The Tell: A Memoir

“The Tell encourages us to recognize that sometimes you must understand your own pain to fully experience life’s greatest joys—and Amy’s courage, vulnerability, and insight are a gift to us all.”—Reese Witherspoon, TIME 100 Most Influential People of 2025

“A beautiful account of the journey of courage it takes to face the truth of one’s past.”—Bessel van der Kolk, #1 New York Times bestselling author of The Body Keeps the Score

For decades, Amy ran. Through the dirt roads of Amarillo, Texas, where she grew up; to the campus of the University of Virginia, as a student athlete; on the streets of New York, where she built her adult life; through marriage, motherhood, and a thriving career. To outsiders, it all looked, in many ways, perfect. But Amy was running from something—a secret she was keeping not only from her family and friends, but unconsciously from herself. “You’re here, but you’re not here,” her daughter said to her one night. “Where are you, Mom?” So began Amy’s quest to solve a mystery trapped in the deep recesses of her own memory—a journey that would take her into the burgeoning field of psychedelic therapy, to the limits of the judicial system, and ultimately, home to the Texas panhandle, where her story began.

In her search for the truth, to understand and begin to recover from buried childhood trauma, Griffin interrogates the pursuit of perfectionism, control, and maintaining appearances that drives so many women, asking, when, in our path from girlhood to womanhood, did we learn to look outside ourselves for validation? What kind of freedom is possible if we accept the whole story and embrace who we really are? With hope, heart, and relentless honesty, she points a way forward for all of us, revealing the power of radical truth-telling to deepen our connections—with others and ourselves.

• The Tell: A Memoir by Amy Griffin
• Published by: Random House Audio on 3.11.2025
• Genre: Memoir, non-fiction
• Listening length: 7 hours 41 minutes
• Dates listened: 12.16.25 – 12.19.25
• Format: Audiobook
• Narrator: Amy Griffin
• Add on Goodreads
• Purchase on Amazon
• ⭐⭐⭐½

---

I noticed that this book was nominated for the Goodreads Readers’ Favorite Memoir of 2025, and after reading the blurb, I immediately wanted to read it. I had no idea who Amy Griffin was, or who she was linked to, but I spent my entire 20s living in Amarillo, TX. Nothing ever happens in Amarillo, so I was excited to have that connection to a book and author. It turns out she’s the granddaughter of the founders of Toot’n Totum. It’s a silly name, trust me, I know!! haha But Toot’n Totum is a large chain of convenience stores in the Panhandle of Texas. The business stayed in the family, and Griffin’s father is now the CEO/owner of the chain.

Before I get into my likes/dislikes about the book, I want to state that anyone who has gone through a traumatic childhood experience deserves to have their story told and heard. I can’t say that Griffin’s story is any more traumatic than the next person’s, but I have to wonder if her story would have even been heard had she not had the money and the connections that she has. And that to me seems just a bit unfair. Sadly, Griffin’s experience is not uncommon, and if truth be told, I’m willing to bet that it’s pretty universal. I don’t think I have a single female friend or family member, myself included, who isn’t a survivor of some type of sexual assault. So when I say that it doesn’t seem fair, I’m referring to the fact that because of Griffin’s connections, she gets to tell her story when so many millions of women can’t, or won’t.

Add on top of that, she admits that she only discovered the deeply buried secrets after she decided to try psychedelic-assisted therapy (use of MDMA or Ecstasy/Molly, as it’s commonly known), which is estimated to cost upwards of $12,000 per session. What normal person can afford that?! If she didn’t have the life that she has and was just a regular person like you or me, then maybe she never would have discovered this trauma and would have continued to suffer the rest of her life. And that’s a really difficult pill to swallow.

You can’t have light without the darkness. You have to feel all of it in order to feel any of it.

Psychedelic-assisted therapy is controversial as well and has not been approved by the FDA to be used. Which is probably part of the reason why these treatments are so pricey. Hell, after listening to this book, I Googled up how much the therapy costs because I’ve always wondered if I have some kind of repressed traumatic experiences holding me back, too. But once I saw that price tag, I was like “Newp, not for me!” lol But it concerns me that maybe after reading this book, someone may pursue this therapy on their own, without licensed providers and illegally.

I completely related to Griffin, however, when she describes how she was raised. We are from the same generation (she’s 48, I’m 46) and both “southern” girls from Texas. We were raised to say “yes ma’am, no sir” to anyone who was an adult. We were raised to be polite, quiet, good little girls who kept their legs together until marriage. So there is always this cloud of shame hanging over you if you somehow fail in one aspect or another of what being a “good Southern girl” is supposed to be. Whether it has to do with our generation or how we were raised, it affects every part of who you become as an adult woman, and you always feel like, in some way, you can never measure up. Some of us dive into deep depression and just give up trying, and some of us continuously try to drown out those voices in our heads as we strive for perfection we can never reach.

While I may think it’s a little unfair that Griffin can tell her story, I wholeheartedly applaud her for donating all the proceeds of this book to sexual assault survivors. I think it would really rub me the wrong way if she were padding her already inflated pocketbook with the sales from this book. Ultimately, I did enjoy the book, even if it was a sad thing to happen to anyone. And hey, if it brings some well-needed attention to psychedelic-assisted therapy, then I’m all for it, because I do believe it has benefits for certain individuals if it’s controlled and done safely.