sustained her through hard years. It matches Applegate's chapters on finding belonging in the 1990s Los Angeles scene and the chosen family around her.

Michelle Zauner

Zauner writes about grief, her relationship with her mother and the way food and memory carry love. Readers who connected with the mother-daughter threads and the emotional honesty of You with the Sad Eyes will find similar tenderness here.