The Ways That I've Been Hurt - Meredith Murray;Brett Manning

"The voice you will encounter in these pages is the same voice she has been learning to trust in her singing. It's clear and grounded. Unafraid of silence, it prefers pause to performative certainty. Ask any mature person: that's a sign of maturity." - Brett Manning | Founder, Singing Success Studios

MEREDITH MURRAY grew up inside a story the world had already written, where adoptive families are heroes, biological mothers are cast aside, and complex narratives are neatly explained. But real lives aren't that simple.

The Ways That I've Been Hurt is a raw, unfiltered memoir that challenges the narratives we're taught to believe about adoption, identity, and belonging. Meredith explores the quiet cost of those stories from the shame carried by daughters, the judgment placed on women, and the truth that doesn't fit into clean categories. This is a story of living in the "in-between" while holding both gratitude and grief, love and loss, without denying either. Written from the middle of hard questions, Meredith's voice is honest, restrained, and deeply human.

More than a memoir, The Ways That I've Been Hurt is a reclamation. A reminder that you don't owe the world a polished version of your life, but you owe yourself the truth. And telling it is the bravest thing you can do.