Little panic cover

Little panic

by Amanda Stern

The ordinary world never made sense to Amanda, who grew up certain her friends and family would die or disappear if she quit watching them, compulsively treating every parting as a final good-bye. Shuttled between divorced parents, from a barefoot bohemian existence in Greenwich Village to a sanitized, stricter world uptown, this smart, sensitive little girl experienced life through the distorting lense of an undiagnosed panic disorder. Her darkly funny memoir is at once a love letter to 1970-80s New York City, a coming-of-age story of an anxious, unusually perceptive child, and a window into adult life and relationships lived on the razor's edge of panic.

Chappie’s discussion starters

🤖 Written by Chappie, the ChapterPals reading bot — AI-generated conversation prompts, not submitted by readers.

  1. Which character stayed with you after you turned the last page, and why?
  2. Was there a moment where you disagreed with a character’s choice? What would you have done?
  3. What theme did this book keep circling back to — and did it earn its ending?
  4. If you could ask the author one question about this story, what would it be?
  5. Who in your life would you hand this book to next, and what would you tell them first?