A memoir by Fyeo Hale
How Wildflowers Grow
“Why did you stay?”
“So if you want the real answer, the one that actually explains why I stayed, you’re going to need the beginning first. Not the marriage. Before it. All the way back, to a girl not even out of elementary school yet, who didn’t know that the way she was about to learn to love people was going to cost her most of her adult life to unlearn.”
Chapter I
The Book
An emotional abuse memoir, with the humor left in
A darkly funny memoir about emotional abuse, coercive control and leaving a marriage of nearly two decades. For any woman who has stayed too long, left anyway, and wondered if she was the only one.
It starts in childhood, runs through nearly two decades of a controlling marriage, and keeps going into the year after leaving.
Chapter I
The Book
An emotional abuse memoir, with the humor left in
A darkly funny memoir about emotional abuse, coercive control and leaving a marriage of nearly two decades. For any woman who has stayed too long, left anyway, and wondered if she was the only one.
It starts in childhood, runs through nearly two decades of a controlling marriage, and keeps going into the year after leaving.
Chapter II
What readers say
In their words
“A great read from the heart.”
“Hale writes with a directness that makes this memoir compelling. She describes painful experiences without smoothing over her own decisions or pretending she understood each warning sign when it appeared.”
“Her humor arrives in unexpected places, sometimes within moments of real distress. That mix gives the book a distinct voice and keeps its people from becoming simple heroes or villains.”
Leo VidalLeo Vidal Book Reviews
Read more reviews →“Hale writes with a directness that makes this memoir compelling. She describes painful experiences without smoothing over her own decisions or pretending she understood each warning sign when it appeared.”
“Her humor arrives in unexpected places, sometimes within moments of real distress. That mix gives the book a distinct voice and keeps its people from becoming simple heroes or villains.”
Leo VidalLeo Vidal Book Reviews
Read more reviews →Chapter III
About Fyeo
Her close friends describe her as
“Always the person you can pick up the phone to, no matter what, and always there to pick up right where you left off. Someone who will never judge you.”
“A friend to everyone, even those who don’t deserve it.”
Read more about Fyeo →“Always the person you can pick up the phone to, no matter what, and always there to pick up right where you left off. Someone who will never judge you.”
“A friend to everyone, even those who don’t deserve it.”
Chapter IV
Writing
Essays and published work
Short pieces by Fyeo Hale, published elsewhere.
Chapter V
Podcast
The audio journal
How Wildflowers Grow is also an audio journal on Spotify. Fyeo talks the way her mind actually moves, often as if she is speaking straight to God: honest, unpolished, sometimes funny and sometimes dark. It touches on healing from emotional abuse, faith, shame, single motherhood and rebuilding life after divorce.
No scripts and no experts. Episodes come when there is something true to say.
Read more →Chapter VI
Healing
Reading and healing
Plain, first person pages about what healing has actually looked like, written by someone in the middle of it. Not advice, and not from an expert.
“Keep growing. It’s the only advice I have that I actually trust.”
From How Wildflowers Grow
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About the book
An emotional abuse memoir, with the humor left in
“Why did you stay?”
It is the question people ask most once they hear she gave nearly two decades to a man who called her names she won’t repeat. She has given a dozen answers over the months: the kids, the fear, the fact that he always kept trying. The truest one is the hardest to say out loud. She didn’t know it was abuse while she was standing inside it.
It is also funny, because it happened that way. In Fyeo Hale’s words, “The funny and the unbearable arrive in the same paragraph in here, sometimes in the same sentence.”
What readers are saying
“Hale writes with a directness that makes this memoir compelling. She describes painful experiences without smoothing over her own decisions or pretending she understood each warning sign when it appeared.”
“Her humor arrives in unexpected places, sometimes within moments of real distress. That mix gives the book a distinct voice and keeps its people from becoming simple heroes or villains.”
“A great read from the heart.”
Get the book
Kindle, paperback, or your Goodreads shelf
Paperback
$12.99 · 243 pages
For your nightstand, your book club, or a friend who needs it.
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Want to read
Add it to your shelf so you don’t lose it, and so other readers can find it.
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More from Fyeo Hale
The woman behind the book
How her close friends describe her, and where to find her online.
Meet Fyeo →Essays and published work
“The Lock on the Door,” a personal essay at Literary Yard.
Read her writing →The audio journal
Honest, unscripted episodes on Spotify, often spoken straight to God.
Listen →Reading and healing
First person pages about what healing from emotional abuse has actually looked like.
Start reading →