In this heart-wrenchingly sincere and unvarnished memoir, Amara Shores recounts a story of breaking cycles, healing generational trauma, and finding freedom after years of silence.
Born into a family still reeling from the generational impact of residential schools, Shores recounts her darkest moments: neglected, abused, left alone to care for herself and her children, and failed utterly by child protection services, by the courts, and by the mental health services that were supposed to be there for her. But no fall would be her last; Shores traces her recovery from addiction, her journey to self-love, and her refusal to continue the cycle of generational trauma and colonial violence with her own children.
A real, gritty, but inspiring story of personal growth, resilience, and hope in the face of overwhelming grief and pain. Whether you’ve been in her shoes or hope to better-understand those who have, this story offers honesty, empathy, and the very real possibility of becoming something new.
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Amara Shores
Amara Shores has survived addiction, abuse, poverty, and systemic failures; she has persevered through homelessness, single motherhood, relapse, and recovery to build a stable life for her children. She hopes her story will illuminate the brutal gaps in the societal systems we trust to protect us—both for those who want to change them and those trying to find their way out.
In her life, Shores has worn a lot of hats—she’s worked in construction, hairdressing, care-aid, support work, and office administration, whatever her family needed at the time, and struggled towards healing along the way. Now, with “author” perched at the top of the pile, she’s imagining how her story might help stop the cycle–in families shaped by Indigenous trauma, like her own, and in communities around the world still living with the weight of generational pain.
Shores lives in British Columbia, Canada, with her daughter and their two dogs.
