I was drawn to the title as the daughter of an adoptee who has been on her own reunionhh journey. I was struck by the many similarities in their stories, even with very different circumstances. I’m very appreciative to the author for sharing such an intimate and nuanced account. She paints such a true picture; though she includes failings and flaws, it’s clear that she deeply loves her family. I hope others will read this story and better understand that adoption is not a simple solution to anything.

Deeply moving, raw and eye opening memoir about her growing up with both being adopted and being adopted from the black market. The book made me really emotional and thoughtful. She details growing up in a broken home with parents (adopted) that where deeply flawed and in many way caused pain and trauma but still the love for them and between the family she grew up in
The up and downs in finding out who she was, who birthed her and what happend. About the very complex emotions and situations. A high 5 stars. One of my favorite memoirs or this year and the second favorite to talk about the complex mother- daughter relationships.

Listening to “Wonderland” was less like listening to an audiobook and more like attending a one-woman show. The strength and grace of Meyer created a sacred space for her story. Although slow in parts, the overall effect was not unlike Alice’s experience as she tumbled into a very different Wonderland.

I was intrigued by the topic of Wonderland right away, and Patricia Knight Meyer’s telling of her experience was incredibly powerful. Stories involving adoption can easily become one-sided, but one of the things I appreciated most was the compassion and perspective she brought to everyone involved.

It’s evident that Patricia has put a significant amount of time, reflection, and effort into her healing journey. She shares the complicated emotions surrounding her story without placing blame, and she seems to truly understand and honor the challenges, choices, and circumstances faced by both her biological and adoptive families.

This memoir was heartbreaking at times, but also filled with resilience, understanding, and growth. It’s a powerful and impactful story that stayed with me after finishing it.

I was so excited to dive into this audiobook ARC because the whole premise of black market adoptions completely fascinated me, it’s a topic I honestly didn't know much about before this ARC. Having the author narrate her own story was such a huge plus, her voice added an extra layer of emotion that kept me totally hooked. While I went in hoping for a bit more deep-dive information on the trade itself, her actual life journey was incredibly interesting nonetheless. It definitely leans way more toward personal memoir than a historical or informative text, but it is a deeply compelling listen. If you love raw, authentic personal stories told right by the person who lived them, this one is absolutely worth your time.

What a great book that looks at something we never think of. Having looked into the process of adoption it is not hard to see how these things happened, but heart breaking for some families.

"Handed over along a Texas hospital curb in 1970—no judge, no paperwork, no questions asked—Patricia grew up celebrating a made-up birthday, haunted by nightmares of "The Dark Man." Her parents, blackmailed by the attorney they hired to skirt the adoption system, faced an impossible choice: go to the police or pay up. They paid $30,000 to keep their paperless baby.

Navigating her mother's violent alcoholism and caring for her disabled and depressed 600-pound father, Patricia spent her childhood trying to save her saviors—unaware of the lifelong threat that haunted them: at any moment, someone could come back for the baby.

At eighteen, pregnant and standing in her birth mother's shoes, Patricia discovers a shattering secret that launches a lifetime search for answers. But it takes decades—and her adoptive mother's death—before Patricia realizes the secret-keepers won't live forever. Guided by her mother's ghost, she races to uncover the truth.

A tumble down the rabbit hole of America's baby trade, part detective story, part searing family portrait, Wonderland exposes what happens when adoption's house of cards finally falls—when falsified documents and dark family secrets can no longer sustain one woman's relentless search for truth."

I flew through this audiobook that I would describe as a mix of Before We Were Yours by Lisa Wingate and The Glass Castle by Jeanette Walls in that author Patricia Knight Meyer was basically a non-existent baby all the way into her adulthood, when she began to research her roots as an adopted baby with a false "delayed birth certificate".

Like many adopted children, at some point they may be curious about their birth parents, but not having a legal birth certificate, or anything that could identify her birth, or even her citizenship in the US sent Meyer on a deep dive. Thankfully she was coming into the era of DNA testing and Ancestry.com

What she found about what she calls "open adoptions" was so sad. I do have to disagree with her definition of open adoptions, because not all open adoptions are these shady deals that were done in her case. Some are actually legal and above board. In fact, we support one of these. But during this time, hundreds of thousands of children were literally just handed over with no legal documentation.

And what you find when you find your birth parents could be a joyous reunion, or just more problems. I am left thinking, no one is perfect, including birth parents and adopting parents. One thing that stuck in my mind is how she repeats that "adoption was something that was done to her"; she had no say-so like the birth mother and adopting parents. She also points out that the birth father is also left out of all decisions in this time period. The era of 1940's-1970's was a wild west in adoption! Read Before We Were Yours by Lisa Wingate.

But her story growing up with her adoptive parents, her search for her birth mother, her actual birth date, and how she has landed today, is a compelling story that I highly recommend.

Wonderland is a powerful and deeply personal memoir that tells the true story of a woman who discovers she was sold on the black market as a baby. More than a search for answers, it's an exploration of identity, belonging, and the lifelong effects of being raised in a family struggling with mental illness.

As she searches for her biological family, she is forced to navigate complicated relationships, confront generational trauma, and wrestle with the age-old question of nature versus nurture. Her journey is heartbreaking, honest, and filled with moments that make you reflect on what truly shapes a person.

This is not a light read, but it's an important one. While the emotional weight made it slower to get through at times, the raw honesty and resilience behind the story made it a memorable and worthwhile memoir.

What a wild story! I can’t imagine how Patricia has dealt with all of the insecurities she’s been dealt but I’m glad to hear she’s in therapy working on them. It seems that she’s broken the cycle and I hope she continues to live out the rest of her days in a happier, more contented environment.

I really enjoyed Wonderland: A Memoir of a Black Market Adoption. Patricia Knight Meyer tells her story with so much honesty and heart that it's hard not to get invested in her journey. Learning about the truth behind her adoption was both heartbreaking and fascinating, and I appreciated how she combined her personal experience with the history of black-market adoptions.

This is the kind of memoir that stays with you after you finish it. It's emotional, eye-opening, and makes you think about identity, family, and the importance of knowing where you come from. I definitely recommend it if you enjoy memoirs that are both personal and meaningful. 4.5 out of 5 stars.

This was such a well written memoir. I really appreciated how it explored the search for identity and also the lasting impact adoption can have on everyone involved. It was emotional, eye opening, and had me invested in Patricia’s journey from beginning to end.

If you enjoy memoirs that dive into family, identity, resilience, and the search for the truth, I’d definitely recommend picking this one up.

Thank you for the advanced listener copy. Wow! Pam's story is a roller coaster. She tells all the details, and leaves everything on the table. I thoroughly enjoyed reading her story.

4.5 stars

Texas

Autobiography of Patricia who was a black market adoption. She always knew she was adopted but as she got older, the story didn't fit and she didn't have a birth certificate. She grapples with her parents who raised her and how their habits affected her life. And when she goes to search for her birth parents and gets to meet her biological family - it opens up some old wounds and she has to learn how to navigate these new relationships.

This book was really well written and included all these ups and downs to take the reader on an emotional roller coaster. I totally felt for Patricia and was hoping there was a really amazing ending to her story.

I really had zero idea there was a trend of black market babies nor had I heard stories about them. So this was new. I guess thank goodness for Ancestry.com to help people find lost families.

There was one part of the book that made me really sad and I'm not sure I agree with. Patricia said that adoption is trauma and I'm not sure I can wholeheartedly agree. I adopted my son, whose mom died when he was an infant. He grew up seeing photos of his mom and hearing stories and connected to her side of the family. My family embraced him as our own. In my mind and heart he is mine and he knows it. So I think all adoption stories are unique and it's the adopted that determines if it's trauma or not

4.5 ⭐️, rounded up.
Patricia Knight Meyer has written a difficult and painful account of her own upbringing and discovery of her hidden truths. A very well-written and narrated memoir provides full detail of her life experiences and struggles with being a paperless adoptee, a person without a true identity. Despite her disfunctional and abusive upbringing, Meyer is able to set healthy boundaries in her adulthood and stop an all-too-often repeating cycle of abuse.

Note about audio -
The pause between chapters is too long in all cases and causes the listener to think the audio player has stalled or stopped.

This was a really compelling story and I think the author did a great job tying it all together and making it interesting to read as well as cathartic to write. I’d also never thought much about the trauma caused by adoptions, so that was informative. Thanks NetGalley for an ALC.

This memoir completely pulled me in from the very beginning. Knowing it was a true story made every discovery feel even more powerful as Patricia Knight Meyer unraveled the truth about her origins and the circumstances surrounding her adoption.

Her story is heartbreaking, courageous, and incredibly eye-opening. I appreciated how she blended her personal journey with the larger history of black-market adoptions, creating a memoir that is both deeply intimate and thought-provoking. It’s the kind of book that stays with you long after you’ve finished.

The audiobook was especially compelling because it was narrated by the author herself. Hearing Patricia tell her own story added an extra layer of emotion and authenticity that made the experience even more impactful.

If you enjoy memoirs centered on identity, family, resilience, and uncovering long-buried truths, this is one I would absolutely recommend.

Staring things off, I think the author did a great job narrating her story. I loved how the story was told first through the eyes of a child, as a teen, then as an adult. To me, this read as a honest story of a child growing up with parents, both adopted and birth, who also never got to fully heal or grow up themselves, which so often is the case.

About halfway through I started to struggle a bit while listening to this because it’s repeated that she did not choose to be adopted. While that is true, arguably no child was ever chosen to be born to their parents, if you view life in that way. I personally know many people who would really struggle listening to this because they suffered horrific accounts of abuse at the hands of their biological parents. It’s not to compare traumas, but even for myself, it was hard not to at times. So many kids just want a place to be safe. I also had a very hard time reading all the judgement that comes later in the story.

I think adoption can be a very beautiful thing, but like anything else, there can be evil. Children should never be a commodity.

Overall, it was a solid listen, narration was good and story was engaging. Definitely worth the listen or read if you want to hear an a story about adoption and the effects it can have.

Lastly, I want to say it takes A LOT of courage to be able to be vulnerable enough to open up and share a story like this, which I deeply honor and respect. I hope this encourages more people to speak up and tell their stories.

Thank you to NetGalley, the author, Patricia Knight Meyer, and YAYDNA for the ALC of this book.
This review was also published on Goodreads

Wonderland is a powerful memoir that really made me stop and think. Patricia Knight Meyer shares the story of discovering she had been illegally adopted, but this is about far more than finding out where she came from. It’s an honest exploration of identity, family and the lasting impact of trauma.

What struck me most was the way the author wrote about her adoptive parents with such honesty and empathy. Her father, whose morbid obesity shaped much of family life, and her mother, who lived with bipolar disorder after an abusive childhood, were complex people rather than simply villains or victims. Their experiences helped me understand how trauma can be passed from one generation to the next.

The book also shines a light on the hidden stories behind infertility, unwanted pregnancies and illegal adoptions, and the lifelong consequences for children who were never given the chance to know their true identity.

Hearing Patricia narrate her own story made it even more moving. Her voice brought warmth and authenticity to an already deeply personal memoir.

A thoughtful and emotional listen that has stayed with me long after the final chapter.

With thanks to NetGalley for the opportunity to listen to this advance copy.

I found this memoir to be an immersive and easy one to fall into. Patricia writes out her story so clearly, with emotion and showing the damage done by the black market adoption that went on for too many decades. I enjoyed her stories and discovery from childhood to adulthood and her looking back and attempting to understand why adults acted the way they did.

This is a mix of The Glass Castle and Before We Were Yours. If you like those books, you'll like this one.

November release.

Thank you to NetGalley and YAYDNA Press for the gifted ALC of this book. It is read by the author and she does a great job narrating her memoir.

This is the life of Patricia Knight. She had a father and a mother, but she knew all along she was adopted. She celebrated her birthday, and thought life was pretty normal. But when she starts finding out bits of information on how her adoption came to be, it just seems off. Her birthday was a guess, her birth certificate was no where to be seen, and according to her mother the lawyer was a slime ball. Patricia did her best taking care of her disabled and obese father, while her mother was an abusive, high maintenance, alcoholic. As she got older, made her own mistakes, she found out the truth that her adoption wasn’t exactly legal.

I really liked this book! It was sad, real, and so informative. I really didn’t know this was such as big of a problem as it was. It was crazy to think this stuff actually happened in the 70’s.

5/5⭐️ via audiobook

Wow, what a story & the easiest 5 star book of the year for me. As someone who is adopted this book was extremely relatable. While i was not part of the black market adoption, i was part of a private international one. The sentiment that adoption is a win-win process is false and this book clearly explains why. This book brought up so many thoughts and feelings.

I will be back to add more as i process this one.

Thank you NetGalley and Unsolicited Press for this ARC in exchange for an honest review!

Wonderland was a deep look into one woman's life who happens to be shaped, not only by her own black market adoption, but by the trauma and addictions of her adoptive parents. Split into parts, this memoir tackles several things: her childhood, her adoption, and finding her biological parents.

Sometimes I can really struggle with believing the author when they have very deep, fleshed out memories; much like part one of this book. However, the author comes off as very genuine. It's clear she's trying to be as clear as possible -even to the point of detailing intense, traumatic experiences- and never aims to pick any one person's side. In addition, while I do know her thoughts and opinions on topics, it never came off as "preachy" or pushing any one specific agenda. Meyer sought to expose the black-market adoption, as well as the impact of adoption on children, through the (perhaps therapeutic) lens of her own life experiences. Part three of this story, especially, was a heartbreaking look into what many adoptee's must experience when the birth parent of their dreams in no way mirrors the real, flawed human they have found. Her emotions throughout the story are so valid and raw in all their conflicting glory.

The one thing I can say I found lacking to this story was a more broad dive into adoptions (especially the Black Market aspects) and the struggles of being a legal, undocumented person. I always love to learn more about these niche types of topics, so more research information would have made this story that much more impactful. However, I understand that this is a memoir not a deep-dive, non-fiction story.

This was a very honest and authentic memoir. Made better through the narration from the author herself. She has a poetic writing style and is an excellent story teller. Overall, an excellent listen and highly recommended.

Thank you to Netgalley and YAYDNA Press for this ALC in exchange for my honest opinion.

I've heard stories about black-market adoptions before, but I've never read a memoir that explored it from the perspective of someone who actually lived it. Patricia Knight Meyer's story completely pulled me in from the beginning, and I found myself wanting to know how everything would unfold.

What I appreciated most was how honest this memoir felt. Patricia doesn't try to make anyone the hero or the villain. She shares her experiences, the complicated relationships with both her adoptive and biological families, and what it was like spending decades searching for answers about who she really was. It was emotional, heartbreaking, and gave me a lot to think about.

I also loved that Patricia narrated the audiobook herself. Hearing her tell her own story added so much emotion and authenticity that I don't think would have come across the same way with another narrator.

This memoir is about so much more than adoption. It's about identity, family, secrets, trauma, and the lifelong search for where you belong. While I've heard stories about black-market adoptions over the years, this gave me a much deeper understanding of what that experience could actually look like for the person living it.

This isn't always an easy listen, but it's an important one. If you enjoy memoirs that are honest, emotional, and leave you thinking long after they're over, I'd definitely recommend picking this one up.

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️✨ 4.5 stars (rounded to 5 on Goodreads).