<h1 style="text-align: center;">REVIEWS</h1>
A young girl is insulated by her vivid imagination against the bitter realities that she faces in Tess Banion’s Parting Glass. For the O’Sullivans, life is a cycle of hardships, because the world has chosen to make it that way. Eleven-year-old Elizabeth is getting a huge slice of the cruel, sick joke that life has thrown at them. She is a high-spirited and imaginative girl who attends a Catholic school where the nuns know who pays for tuition and those who get it for free, and they measure children’s behavior by this fact. Sister Mary Paul loathes Elizabeth. She has the propensity to whack the knuckles of any child, but most of the time, it is Elizabeth. Home is no better as she and her siblings are tormented by an abusive father. A music box creates a turning point that will change her life and, with the help of her siblings, find a gateway to freedom from the real and imagined monsters that surround them.

If you think A Parting Glass is ideally suited for film adaptation, it will likely have a dramatic aura like The Diary of Anne Frank. While it does tackle issues of domestic abuse, it can conceivably appeal to teen readers. Similarly, adults are likely to appreciate the pressing themes that Banion has chosen to write about. In this world, children find refuge inside their heads. This allows Elizabeth to remain resilient, yet Banion cleverly uses a music box as a literary device to contrast the security in imagination and the danger lurking in reality. In the end, it is real people who become greatly instrumental in aiding Elizabeth to achieve a discernible transformation, but it does not negate the fact that Joan of Arc helped her in those troubling times. Consider yourself fortunate if you get to read Elizabeth’s dramatic triumph.

~Vincent Dublado, Readers’ Favorite

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A Parting Glass: A Novel by Tess Banion is a heartwarming story that follows eleven-year-old Elizabeth O’Sullivan, a girl struggling to find happiness in a world to which she does not feel fully connected. She is a carefree little girl with a lot of imagination. She is not comfortable with Sister Mary Paul when in school and at home she confronts another monster, a brutal father. How does she cope with realities that hit her hard and can she survive her eleventh year to be able to leave the Catholic School? The way she does it will surprise readers.

This is a brilliantly written story with a plot that follows the life of a girl who is as imaginative as she is resourceful. Set in a small town in Kansas, the story explores the fears and hopes of a growing little girl who is caught between reality and fantasy. The author does an impeccable job in developing the theme of escapism, as Elizabeth struggles with the real and imaginary monsters in her life. The writing is gorgeous, highly descriptive, and spiced with humor. The family dynamics are ingeniously written and I enjoyed the way the young protagonist connects with her brothers and sister. The role of her mom in her life is not just well-written but inspiring.

A Parting Glass: A Novel will appeal to fans of young adult fiction, adventure, and stories that inspire. It is hugely entertaining, a gripping story that will have readers going through the pages nonstop. For me, it was a delightful story with a well-developed, multilayered protagonist; a world I have navigated as a child and that still echoes strongly in my heart.

~By Divine Zape, Readers’ Favorite

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A Parting Glass: A Novel by Tess Banion is a bittersweet recounting of a young girl’s emotional, physical, and mental abuse by her father within their dysfunctional family. Elizabeth is just an imaginative, bright, eleven-year-old girl growing up in a railway town in rural Kansas with her four other siblings at the end of WWII. Life at home revolves totally around the moods of her diabetic father, Junior. At times, Junior can seem like a sweet, loving, husband and father but once that red mist descends the entire family knows exactly what to do and how to handle the situation, as best children can. For Elizabeth, who faces torment at home as well as at her strict Catholic school, where one of the nuns clearly has it in for her, she has adopted a world of fantasy where she can run away and hide to escape the evil monsters that seem out to get her. As she and her siblings grow older, it seems her brothers are reaching the point where they may start to fight back and especially protect their poor mother against her extreme abuse by Junior. Is this family heading for a final reckoning that will see them escape from the never-ending torment of abuse? Can Elizabeth rely on her “saints” -the sweet nun, Sister Mary Rose, or perhaps the kind policeman to be the family’s savior - or will they all have to rely on each other to find a way out of this mayhem?

A Parting Glass is a theme that many readers will sadly identify with and for that reason alone is a powerful and compelling read. Author Tess Banion has created a cast of characters that ring true and in Elizabeth she has a wonderful young girl who feels apart from the world and the torment being foisted upon her. She has found a way to supersede the worst of the abuse by looking inside herself and creating a world that she is comfortable living in. The author did an amazing job of building heightened tension in the narrative that beautifully matched the explosive changes in Junior’s psyche, where he could turn on a sixpence from being loving and caring into the monster that Elizabeth so feared. I particularly enjoyed the close relationships the siblings had with each other. With adversity comes a drawing together, a feeling of all-for-one and one-for-all, which was the recurring thread of this story. Banion captured perfectly the helplessness of the battered woman and her children – especially in this time period when the male was king and what he said was law. Add to that the not-so-subtle misogyny of the Catholic church and you have a recipe for dysfunction. A weak, frustrated and emotionally damaged male family head is all that is required for an explosive and violent tale. This was both a heart-rending and heart-affirming novel and the author has done extremely well in presenting an easy-to-read and extremely relatable story. This is one book I can highly recommend.

~Grant Leishman, Readers’ Favorite

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<span style="font-weight: 400;">W</span><span style="font-weight: 400;">hat a refreshingly dif</span><span style="font-weight: 400;">ferent read! The subject  </span><span style="font-weight: 400;">matter is very heavy as </span><span style="font-weight: 400;">the author tackles domestic abuse  head on, however it is written in  such a gentle, childlike way that it  could have been written by Enid  Blyton. </span><span style="font-weight: 400;">It's the story of a young girl,  Elizabeth, the fourth of five chil dren whose father is a drunken  bully. It is not a sad story though.  Elizabeth's spirit and energy are  addictive and I could not wait to  find out the ending. Poignant and  dream like, what a way to tackle  such a tough topic! </span>

<i><span style="font-weight: 400;">~</span></i><span style="font-weight: 400;">Michelle S., NetGalley Reviewer</span>