10/12/2026
đźš©"If you read one book this year, make it this one."
"One of or if not the best autobiographies I have ever read."
"I started it less than 48 hours ago and had trouble putting it down."
"Witty, insightful, self-deprecating, honest, and brave. The author has a remarkable ability to tell hard truths without losing sight of the humour, absurdity, and humanity that exist alongside them."
"I loved every stitch of this book."
"A compelling window into what it’s like to live in a functional trauma response, unsure of how to face our pasts while we live in the present, worried for the future, and the way our ordinary interactions can trigger us to investigate the stories we carry in our mind, body, and soul. Readers will relate to the tension, and her story demonstrates why, when we do our trauma healing work, we’re empowered to break cycles for our descendants.”
"Aspler’s odyssey from street-kid to ER doctor is almost unbelievable. But not only is it true, it’s just the beginning. Rise After Silence will have you cheering for humanity – for our capacity to survive, and then our enduring strength to try and save others.”
"Anne Aspler has a genuinely remarkable story -- one of the most devastating and also life-affirming personal narratives."
“I have had the privilege of reading Anne Aspler’s unforgettable book—a story of triumph over shame, compassion over judgment, and deeply devoted public service even in the face of private heartache."
"What makes this story so powerful is its duality: she is both caregiver and survivor, a mother striving to protect her two young daughters while confronting the unresolved traumas of her own upbringing. Her work with survivors of intimate partner and family violence in the ER mirrors her internal battle, each person’s story echoing the justice and compassion she once needed but rarely received. And so, she begins to do what she needs to do to understand and heal: she reopens closed files. Not just metaphorically, but literally, reaching back into the past, seeking out people who shaped her pain, asking questions that were never allowed, and refusing to let silence have the final word."
"One of the most compelling medical memoirs of our time."
"I appreciated that one of the strongest characters in the book is simply a decent man. Not a saviour. Not perfect. Not even a big personality. Just a kind, respectful, grounding person that shows love in healthy ways."
"Every woman will recognize herself in this story."
"SO GOOD!"
đź“• At 5 a.m. in the emergency department, Dr. Anne Aspler is the physician treating patients in crisis. She collects forensic evidence from sexual assault survivors. She sets the shattered bones of domestic abuse victims. But beneath the white coat, she is wrestling with a crisis of her own.
Anne’s father is a convicted serial ra**st. Her mother is lost to severe schizophrenia, hoarding, and the streets. Raised amid religious fundamentalism, foster care, and poverty, Anne ran in the opposite direction—eventually becoming a Harvard-trained doctor. To survive, she severed ties with her father, shed her faith, and built a pristine, controlled life.
But the ER is a mirror. When Anne treats women injured by their partners, or patients wrestling with PTSD and addiction, the boundary between doctor and patient collapses. Caring for them forces her to ask an impossible question: How will she explain her parents to her young daughters—and should they ever meet their grandfather?
Rise After Silence is a visceral, unsparing memoir about the collision of professional duty and deeply buried personal trauma. It is an exploration of how private violence never stays private. It compounds. It migrates. And it demands to be brought into the light. An unflinching look at what we inherit and the fierce work of deciding what we pass on.
