The Outrun – Amy Liptrot

The January book from my Reading in Heels subscription was The Outrun by Amy Liptrot.

Avid readers will know that one of my presents for my 30th birthday from the hubby was a subscription for Reading in Heels.

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The plot

At the age of thirty, Amy Liptrot finds herself washed up back home on Orkney.

She tries to come to terms with the alcohol addiction that has swallowed the last decade of her life.

As she spends her mornings swimming in the bracingly cold sea, her days tracking Orkney’s wildlife, and her nights searching the sky for the Merry Dancers, Amy discovers how the wild can restore life and renew hope.

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My overall thoughts of The Outrun

I thoroughly enjoyed The Outrun from start to finish and the fact this isn’t fiction but Liptrot’s real battle with alcoholism and her road to recovery really drew me in.

Liptrot wanted to write about what happens after you get sober and that’s exactly what she does in The Outrun.

What makes Liptrot’s book different is the otherworldly setting.

When she returned to the Orkneys, she immersed herself in nature, taking long walks around her family’s wind-swept land, early-morning swims in the frigid cold Atlantic Ocean, watching the northern lights from an old theatre in the middle of town, and tracking the flocks of birds coming down from the Arctic.

Eventually, Liptrot found peace and began to imagine a kind of future she had never before thought possible.

She also includes a glossary to define such terms as “haar” (sea fog) and “kirk” (church) at the beginning of the book which I found quite useful.

This is an ordinary addiction memoir set in an extraordinary place.

It is worth reading just for the descriptions of life on a “beautiful, barely touched stretch of land.”

I would absolutely recommend this book I read it quite quickly because I enjoyed it so much.

This has been my favourite book from the Reading in Heels subscription so far.

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Other related posts

My first Reading In Heels book review was Stories We Tell Ourselves by Sarah Françoise.

The second Reading in Heels book review was States of Passion by Nihad Sirees.

Here’s my thoughts on BookBub a daily special-offers service for ebooks

Here’s my thoughts on A Star is Born

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