3.5 ⭐️
I am always so drawn to dysfunctional family memoirs, especially when there is any focus on mothers. I assume this is my trauma manifesting and looking for some common ground and relatability. I can only imagine how healing it must be to finally get it all out in a memoir and to see so many others live that same experience so I will never fault someone for putting themselves out there in the most vulnerable ways.

There were aspects of this that were incredibly fascinating and others that I wish were focused on a bit more. There were times I felt like details were being given that didn’t pertain to much and then moments in which time skipped over a lot once Uhle reached adulthood. Trauma on a developing brain is so intense and will lead to lifelong issues that unfortunately victims have to take control of themselves and wish there were aspects of this talked about in the book. So much time was spent in her childhood to young adult years, in college, but I wanted more from her time married and as an adult.

Things that make books like Educated and I’m Glad My Mom Died so popular is just how much the authours put of themselves in the book. And while Uhle does this to an extent, I wish it focused more on her and less on her parents. There was so much of her parents history, stories, lies, decisions that I wanted a lot of refocus on her instead of them.

This wasn’t bad by any means and you will feel for Uhle in all the ways and I’m so happy for her to be healing and writing this. But it also wasn’t my favourite memoir.

3.5 stars, rounded up. This story is an eldest daughters' worst nightmare. I hope the author and her brother live the most happy, struggle-free lives after all that they endured and did to support their parents. The author was successful in conveying the weight of her guilt, and the impossibility of making any improvement to the situation describing the living conditions and financial recklessness of her parents. I finished eternally grateful for my stable upbringing and my similarly aged parents' health, presence of mind, and fiscal responsibility. I enjoy memoirs for perspectives like Amanda's that fill me with gratitude.

I appreciated that Destroy This House was an unusual type of family trauma memoir that I haven't seen before. Her parents' madness didn't result from a cult or religious sect, they were passing for many years as a 'normal' middle class family. The trajectory of her father from visionary inventor to MLM salesperson to Lutheran minister to therapy student was fascinating. The many Lutherans I know are more the steady, rational presence, and the author's father couldn't have been more opposite.

There were times this book really drew me in, but I found my interest waning after the second move in Indiana. Some redundancies that could have been edited out to keep the pacing, like multiple mentions of raccoons eating food on their balcony, could have brought this up to a 4 for me.

This memoir reminded me of The Glass Castle with the author as a young girl coming of age under the influence of her parents' mental illnesses. She and her younger brother are loved and cared for but growing up amidst her mother's incessant shopping and hoarding and her father's erratic career changes and financial scheming, her perception of normal is skewed. This was a fascinating look into a challenging childhood, filled with well-written details and compelling stories of a married couple going through life trying to parent in the best way they know how without full regard for their mental inadequacies. The details get a little buried as the author enters adulthood and becomes more aware of the dysfunction and irrational behavior of her parents. It felt rushed toward the end and I couldn't help but feel I was missing key elements when her parents succumbed to the final deterioration of their mental abilities. This was an interesting story written with compassion and love.

Thank you to Netgalley and the publisher for the Kindle ARC in exchange for an honest review. Destroy This House is an aptly-named memoir of Amanda uhle's childhood and adulthood until her parents die. She has feelings of responsibility and guilt for the messes her parents put themselves and the family through, mostly of a financial nature. Her mom was a hoarder, although didn't allow herself to be called such, and when all other business opportunities in life failed her father, he became a preacher, so that the family could live in the parsonage with no rent. Rental after rental, house after house, Ms. Uhle's parents continue their downward spiral until the roof literally caves in. Destroy This House is a harrowing tale of a childhood in which the children are not responsible for their parents' actions but feel the guilt anyway.

This is a deeply moving and beautifully written exploration of family, trauma and the complexities of caregiving. As someone who has also found themselves in the role of parenting the very people who were supposed to parent me and help ME through life, this book truly hit home. Amanda’s writing captures the weight of these experiences with raw honesty, portraying the inner conflict of loving and caring for those who have failed to do the same. The narrative unfolds with such heartbreaking clarity, giving voice to feelings I often struggled to put into words myself. It’s a tragic reflection on the impact of broken relationships and the ways we carry those burdens throughout our lives. I really liked this memoir.

ARC for review. Thank you NetGalley & Simon & Schuster

If you grew up in a household where you had to parent your parents, this book will feel like your diary. Amanda Uhle paints a vivid and honest picture of growing up with two emotionally immature parents. Her story left me frustrated, captivated, and feeling protective of her parents with every turn of the page. It was at times tragic and laughable with the decisions her parents made. I found myself wanting to reach into the book to shake the adults and get them to see what Amanda (and all of her readers) could see so clearly.

Though I’m one who typically reaches for memoirs about people who endured extreme situations, Uhle’s story kept my attention, even at times where it felt mundane. She has the unique ability to see her story from her own eyes and the eyes of a journalist. This balance makes a truly great book. I was pleasantly surprised!

Destroy This House by Amanda Uhle

Destroy This House is a heartfelt memoir. Amanda is clearly trying to understand herself, as well as her parents as she writes the experiences of living with two dysfunctional and mentally ill parents. She is a little disjointed in the first half of the book, but smoothes out in both the reporting and the writing for the second half of the book. One can certainly feel her anxiety as she starts to understand and reject her mother’s hoarding of food and fabric and her father’s cheerful lies. Their financial attitudes are incredible as she reports them. It is amazing that neither she, nor her younger brother, seem to have taken on these problems, but gone the opposite way- she as a minimalist and an MBA in business for her brother. It is also fascinating how her parents tolerated each other’s foibles. The only similarity with Educated and Glass Castle that I can see is how couples support each other’s mental illnesses. Ms. Uhle is not yet of the writer caliber of Jeannette Walls or Tara Westover.

Destroy This House is a poignant story of how the actions of parents are so critical to children's lives.

How are you supposed to realize that some things are wrong if the very people who brought you into this world assure you that certain things are just fine, that nothing is wrong at all? How do you grapple with growing up under the influence of unjust people who don't treat others well, including you, their own child?

This is a real account of what it is like to have to overcome an upbringing. To open your eyes and find the strength to continue on even when the hand you have been dealt means working twice as hard. Amanda writes a real account of her thoughts and feelings through it all, pulling no punches.

This memoir is beautiful and difficult. An exploration of how we are often bound to still love those who raised us the best they knew how. Along with what it's like to experience the heartache that comes with their shortcomings.


Thank you to NetGalley and Simon & Schuster for providing an eARC of Destroy This House in exchange for my honest opinions.

Publishing August 26, 2025

<i>Destroy This House</i> hooked me from the prologue and kept me engaged until around the halfway mark. The storytelling is straightforward with the occasional fact-checking of what she was able to find about her parents while writing the memoir. Unfortunately, I found myself speed-reading because the story became jumbled/repetitive and disorganized.

I sympathize with Amanda and know I cannot fully understand what she went through. Her tolerance of her parent's emotional manipulation and abuse was frustrating to read. Since it was not mentioned in the epilogue, I hope she has sought therapy to help address her complex grief and guilt because she gave so much more to her parents than they deserved.

Thank you to NetGalley and Simon & Schuster for the ARC!!

This book was so good! A true emotional depiction of a girl learning to grow up in an unstable environment. It was interesting reading about growing up with a hoarding house and how one learns to see the light in their own life.

Uhle's memoir is unlike anything I have ever read. It was fascinating to get glimpses into her life. The content is authentic and heartbreaking, but hopeful. I'm still thinking about it. Thanks to NetGalley for the ARC.

Thank you to the author, publisher, and NetGalley for an ARC.

Amanda Uhle’s Destroy This House is a powerful memoir about growing up in a world of extremes—wealth and poverty, deception and love, chaos and devotion. Her parents, a fashion designer and a smooth-talking schemer, moved their family through ten homes in five states, always chasing their next big break. As her mother’s hoarding worsened and her father’s risky ventures collapsed, Amanda struggled to make sense of their ever-changing reality.

At times, this book is frustrating and emotionally exhausting, but it’s also deeply thoughtful. The author's upbrining was both unconventional and largely dysfunctional. Uhle reflects on her parents’ wild choices with a mix of honesty, humor, and tenderness. Destroy This House is a gripping story of survival, resilience, and the complicated love between parents and children, no matter how messy that love may be.

Felt like reading an episode of Hoarders with even more intense emotion. I liked the exploration of parent/child dynamics; always feeling obligated to take care even in the face of manipulative psychological abuse.

I thoroughly enjoyed Destroy This House. While it’s a memoir, it’s written like a novel, which made it incredibly engaging and easy to read. The storytelling style drew me in and kept me turning the pages, even though the subject matter was often difficult.

The author’s account of her parents’ lives—her mother’s struggles with hoarding and both parents’ inability to manage money—was at times heartbreaking. Their constant financial chaos, with piles of unpaid bills, repossessed cars, and borrowing money from their children without repaying it (while insisting they had), painted a vivid and painful picture of instability.

What struck me most was the emotional weight of the author’s experiences. Her reflections on feeling unseen despite her efforts to help and connect were profoundly moving. The ending resonated deeply, especially when she tied their last name, Long, to its meaning as a verb: "To feel a strong desire or craving, especially for something not likely to be attained. To pine. To yearn." That insight encapsulated so much of her journey, perfectly summing up the themes of longing and unfulfilled connection that permeated her childhood.

Destroy This House is a beautifully written, thought-provoking memoir that stayed with me long after I finished reading.

Thank you to NetGalley and Simon & Schuster for providing me with an advanced copy in exchange for an honest review.

I don't love ranking memoirs on a star scale because the story is so personal to the author. It is well-written, albeit a bit verbose at times, but I had some overall objections to the impact it left.

The blurbs compare this book to Educated by Tara Westover and The Glass Castle by Jeannette Walls
but this is an imperfect analogy. While Uhle also tells of her experience growing up in a dysfunctional household, there is no discussion tying the issues back to a larger exploitative system. The story flip-flops from regarding her parents with reverence to character degradations which felt icky to me since both her parents have passed.

Overall, it was an enjoyable read but I do not think it rises to the level of thoughtful reflection that I was expecting based on the blurb.

Most importantly, a huge thank you to NetGalley, Amanda Uhle and Simon & Schuster for providing me with a copy of this publication in exchange for an honest review.

"In 'Detroy This House', Amanda sets out to document her parents unbelievable exploits and her own hard-won escape into independence. With humor and tenderness, Uhle has crafted a heartfelt and utterly unique memoir, capturing the raucousness, pain, joy, and ultimately, the boundless love that exists between all parents and children." -Dave Eggers, praise for 'Destroy This house'

Amanda Uhle was born into a loving yet dysfunctional family. Her father was a religious "motor mouth", her mother was a hoarder to the extreme and together they only saw the best in one another. Caught between loving them and hating the obstacles that love presented, Amanda and her younger brother Adam are left to navigate their childhoods and early adulthoods while striving to make sense of it all. Chaos ensues.

Although her writing seemed a bit jumbled and disorganized in places (I suppose the nature of the story is inevitably going to cause that), this was one book I couldn't put down and found myself making excuses to pick it up. Mrs. Uhle emotionally roped me in and kept me intrigued with how she would handle the bizarre situation presented. Her mom kept what on the counter for weeks?! Her dad did what with his taxes?!

Overall, 4 SOLID stars for this somewhat disturbing memoir of family and lovingthe regardless of everything they are, can be, and won't be.

4.5 stars. Extremely well-written memoir. The storytelling is straightforward and charming, even when managing to tell a difficult or unappealing story. I think this will be a hit upon publication!

Thank you to NetGalley and Simon & Schuster/Summit Books for the ARC.

Destroy This House is a compelling memoir! Amanda Uhle's been through some crazy things and this book is a wonderful retelling.

An interesting and often jaw-dropping memoir detailing among other things the complicated and troubling relationships with parents. The way Uhle writes brings us right alongside her, laying out all the details in a sometimes funny, sometimes uncomfortable manner that made me curious for more.
The author picks through the truth of her childhood declaring that half of what each of her parents said was a lie. Maneuvering through what may or may not be true, delivering it all wrapped up like a bow with the details finely milled.


An engaging story that assures I’ll keep my eye out for more nonfiction from this author.

this was a good memoir! I normally am not a fan of reading memoirs, but i did enjoy this one. It had emotions, funny bits, and some serious topics all rolled into one. It was well written

Thank you to NetGalley, to the author, and to the publisher for this complimentary ARC in exchange for my honest review!!!