Why Not Me? (Kaling)

Discussion Questions
Use our LitLovers Book Club Resources; they can help with discussions for any book:

• How to Discuss a Book (helpful discussion tips)
• Generic Discussion Questions—Fiction and Nonfiction
• Read-Think-Talk (a guided reading chart)

Also, consider these LitLovers talking points to help get a discussion started for I?

1. Kaling has said elsewhere that the title has two meanings. One has to do with wondering why isn't she getting married like a number of her friends—it makes her feel left out. The second meaning has to do with her ambition: when someone succeeds in a certain endeavor, she wonders, "Why not me?" Talk about what those two meaning reveal about Mindy Kaling.

2. What does the chapter titled "For the Ladies: How to Look Spectacular, A Starlet's Confessions" say about Hollywood's obsession and ours (and yours?) with body shape and image? Does the media merely give us what we want: in other words, do we want celebrities to look unrealistically glamorous, like idealized versions of how we wished we looked? Or would we prefer stars to look more like us—everyday women and men?

3. In her discussion of friendships, Kaling talks about how hard it is to make female friends—it's more difficult than having sex. Is that difficulty a result of Kaling's fame and her hyper suspicious nature that she's being "played?" Or is it, perhaps, an common problem in the Hollywood environment? Have you ever had a friend like the one in "Player"?

4. Kaling says that she wants her readers to get the know the "real" Mindy Kaling. Did you come away after reading this book feeling that you DO know Mindy? How do you feel about her after reading Why Not Me?

5. Have you read her previous book Why is Everyone Hanging Out Without Me? (2011), and if so, how do the two books compare?

6. What parts of the book do you find especially funny or sad...or insightful or shallow? Do parts of the book resonate with your experiences or observances of life?

(We'll add specific questions if and when they're made available by the publisher.)

top of page (summary)