The Outrun describes Amy Liptrot's experiences when she returns to live in Orkney, where she grew up on a farm with her schizophrenic and bipolar father and her evangelical Christian mother.

[10] Domenica Ruta, in The New York Times, states that the nature writing shapes the book into a sort of "personal travelogue of the Orkney Islands, their numinous geology and mystical history, from the unique perspective of one who is both an outsider and a native.

[12] Doug Johnstone in The Independent says that Liptrot's account "of the islands and their wildlife absolutely sizzles, a scintillating mix of clear-eyed insight and poetic heart.

"[13] Ruta, labelling The Outrun as a recovery memoir, describes the book as "full of lucid self-discovery and shimmering prose, ... more atmospheric than it is dramatic.

[11] Johnstone calls it a beautiful book, offering a marvellous evocation of her life on Orkney, at once a "searing memoir" and "sublime nature writing".

[13] In his view, the book adds up to a moving philosophy of life;[13] he finds the account of her "descent into drink ... raw and powerful ... without histrionics or melodrama".

[3] The BBC's Simon Richardson calls the book a moving personal memoir of alcoholism, likening it to Cheryl Strayed's 2012 Wild which described walking the long-distance Pacific Crest Trail in an attempt to shake out of her chaotic life.

"[2] The chair of the judges, Peter Parker, described it as an "exhilarating and rigorously unsentimental memoir ... Liptrot writes with wonderful clarity and invention.