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Home: A Memoir of Family, Forgiveness, and Healing from Complex PTSD
Her past held the answers—if she was brave enough to face it.
After nearly losing her husband, Amy Smyth Miller’s panic spirals out of control. Therapy reveals a diagnosis: Complex PTSD. In search of healing, Amy embarks on a harrowing excavation of her past—childhood neglect, homelessness, parental addiction, and a family history shadowed by suicide. Amid the wreckage, she discovers the people and circumstances that kept her safe and helped to shape her her wise great-grandmother’s teachings, the watchful eyes of caring adults, and her own fierce determination. Each memory is a clue, each family story a piece of the puzzle. But the most elusive truth is buried in a forgotten childhood memory—one that holds the key to her deepest fear.
Part investigation, part love letter to survival, Home is a courageous story of trauma and transformation, love and forgiveness, and realizing that sometimes the home you’re searching for is the one you build inside yourself.
" A Memoir of Family, Forgiveness, and Healing from Complex PTSD is for anyone needing help putting the pieces together around what happened to our families and ourselves. Amy Smyth Miller helps us process the confusion and disconnection between our past and our present through her story. A wonderful resource for those who have experienced childhood trauma."
— Patrick Teahan, LICSW, psychotherapist and expert on childhood trauma
"Amy Smyth Miller's inspiring memoir shimmers with honesty, tenacity, and her ability to find beauty among the shards of a painful history. While there is no simple formula for understanding and addressing intergenerational trauma, this sensitive book offers meaningful glimpses of hope."
~Elizabeth Rosner, author of SURVIVOR The Legacy of Trauma and the Labyrinth of Memory, and THIRD Reflections on the Art and Science of Listening
After nearly losing her husband, Amy Smyth Miller’s panic spirals out of control. Therapy reveals a diagnosis: Complex PTSD. In search of healing, Amy embarks on a harrowing excavation of her past—childhood neglect, homelessness, parental addiction, and a family history shadowed by suicide. Amid the wreckage, she discovers the people and circumstances that kept her safe and helped to shape her her wise great-grandmother’s teachings, the watchful eyes of caring adults, and her own fierce determination. Each memory is a clue, each family story a piece of the puzzle. But the most elusive truth is buried in a forgotten childhood memory—one that holds the key to her deepest fear.
Part investigation, part love letter to survival, Home is a courageous story of trauma and transformation, love and forgiveness, and realizing that sometimes the home you’re searching for is the one you build inside yourself.
" A Memoir of Family, Forgiveness, and Healing from Complex PTSD is for anyone needing help putting the pieces together around what happened to our families and ourselves. Amy Smyth Miller helps us process the confusion and disconnection between our past and our present through her story. A wonderful resource for those who have experienced childhood trauma."
— Patrick Teahan, LICSW, psychotherapist and expert on childhood trauma
"Amy Smyth Miller's inspiring memoir shimmers with honesty, tenacity, and her ability to find beauty among the shards of a painful history. While there is no simple formula for understanding and addressing intergenerational trauma, this sensitive book offers meaningful glimpses of hope."
~Elizabeth Rosner, author of SURVIVOR The Legacy of Trauma and the Labyrinth of Memory, and THIRD Reflections on the Art and Science of Listening
301 pages, Kindle Edition
Published September 15, 2026
About the author
Amy Smyth Miller
1 book5 followersAmy Smyth Miller graduated from Arizona State University with a bachelor's degree in Special Education and from Northern Arizona University with a master's degree in counseling. She has worked in the education field for the past 30 years, most recently as an intervention specialist. Amy currently lives in the Pacific Northwest with her husband "Captain Crusty," her son, and her rescue dachshund, Oscar. She enjoys puttering in her herb garden, making soap, and writing. Her essays have been published in The Healing and CPTSD Chronicles, Persimmon Tree Magazine, The Muleskinner Journal, and several other publications.
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Displaying 1 - 16 of 16 reviews
March 19, 2026
It’s hard to know where to begin when reviewing and talking about Amy Smyth Miller’s, HOME: A MEMOIR OF FAMILY, FORGIVENESS, & HEALING FROM COMPLEX PTSD. Miller has laid herself bare for readers to learn from. She is honest but not blaming, open but not exaggerative, effective in telling her story and not making excuses. I think it is brave and courageous to put these hardships out there for the world to read. There really is no throwing anyone under the bus in this memoir. Miller tells the facts of her childhood, the neglect, the homelessness, the use of pills and alcohol by her parents, the multitude of moves and school changes, and the overall tough and impoverished life of a large family. Somehow, the thought, “poor her” or “poor them” isn’t what comes to mind, instead it is, “wow, look at what she has overcome.”
HOME is the telling of Amy’s life as a child and young person, but more than that, this is a story of healing. Miller worked hard with a therapist to sift through her past and the difficulties she was slapped with. The hardships shaped her and her inner workings, but she also came to realize that there were individuals in her life, such as her grandmother and specific teachers, who cared and were on her side. This is a story of determination, self-realization, and resiliency. Miller was shaped by her upbringing, but she does not mirror it. She has built her adult life, learned the life lessons, done the hard work of healing, and forgiven others their faults in order to overcome the trauma that lived within.
All in all, HOME is an excellent book. I would be remiss not to mention that Miller is a fantastic writer allowing the reader to visualize, feel and even smell the things she writes about. HOME is educational, but also accessible. It spotlights the hardships that some families and children go through and also explains the work of therapy and diagnoses in an approachable way for the layperson to understand. While investigating herself, Miller succeeds at putting this process to paper which will undoubtedly help others. This is an important book and one which I wholeheartedly recommend.
This book was read as an advanced copy.
HOME is the telling of Amy’s life as a child and young person, but more than that, this is a story of healing. Miller worked hard with a therapist to sift through her past and the difficulties she was slapped with. The hardships shaped her and her inner workings, but she also came to realize that there were individuals in her life, such as her grandmother and specific teachers, who cared and were on her side. This is a story of determination, self-realization, and resiliency. Miller was shaped by her upbringing, but she does not mirror it. She has built her adult life, learned the life lessons, done the hard work of healing, and forgiven others their faults in order to overcome the trauma that lived within.
All in all, HOME is an excellent book. I would be remiss not to mention that Miller is a fantastic writer allowing the reader to visualize, feel and even smell the things she writes about. HOME is educational, but also accessible. It spotlights the hardships that some families and children go through and also explains the work of therapy and diagnoses in an approachable way for the layperson to understand. While investigating herself, Miller succeeds at putting this process to paper which will undoubtedly help others. This is an important book and one which I wholeheartedly recommend.
This book was read as an advanced copy.
Review of advance copy received from Author
Amy Smyth Miller’s Home is a tender and unsparing account of a childhood shaped by instability, hunger, addiction, shame, and repeated uprooting, then revisited through the clearer lens of adult trauma therapy. The memoir begins with Miller’s terror after her husband Ron’s heart attack, when an ordinary marital crisis opens a trapdoor into old abandonment wounds. From there, she moves backward through a life of van rides, motels, Catholic school humiliations, vanished homes, family secrets, her mother’s despair, her father’s volatility, and the small mercies that kept her intact: Grandma’s pie crust lessons, warm bread at a friend’s house, a teacher’s faith in her, the fierce shelter of women she calls Las Madres, and finally the hard-won understanding that “home” is not merely a place but a repaired relationship with the self.
I enjoyed the way Miller writes childhood from the inside out. She doesn’t flatten young Amy into a symbol of suffering; she lets her be hungry, observant, funny, embarrassed, furious, loyal, and achingly hopeful all at once. The scenes have a lived-in texture that makes them difficult to shake. I could feel the dread in the old house with the locked room and water-filled storm cellar, the humiliation of being sent home because a dress was too short, the quiet heartbreak of a forgotten birthday, and the surreal horror of cleaning blood from the bathroom floor after her mother’s suicide attempt. Miller’s prose is strongest when it trusts sensory memory: bleach coiling through a room, a motel sign blinking in the desert night, homemade bread arriving like grace. The explanatory passages about trauma and research slow the narrative, but I also understood why they were there. It’s a memoir about what happened and also about learning how to name what happened after spending years surviving it without language.
I found the book’s ideas about forgiveness especially moving because Miller doesn’t make forgiveness feel soft or easy. She refuses the shallow version of it, the kind that asks a wounded person to tidy up the past for everyone else’s comfort. Instead, forgiveness here feels more like excavation: painful, dusty, uneven, and necessary only because carrying the old verdicts became its own kind of captivity. I appreciated that she can see her parents clearly, including their addictions, racism, neglect, and emotional damage, while still refusing to reduce them to monsters. That nuance gives the book its moral weight. The most powerful thread, for me, was the way Miller keeps finding evidence of resilience where she once saw only damage. Singing “Is That All There Is?” in class, protecting her siblings, finding belonging in books and music, working in the fields, returning to school credits when a teacher tells her she can still graduate - these moments don’t erase the pain, but they complicate it. They show a girl repeatedly trying to build a self from whatever scraps of safety she can find.
Home felt less like a straight path from trauma to healing and more like a house slowly being lit room by room. Miller’s final reflections, especially her recognition that the cycle has been broken and that her wounds did not become her children’s inheritance, give the memoir a quiet and deeply earned beauty. I’d recommend it to readers who appreciate reflective memoirs about family trauma, complex PTSD, addiction, resilience, and forgiveness, especially those who want a personal story that’s emotionally honest without being self-pitying. This is a book for anyone who understands that healing rarely arrives as a grand revelation; sometimes it comes as the courage to look back, take the child self by the hand, and finally lead her home.
I enjoyed the way Miller writes childhood from the inside out. She doesn’t flatten young Amy into a symbol of suffering; she lets her be hungry, observant, funny, embarrassed, furious, loyal, and achingly hopeful all at once. The scenes have a lived-in texture that makes them difficult to shake. I could feel the dread in the old house with the locked room and water-filled storm cellar, the humiliation of being sent home because a dress was too short, the quiet heartbreak of a forgotten birthday, and the surreal horror of cleaning blood from the bathroom floor after her mother’s suicide attempt. Miller’s prose is strongest when it trusts sensory memory: bleach coiling through a room, a motel sign blinking in the desert night, homemade bread arriving like grace. The explanatory passages about trauma and research slow the narrative, but I also understood why they were there. It’s a memoir about what happened and also about learning how to name what happened after spending years surviving it without language.
I found the book’s ideas about forgiveness especially moving because Miller doesn’t make forgiveness feel soft or easy. She refuses the shallow version of it, the kind that asks a wounded person to tidy up the past for everyone else’s comfort. Instead, forgiveness here feels more like excavation: painful, dusty, uneven, and necessary only because carrying the old verdicts became its own kind of captivity. I appreciated that she can see her parents clearly, including their addictions, racism, neglect, and emotional damage, while still refusing to reduce them to monsters. That nuance gives the book its moral weight. The most powerful thread, for me, was the way Miller keeps finding evidence of resilience where she once saw only damage. Singing “Is That All There Is?” in class, protecting her siblings, finding belonging in books and music, working in the fields, returning to school credits when a teacher tells her she can still graduate - these moments don’t erase the pain, but they complicate it. They show a girl repeatedly trying to build a self from whatever scraps of safety she can find.
Home felt less like a straight path from trauma to healing and more like a house slowly being lit room by room. Miller’s final reflections, especially her recognition that the cycle has been broken and that her wounds did not become her children’s inheritance, give the memoir a quiet and deeply earned beauty. I’d recommend it to readers who appreciate reflective memoirs about family trauma, complex PTSD, addiction, resilience, and forgiveness, especially those who want a personal story that’s emotionally honest without being self-pitying. This is a book for anyone who understands that healing rarely arrives as a grand revelation; sometimes it comes as the courage to look back, take the child self by the hand, and finally lead her home.
Review of advance copy received from Author
Home follows Amy Smyth Miller from a present-day crisis in a Bellingham ICU back through a childhood marked by poverty, neglect, and intergenerational trauma in the Midwest. The book opens with her husband’s heart attack and her spiraling panic, then moves into three arcs, “Roots,” “Rootless,” and “Transplanted,” tracing a line from her great-grandmother’s steady care, through her parents’ addictions and constant moves, to her later work as a teacher and her search for effective trauma therapy. Along the way, she threads in clear explanations of complex PTSD, especially the idea of it as a problem of how memory is stored, and she shows how lifespan integration and other somatic approaches help her piece her life into a coherent timeline and finally feel at home in herself.
The writing is gripping. The scenes are built with simple images that stuck with me. The plastic seat covers in the Buick, the smell of Pond’s cold cream and peppermints in Granny War Bonnet’s room, the dragonflies over the pond, the housekeeper ironing a floral dress on the night of a suicide. These details felt precise, not decorative, and they kept pulling me back to the emotional core of each chapter. The structure works well, too. The prologue sets a very tense, contemporary problem, and then the book steps backward into childhood and returns again to the present with more context. Sometimes the metaphors pile up, and the prose becomes lush. Overall, though, the voice is steady, kind, and unflinching, and I trusted it.
I appreciated that Miller does not turn her parents into simple villains, even when she describes clear neglect, hunger, and frightening behavior. She sits in the mess of loving them and being hurt by them at the same time, and she lets that tension stand. I liked how she shows what grounding or timeline work actually feels like in the room, and how she owns her missteps, including the painful texting episode with her husband. There were moments when the interplay of narrative and research slowed the pace, but I felt grateful for the educational layer. It made the book feel useful as well as moving.
Miller is very clear on the notion of complex PTSD as a long shadow cast by many smaller and larger wounds, and she keeps returning to the question of meaning. Not in a tidy, everything-happens-for-a-reason way, more in a “I refuse to let this be pointless” way. Her focus on protective figures and small stabilizing rituals, especially her great-grandmother’s stories and “angel crowns,” pushes back against the common narrative that survival is purely individual grit. I also liked her insistence that healing is not erasing the past but putting it in order so it stops crashing into the present. As someone reading this as a memoir rather than a clinical text, I appreciated how accessible the psychological parts felt. She explains concepts in plain language and grounds them in specific episodes from her life, so I never felt lectured at.
I would recommend Home to readers who come from chaotic or painful families, to people living with complex trauma, and to therapists, teachers, and caregivers who want a lived-in portrait of what CPTSD can look like from the inside. It is not a light read, and there are frank depictions of suicide, emotional abuse, and neglect, so I would be cautious recommending it to someone in a very raw place without support. For readers who can hold that weight and are looking for a story that blends honest hurt with genuine hope, this memoir feels like a companion, not just a case study.
The writing is gripping. The scenes are built with simple images that stuck with me. The plastic seat covers in the Buick, the smell of Pond’s cold cream and peppermints in Granny War Bonnet’s room, the dragonflies over the pond, the housekeeper ironing a floral dress on the night of a suicide. These details felt precise, not decorative, and they kept pulling me back to the emotional core of each chapter. The structure works well, too. The prologue sets a very tense, contemporary problem, and then the book steps backward into childhood and returns again to the present with more context. Sometimes the metaphors pile up, and the prose becomes lush. Overall, though, the voice is steady, kind, and unflinching, and I trusted it.
I appreciated that Miller does not turn her parents into simple villains, even when she describes clear neglect, hunger, and frightening behavior. She sits in the mess of loving them and being hurt by them at the same time, and she lets that tension stand. I liked how she shows what grounding or timeline work actually feels like in the room, and how she owns her missteps, including the painful texting episode with her husband. There were moments when the interplay of narrative and research slowed the pace, but I felt grateful for the educational layer. It made the book feel useful as well as moving.
Miller is very clear on the notion of complex PTSD as a long shadow cast by many smaller and larger wounds, and she keeps returning to the question of meaning. Not in a tidy, everything-happens-for-a-reason way, more in a “I refuse to let this be pointless” way. Her focus on protective figures and small stabilizing rituals, especially her great-grandmother’s stories and “angel crowns,” pushes back against the common narrative that survival is purely individual grit. I also liked her insistence that healing is not erasing the past but putting it in order so it stops crashing into the present. As someone reading this as a memoir rather than a clinical text, I appreciated how accessible the psychological parts felt. She explains concepts in plain language and grounds them in specific episodes from her life, so I never felt lectured at.
I would recommend Home to readers who come from chaotic or painful families, to people living with complex trauma, and to therapists, teachers, and caregivers who want a lived-in portrait of what CPTSD can look like from the inside. It is not a light read, and there are frank depictions of suicide, emotional abuse, and neglect, so I would be cautious recommending it to someone in a very raw place without support. For readers who can hold that weight and are looking for a story that blends honest hurt with genuine hope, this memoir feels like a companion, not just a case study.
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August 3, 2026Home: A Memoir of Family, Forgiveness, and Healing from Complex PTSD by Amy Smyth Miller is a courageous, deeply moving, and emotionally illuminating memoir that explores the lifelong impact of childhood trauma while offering a powerful message of healing, resilience, and hope. Through remarkable honesty and compassionate self-reflection, Miller chronicles her journey of confronting painful family history, uncovering buried memories, and learning that true healing begins by understanding the past rather than running from it. The result is an inspiring memoir that speaks to anyone seeking wholeness after adversity.
One of the book's greatest strengths is its emotional authenticity. Amy Smyth Miller writes with extraordinary openness about childhood neglect, homelessness, addiction, family loss, and the challenges of living with Complex PTSD. Her willingness to examine both painful memories and difficult emotions with honesty creates a narrative that feels deeply personal while remaining profoundly relatable to readers navigating their own healing journeys.
Particularly compelling is the memoir's exploration of trauma through the lens of hope rather than despair. Rather than allowing hardship to define her story, Miller thoughtfully examines how understanding the roots of trauma can become the first step toward freedom, self-compassion, and emotional restoration. Her journey demonstrates that healing is possible even when the past feels overwhelming.
Another notable strength is the book's thoughtful portrayal of family complexity. Rather than presenting people as simply heroes or villains, Miller explores the generational patterns, circumstances, and relationships that shaped her family with empathy and nuance. This balanced perspective gives the memoir emotional depth while encouraging readers to approach forgiveness and understanding with compassion.
The book also excels in weaving together personal storytelling with broader themes of mental health, resilience, identity, and emotional recovery. Miller's investigative approach to piecing together forgotten memories and family history creates a compelling narrative that is both emotionally engaging and intellectually thoughtful.
Beyond its personal story, the memoir explores universal themes of childhood trauma, family relationships, forgiveness, mental health, resilience, identity, healing, generational patterns, self-discovery, and the search for belonging. These timeless themes allow readers from many different backgrounds to connect with the experiences and insights shared throughout the book.
Perhaps the memoir's most meaningful contribution is its reminder that healing does not require erasing the past but learning to understand it with courage, compassion, and grace. Amy Smyth Miller demonstrates that while trauma may shape a person's story, it does not have the final word. Home can ultimately become something we build within ourselves.
Heartfelt, insightful, and profoundly inspiring, Home: A Memoir of Family, Forgiveness, and Healing from Complex PTSD is a remarkable memoir that offers comfort, understanding, and hope to readers navigating their own paths toward healing. Amy Smyth Miller has created a deeply meaningful work that celebrates resilience, self-discovery, and the extraordinary strength of the human spirit.
One of the book's greatest strengths is its emotional authenticity. Amy Smyth Miller writes with extraordinary openness about childhood neglect, homelessness, addiction, family loss, and the challenges of living with Complex PTSD. Her willingness to examine both painful memories and difficult emotions with honesty creates a narrative that feels deeply personal while remaining profoundly relatable to readers navigating their own healing journeys.
Particularly compelling is the memoir's exploration of trauma through the lens of hope rather than despair. Rather than allowing hardship to define her story, Miller thoughtfully examines how understanding the roots of trauma can become the first step toward freedom, self-compassion, and emotional restoration. Her journey demonstrates that healing is possible even when the past feels overwhelming.
Another notable strength is the book's thoughtful portrayal of family complexity. Rather than presenting people as simply heroes or villains, Miller explores the generational patterns, circumstances, and relationships that shaped her family with empathy and nuance. This balanced perspective gives the memoir emotional depth while encouraging readers to approach forgiveness and understanding with compassion.
The book also excels in weaving together personal storytelling with broader themes of mental health, resilience, identity, and emotional recovery. Miller's investigative approach to piecing together forgotten memories and family history creates a compelling narrative that is both emotionally engaging and intellectually thoughtful.
Beyond its personal story, the memoir explores universal themes of childhood trauma, family relationships, forgiveness, mental health, resilience, identity, healing, generational patterns, self-discovery, and the search for belonging. These timeless themes allow readers from many different backgrounds to connect with the experiences and insights shared throughout the book.
Perhaps the memoir's most meaningful contribution is its reminder that healing does not require erasing the past but learning to understand it with courage, compassion, and grace. Amy Smyth Miller demonstrates that while trauma may shape a person's story, it does not have the final word. Home can ultimately become something we build within ourselves.
Heartfelt, insightful, and profoundly inspiring, Home: A Memoir of Family, Forgiveness, and Healing from Complex PTSD is a remarkable memoir that offers comfort, understanding, and hope to readers navigating their own paths toward healing. Amy Smyth Miller has created a deeply meaningful work that celebrates resilience, self-discovery, and the extraordinary strength of the human spirit.
Review of advance copy received from NetGalley
📝 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.
Quote’s 👇
“Complex post-traumatic stress disorder is caused by severe and prolonged trauma, and the greater the severity of trauma a person experiences, the more difficulty they will have retrieving positive memories.”
“For many years, I denied that I had suffered any abuse as a child. While I couldn't deny neglect, I had no scars to show that I had been physically abused. I didn't know what years of research have now proven: emotional abuse, the shaming, name-calling, insults, and withholding of emotional nurturance and support were just as damaging, if not more so, than physical or sexual abuse. My scars were there; they just weren't visible to the eye.”
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.
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.
Quote’s 👇
“Complex post-traumatic stress disorder is caused by severe and prolonged trauma, and the greater the severity of trauma a person experiences, the more difficulty they will have retrieving positive memories.”
“For many years, I denied that I had suffered any abuse as a child. While I couldn't deny neglect, I had no scars to show that I had been physically abused. I didn't know what years of research have now proven: emotional abuse, the shaming, name-calling, insults, and withholding of emotional nurturance and support were just as damaging, if not more so, than physical or sexual abuse. My scars were there; they just weren't visible to the eye.”
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.
Review of advance copy received from Author
Reading Home was emotional, informative, and also comforting.
The author opens the book detailing her husband’s heart attack and recovery, which led to a spiral of outsized panic and a pattern of problematic reactions to interactions throughout the different relationships in her life. This experience led her to return to therapy and eventually to a diagnosis of complex PTSD.
This opening introduces the techniques used to help Amy navigate through her difficult childhood and recognize the roots of her trauma responses as well as the more positive factors that helped her thrive in adulthood.
The bulk of the book contains memories from throughout the author’s childhood woven with information on complex PTSD and the process Amy went through with her therapist to access and process these memories. Amy endured a childhood full of upheaval, neglect, emotional abuse, and uncertainty (due to poverty and her parents’ addictions). Some of the memories only came back in detail as therapy continued. The book ends with the recalling of a pivotal memory that was previously not accessible in detail. This moment led to a breakthrough in understanding and comforting Amy’s young self, strengthening her ability to manage her reactions and be in control of her life.
I found the way the book was structured very helpful. I’m new to understanding complex PTSD and I learned a lot about how therapy can be used to address it. My particular experiences and trauma are differnt than Amy’s but it was easy to relate to her experience working with her therapist. “Seeing” how this unfolded and imagining myself going through a similar process was very comforting. My heart broke for young Amy as I read so many painful memories but I also felt inspired by her, as she kept going, adapting and enduring and striving for happiness.
I highly recommend Home for anyone with trauma in their background or who wants to understand more about how trauma stays with you.
Thank you Amy for having me as an ARC reader and for sharing your experiences!
(I'm leaving this review voluntarily and all views are my own.)
The author opens the book detailing her husband’s heart attack and recovery, which led to a spiral of outsized panic and a pattern of problematic reactions to interactions throughout the different relationships in her life. This experience led her to return to therapy and eventually to a diagnosis of complex PTSD.
This opening introduces the techniques used to help Amy navigate through her difficult childhood and recognize the roots of her trauma responses as well as the more positive factors that helped her thrive in adulthood.
The bulk of the book contains memories from throughout the author’s childhood woven with information on complex PTSD and the process Amy went through with her therapist to access and process these memories. Amy endured a childhood full of upheaval, neglect, emotional abuse, and uncertainty (due to poverty and her parents’ addictions). Some of the memories only came back in detail as therapy continued. The book ends with the recalling of a pivotal memory that was previously not accessible in detail. This moment led to a breakthrough in understanding and comforting Amy’s young self, strengthening her ability to manage her reactions and be in control of her life.
I found the way the book was structured very helpful. I’m new to understanding complex PTSD and I learned a lot about how therapy can be used to address it. My particular experiences and trauma are differnt than Amy’s but it was easy to relate to her experience working with her therapist. “Seeing” how this unfolded and imagining myself going through a similar process was very comforting. My heart broke for young Amy as I read so many painful memories but I also felt inspired by her, as she kept going, adapting and enduring and striving for happiness.
I highly recommend Home for anyone with trauma in their background or who wants to understand more about how trauma stays with you.
Thank you Amy for having me as an ARC reader and for sharing your experiences!
(I'm leaving this review voluntarily and all views are my own.)
Review of advance copy received from Author
⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
Home by Amy Smith Miller
I don’t even know where to start with this one.
I’ll be honest. It started a little slow for me and I was nervous. I thought please don’t let this be one of those memoirs that never really takes off. But wow once it picked up it really picked up.
This book felt personal. Not just for the author but for me as the reader.
There were so many moments that punched me in the gut because I could relate so deeply. The line about believing what happened to us was our fault stopped me in my tracks. That belief is something I have personally wrestled with in my own healing journey.
And when she wrote about one of the most devastating consequences of abuse being the belief that she wasn’t worthy of love or care that one sat heavy. That is the kind of lie trauma plants deep.
What I appreciated most is that this was not just a trauma story. It was layered. It was about family dynamics, sibling roles, survival, forgiveness, and what healing actually looks like when it is messy and slow and real. The grandmother felt vivid and real. The dragonfly symbolism was beautiful without feeling forced and ill
never look at dragonflies the same !!!
As someone actively walking through my own PTSD healing this book felt like a God thing that I came across it when I did. It made me feel less alone in some of the hardest parts.
For a debut memoir this did not feel amateur. It felt brave.
If you have ever struggled with complex trauma, family dysfunction, or the lie that you are not worthy of love this one will probably hit home and make you wanna see a therapist and dive deep
Thank you to the author for the ARC copy. I am truly grateful I got to read this early.
I received an advance reader copy of this book from the author in exchange for an honest review. All opinions are my own.
Review of advance copy received from Author
It seems almost weird to say that I REALLY liked this book when it is a memoir of the author's life that deals with so many hardships and childhood abuse. At times, this book is very heavy and heartbreaking. The bright side is that in the end, she has found healing and forgiveness from complex PTSD, and she shares methods. Thru out the book she cites different methods that are used to help people heal and move forward from childhood traumas. At the back of the book, there is an entire section that goes chapter by chapter, giving references as to where to find help.
The beginning of the book is a delight to read. Amy is a great story teller and you can visualize the different settings very easily. I loved her stories about different childhood memories, and especially enjoyed Granny War Bonet! It reminded me of my granny. I always have a soft spot for any book with a loving and wise grandmother character. You will want to take notes from page 31 where she goes into detail about making pie crusts! (Amy had also sent me 2 recipe cards, one for her grandpa's biscuits & sausage gravy, and another for her Aunt Jane's chicken noodle soup. I'm looking forward to making both of those. . . .and also making a pie using her grandma's method.) I am very much a foodie, so little things like this from authors are so cherished.
Amy thank you so much for my copy of HOME!!! Your book is one that I'll always remember.
"Home is not a place; it's a feeling you carry with you where you go."
One of my fav parts of the book: "With a single breath, I was her beloved great-granddaughter again, in that house that anchored me to her and my aunts, uncles, and cousins, to dragonflies, and to summer afternoons spent in her and grandpa's room. All she'd taught me came rushing back. I remembered who I was supposed to be."
The beginning of the book is a delight to read. Amy is a great story teller and you can visualize the different settings very easily. I loved her stories about different childhood memories, and especially enjoyed Granny War Bonet! It reminded me of my granny. I always have a soft spot for any book with a loving and wise grandmother character. You will want to take notes from page 31 where she goes into detail about making pie crusts! (Amy had also sent me 2 recipe cards, one for her grandpa's biscuits & sausage gravy, and another for her Aunt Jane's chicken noodle soup. I'm looking forward to making both of those. . . .and also making a pie using her grandma's method.) I am very much a foodie, so little things like this from authors are so cherished.
Amy thank you so much for my copy of HOME!!! Your book is one that I'll always remember.
"Home is not a place; it's a feeling you carry with you where you go."
One of my fav parts of the book: "With a single breath, I was her beloved great-granddaughter again, in that house that anchored me to her and my aunts, uncles, and cousins, to dragonflies, and to summer afternoons spent in her and grandpa's room. All she'd taught me came rushing back. I remembered who I was supposed to be."
Review of advance copy
Amy Smyth Miller’s Home: A Memoir of Family, Forgiveness, & Healing from Complex PTSD is a deeply moving and courageous exploration of what it takes to reclaim one's life after years of childhood trauma. With striking honesty and emotional clarity, Miller invites readers into the intimate process of unraveling C-PTSD, weaving together memories of growing up with highly unstable parents who constantly uproot the family from one trailer park or sketchy home to the next, never allowing the kids to finish a full year in one school or make lasting friendships. Amy’s insights are hard-won. Rather than offering a simple linear success story, she grounds her narrative in the messy, non-linear reality of healing—highlighting how forgiveness and understanding family dynamics are rarely quick or easy, but profoundly transformative. While the emotional intensity of the subject matter is intense, Miller’s empathetic voice serves as an anchor throughout, making the book both deeply resonant and essential for anyone navigating trauma recovery. It is a compassionate testament to human resilience and a insightful resource for survivors, loved ones, and mental health advocates alike. Anyone who loved Educated, by Tara Westover, or The Glass Castle, by Jeannette Walls will appreciate this book.
Review of advance copy received from NetGalley
Thank you to #NetGalley for the opportunity to read this book in advance of publication and for letting me review it!
Amy Smyth Miller’s open honest reflection of her dysfunctional home life shows a serious pattern of neglect. She had parents incapable of being parents. Thus a young girl is forced to live in an adult world of sorts fending often times for herself and her siblings. More often than not, her needs are not met in any shape or form and yet she keeps hoping....one day her parents will come through. When it doesn't happen, it kinda breaks her up inside. Years later, in therapy, memories and reflections give her a safe environment to under Complex PTSD, who she is and why and how to survive past it to a happy life. She needs and wants to remember but equally needs and wants to move on.
This is a story about a survivor and you get an opportunity to be a part of that journey by reading this book!
HOME is a place we can create.
Amy Smyth Miller’s open honest reflection of her dysfunctional home life shows a serious pattern of neglect. She had parents incapable of being parents. Thus a young girl is forced to live in an adult world of sorts fending often times for herself and her siblings. More often than not, her needs are not met in any shape or form and yet she keeps hoping....one day her parents will come through. When it doesn't happen, it kinda breaks her up inside. Years later, in therapy, memories and reflections give her a safe environment to under Complex PTSD, who she is and why and how to survive past it to a happy life. She needs and wants to remember but equally needs and wants to move on.
This is a story about a survivor and you get an opportunity to be a part of that journey by reading this book!
HOME is a place we can create.
Review of advance copy received from Author
I read an ARC of "Home: A Memoir of Family, Forgiveness, and Healing From Complex PTSD" on a Sunday, as I could not put this riveting book down. Amy Smyth Miller's writing style is beautiful and meaningful in this heartbreaking, heartwarming, and healing book. I was extremely invested in the story of her life and her family history. I am beyond inspired by the choices she made everyday to listen to the important people in her life in order to persevere and move forward throughout her childhood trauma and adulthood. This book is not only her story, but a guide and commentary on trauma and PTSD.
Review of advance copy received from NetGalley
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.
Review of advance copy received from Author
Home is a raw, courageous memoir that doesn't shy away from the devastating realities of childhood trauma, addiction, neglect, and Complex PTSD. Amy Smyth Miller writes with remarkable honesty, balancing heartbreaking moments with a powerful message of resilience, forgiveness, and hope.
This isn't an easy read, but it's an important one. Her journey toward healing is deeply moving and serves as a reminder that our past may shape us, but it doesn't have to define us. A compassionate, insightful memoir that will stay with me long after the final page.
This isn't an easy read, but it's an important one. Her journey toward healing is deeply moving and serves as a reminder that our past may shape us, but it doesn't have to define us. A compassionate, insightful memoir that will stay with me long after the final page.
Review of advance copy received from Author
Home is so much more than a memoir. Amy has masterfully taken her tumultuous upbringing and turned it into a great resource for others who've experienced CPTSD from childhood trauma. It's not an easy read, mainly because it's hard to think about any child living in such chaos, but it feels deeply important.
I live with CPTSD, and though I was really excited to begin reading this memoir, it took a long time for me to feel like I was in the right emotional space to start. But as soon as I did, I realized this book wasn't going to be as triggering as I'd feared. Instead, it made me feel seen, put my own experiences in perspective, and helped me understand myself and the way I approach life in a way I hadn't before.
Amy is a truly remarkable woman; to strip down to nothing and pour her heart on the page, and to do so with such finesse, shows how far she's advanced on her healing journey. She shares her story honestly, and while it often seems like fiction (because how could she sound so eloquent after the utter chaos of her adolescence?), it's not gratuitous. I'm in awe of her ability to write about immensely challenging times with such grace and forgiveness, especially toward the people who were supposed to provide her with a safe and loving home.
One thing that set this apart from other memoirs I've read was the CPTSD information scattered throughout. She'd share her reaction to a challenging experience and would explain how it was related to her trauma, including superscript numbers and a section in the back of the book citing sources. I loved this balance of memoir and "self-help" because it wasn't preachy or monotonous. It made it easy to see how many of my similar reactions to triggers are normal for someone with CPTSD.
I loved this memoir, and I'm so impressed with Amy. Her story is powerful, her writing is beautiful, and her knowledge of CPTSD is vast. This is a book I already know I'll reach for again.
Huge thank you to Amy Smyth Miller for providing me with a copy of this beautiful memoir! I'm so grateful for your vulnerability and for sharing your knowledge alongside it.
I live with CPTSD, and though I was really excited to begin reading this memoir, it took a long time for me to feel like I was in the right emotional space to start. But as soon as I did, I realized this book wasn't going to be as triggering as I'd feared. Instead, it made me feel seen, put my own experiences in perspective, and helped me understand myself and the way I approach life in a way I hadn't before.
Amy is a truly remarkable woman; to strip down to nothing and pour her heart on the page, and to do so with such finesse, shows how far she's advanced on her healing journey. She shares her story honestly, and while it often seems like fiction (because how could she sound so eloquent after the utter chaos of her adolescence?), it's not gratuitous. I'm in awe of her ability to write about immensely challenging times with such grace and forgiveness, especially toward the people who were supposed to provide her with a safe and loving home.
One thing that set this apart from other memoirs I've read was the CPTSD information scattered throughout. She'd share her reaction to a challenging experience and would explain how it was related to her trauma, including superscript numbers and a section in the back of the book citing sources. I loved this balance of memoir and "self-help" because it wasn't preachy or monotonous. It made it easy to see how many of my similar reactions to triggers are normal for someone with CPTSD.
I loved this memoir, and I'm so impressed with Amy. Her story is powerful, her writing is beautiful, and her knowledge of CPTSD is vast. This is a book I already know I'll reach for again.
Huge thank you to Amy Smyth Miller for providing me with a copy of this beautiful memoir! I'm so grateful for your vulnerability and for sharing your knowledge alongside it.
Review of advance copy received from Author
This story was beautifully written. I was drawn into Amy's story from the very beginning. It was reminiscent of The Glass Castle--a young girl whose family constantly moved around, child neglect, family trauma. By the time I got to the end, I was bawling. I can't imagine being at my high school graduation and no one in my family is there in support. Although my family situation was very different, there were several things I could relate to, such as verbal and emotional abuse. If you love memoirs, I highly suggest reading this one, especially if you are a teacher. Amy mentions several teachers who were instrumental in her success. I think it would be so helpful for teachers to be able to identify students like Amy who are victims of poverty and neglect.
Special thanks to Amy for the review copy!
Special thanks to Amy for the review copy!
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March 10, 2026This book was amazing and I could not put it down! I have already passed it on to a friend. Hope she writes more
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
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