I chose You With The Sad Eyes by Christina Applegate as the June memoir book club pick for Wonderland Books because I had heard great things about it, and it delivered. Applegate, an actor known best for her roles on Married… With Children and Dead To Me, has faced a lot of challenges in her life despite her onscreen success. She and her mother were abandoned by her father when she was a baby. She worked hard through her childhood and teens to support the two of them. She witnessed and endured abuse from her mother’s violent partner, and then found herself in an equally abusive relationship as a young adult. She also survived breast cancer, only to then face the most devastating challenge yet: a diagnosis of MS. Applegate opens and closes You With The Sad Eyes talking about the disease and how much it has robbed from her. I really liked Applegate’s honesty and unapologetic tone throughout the memoir, as well as her lack of self-pity. She’s angry, yes, but she’s aware of the gifts she’s been given, and is trying to make the best of a very tough situation. Our book club discussion was robust (which you might not always get with a celebrity memoir), with everyone in attendance glad that they had read it. There is some Hollywood gossip in here, but really it’s a book about a talented, kind woman who has been dealt a very mixed hand.