This author participates in the Readers' Favorite Free Book Program, which is open to all readers and is completely free. The author will provide you with a free copy of their book in exchange for an honest review. You and the author will discuss what sites you will post your review to and what kind of copy of the book you would like to receive (eBook, PDF, Word, paperback, etc.). To begin, click the purple email icon to send this author a private email.
This author participates in the Readers' Favorite Book Review Exchange Program, which is open to all authors and is completely free. Simply put, you agree to provide an honest review an author's book in exchange for the author doing the same for you. What sites your reviews are posted on (B&N, Amazon, etc.) and whether you send digital (eBook, PDF, Word, etc.) or hard copies of your books to each other for review is up to you. To begin, click the purple email icon to send this author a private email, and be sure to describe your book or include a link to your Readers' Favorite review page or Amazon page.
This author participates in the Readers' Favorite Book Donation Program, which was created to help nonprofit and charitable organizations (schools, libraries, convalescent homes, soldier donation programs, etc.) by providing them with free books and to help authors garner more exposure for their work. This author is willing to donate free copies of their book in exchange for reviews (if circumstances allow) and the knowledge that their book is being read and enjoyed. To begin, click the purple email icon to send this author a private email. Be sure to tell the author who you are, what organization you are with, how many books you need, how they will be used, and the number of reviews, if any, you would be able to provide.
Reviewed by Jamie Michele for Readers' Favorite
In Eilidh MacTavish's Any Way Out, an unnamed child lives with Pop, a father who destroys her youth with physical, sexual, and emotional abuse. Mother, who is also a victim, still lashes out at the child and blames her for much of the abuse. As time passes, Mother’s health begins to fail after years of violence, leaving the narrator to handle bandages while Pop turns grief into another weapon. After relatives gather, Aunt M notices what others have missed and offers the child a possible exit. As Pop keeps reaching into that new life through calls and threats, the child must decide how to tell the truth after years spent surviving by pretending before Pop can define what comes next in her own young life.
In Any Way Out, Eilidh MacTavish leans into the child narrator’s private wish for an escape from Pop’s brutal household. This is an extremely thoughtful novel with incredibly jarring moments, including descriptions of child sexual and physical abuse, and a complete institutional failure when the police visit after violence in the home and do nothing. The author writes the child's voice in a biting, self-protective first-person narrative that grows stronger as she approaches her teen years. Her reaction to being called a “sookie calf” shows a mind still fighting for dignity. I would have preferred the book not be written entirely in capital letters, but I do understand the reasoning behind the formatting choice. The settings are described in harsh domestic detail, from a house without electricity, with only cold water, to a motor home that becomes claustrophobic, and later a cramped shelter against winter. This book will suit adult readers drawn to literary family fiction, survivor-centered stories, and novels about a child searching for a life beyond fear.
