There’s not much to say except that you’ll keep Amy’s stories to yourself for a long time after reading. This is a brave memoir with authentic attention to detail. Amy’s writing is captivating, and I was in awe of the self-discovery work she does throughout. Thanks to NetGalley for the ARC.

I felt the authors authenticity, vulnerability and research while reading this book. CPTSD is so easily misunderstood and misdiagnosed. The author through the telling od her story is successful at explaining how CPTSD develops through ongoing anxiety, stress and trauma and how it impacted her carefully put together grownup life. I related very much to this book. Recommend!!! Thank you NetGalley for the opportunity to read this ARC. All opinions are my own.

I expected this one to be a hard read, having some experience with what I suspect is complex-ptsd myself, and it was, but it was also intensely cathartic. The author Amy, has an incredible way of pulling you INTO the story, dragging you along with her every step, every betrayal, every realization, every moment of epiphany.

I did my honors exegesis on the concept of home through the lense of complex traumas and the visual arts, and so many of these moments, these references and lessons that Amy details hit notes both from an academic perspective, as well as a personal one. Though our experiences are vastly different, this book has done something that only my exegesis study has done for me before - it has held me and given me something to see myself within, the traumas AND the survival.

She pulls no punches, so please, read this with the knowledge that it is full of trigger warnings - but not a singular traumatic moment is misplaced, nor milked for the drama. Amy is matter of fact and yet intensely emotive in her writing and does a great balancing act of presenting the hardships she's been through and the work that she and her family, her therapists have been doing to unwind much of it.

If you're in the right place for it and ready to read about another persons experiences of neglect, parentification and homelessness and come out the other side with hope and a sense of survival, this one's for you.

A huge thanks to Amy Smythe Miller and Atmosphere Press for access though Netgalley to read this Advanced Reader Copy. All opinions are my own.

Home by Amy Smyth Miller

In this memoir, the author takes us through her childhood, growing up with parents that were addicts, and what it was like for her. She is only able to do this, because she went through therapy in order to recover those memories. Her experiences are at times heart breaking, and at times heart warming. She tells of being hungry and homeless, being scared of losing the people she loved. She describes good times spent with her great grandmother in beautiful detail. Amy's story will resonate with those who have suffered through childhood trauma. She shares what she learned about how life events shape us, and how we can learn from them, and then learn to move forward. It is an insightful, moving book that has helped me to understand myself, and others in a new way. Heartfelt thanks to Amy for being brave, doing the work, and then sharing it.

This is a gripping memoir that was difficult to put down. Amy Smyth Miller writes about her childhood trauma in a different way than I've experienced before. She stops to analyze each trauma; giving it a name and backing it up with footnotes. While this book feels similar to Uneducated and The Glass Castle, it is different in this way. Always, there is hope. I love the way Smyth Miller picks through to trauma to see the courageous, smart, resilient person she always was. This story will stick with me for a while.

Thank you to #NetGalley and #AtmospherePress for an advanced copy of this book to both read and review!
#HOME
This story will hit you in the gut and perhaps change what you think about the definition of HOME. We learn through Amy Smyth Miller's honest memories of her dysfunctional home life during her childhood what neglect looks and feels like. It is very hard to be a normal child when you have parents’ incapable of parenting.
Reading her memoir helps put some of the pieces together on what went so horribly wrong in her youth and just exactly what she has had to overcome. It explains why she has Complex PTSD . Neglected, hungry and ridiculed for poor clothing and at times improper hygiene from being homeless is a hard label for a child to wear.
The book shows a young girl who went from a little girl to a woman surviving through it all. She had some kind of innate ability to dare to be a survivor and she is!
The book is excellent at giving you a front row seat to the ordeal she went though and hopefully it will motivate you to appreciate your life more and to understand we can rise above our misfortunes!

📝 ARC Review: I’ve read a few memoirs and usually they are pretty impactful. The absolutely gorgeous cover for this memoir pulled me in first, and then when I saw it was about ptsd and family struggles, I was like, I bet I’ll find it relatable.

When I first started reading this story, it was hard for me to get into the flow of it, it felt a bit choppy. But when I think of my own childhood and trying to write about it the way this author did, I totally understand the choppiness. Especially when certain memories allude you. It’s not always easy to piece together the fractured parts of a troubled life. And it takes a lot of strength to dredge those memories up and put them out there for the world to read.

This story was rather tragic, depressing, and so true for so many families around the world. The prevalence of addiction, depression, abuse, neglect, financial struggles and more, is so very relatable for so many. - It’s comforting to read a true story like this one and to know you’re not alone in your own struggles and past trauma. I know from experience that childhood abuse (verbal/emotional) and having a parent that was volatile, can mess you up in ways that you may not even fully comprehend until years and years later. I still get triggered by things I don’t fully understand and assume it’s part of memories I forgot. - Reading this memoir was a good reminder of all the other people who struggle, sometimes for decades, in silence or simply because they don’t realize they need help right away. We’re not alone in our grief, in our trauma, in pasts that keep wrapping around our present.

Genre: Memoir
POV: First Person; Single
My Rating: ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ 4/5
Release Date: September 15, 2026

CW’s 👇

- Suicide/attempted suicide
- Verbally/emotionally abusive parent
- Constantly uprooted childhood
- Homelessness
- Drug usage/addiction
- Alcohol use
- Domestic abuse
- Selective dissociative amnesia
- Complex PTSD
- Antisocial personality disorder
- Racism
- Malnutrition
- Financial struggles/poverty

Thank you to NetGalley and the author for this ARC in exchange for my honest review.