Upright Women Wanted
Author: Sarah Gailey
Published by: Tor Books
Pages: 176
Format: Hardback
My Rating: ★★★
Published by: Tor Books
Pages: 176
Format: Hardback
My Rating: ★★★
“That girl’s got more wrong notions than a barn owl’s got mean looks.”
Esther is a stowaway. She’s hidden herself in the Librarian’s book wagon in an attempt to escape the marriage her father has arranged for her – a marriage to the man who was previously engaged to her best friend. Her best friend who she was in love with. Her best friend. Her best friend who she was in love with. Her best who was just executed for possession of resistance propaganda.
The future American Southwest is full of bandits, fascists, and queer librarian spies on horseback trying to do the right thing. They’ll bring the fight to you.
Esther is a stowaway. She’s hidden herself in the Librarian’s book wagon in an attempt to escape the marriage her father has arranged for her – a marriage to the man who was previously engaged to her best friend. Her best friend who she was in love with. Her best friend. Her best friend who she was in love with. Her best who was just executed for possession of resistance propaganda.
The future American Southwest is full of bandits, fascists, and queer librarian spies on horseback trying to do the right thing. They’ll bring the fight to you.
My thoughts:
Upright Women Wanted is a Western LGBT novella by Sarah Gailey, their third published novella. Released in 2020 the book is set in a futuristic duplicate of the American West, and the story explores traditional gender roles and the effect they have on people.
Sarah Gailey’s latest novella uniquely combines the Western and dystopian genres. This is a dystopian future America ruled by fascists – primarily homophobic, and misogynist fascists.
In this future, Librarians – supposedly chaste and ‘upright’ women – transport carefully authorised reading material from town to town. The story follows the librarians as they pick up a mysterious "package" to drop off elsewhere. Esther stows away in their cart with the hope of eventually becoming a librarian. She wants to avoid the marriage her father has arranged for her, to a much older man who was previously engaged to her best friend Beatriz. Esther was in love with Beatriz, who was only just executed for possession of ‘Unapproved Materials.’
There are three Librarians associated with the wagon where she stowed away. Well, two Librarians and an Apprentice Librarian: Leda, Bet and Cye.
Esther’s attraction to Cye was very sudden and felt too soon after Beatriz’s death for me to fully appreciate their relationship, plus Esther’s emotional journey from the obedient daughter of a high-ranking official to a proud resistance lesbian was too fast and involved too much telling and not enough showing.
On the surface this seemed to be a very interesting idea. My main issue is that the worldbuilding is very thin, more of a sketch really. I know the book is only 176 pages, so technically it’s a novella, but I really wish there had been more backstory and explanation. The main characters travel around in horse-drawn wagons. Cars do exist but it seems no one has gas or other modern technology. The government rules with an iron fist and has a large army. There were hints that the country has been divided up differently, or at least that there are states where you can't travel to anymore, but it was never really explained. We know the story is vaguely Wild West-like, with horses and revolvers and sheriffs and a 19th century worldview, but set in the near future dystopian world, with passing mentions of diesel and drones and such, but we don’t actually see anything other than latex gloves in the end. It felt like a first draft of something bigger and better.
I basically wanted to like this so much more than I actually did. There were only vague hints of worldbuilding, and every character felt only half finished and many of them interchangeable. Upright Women Wanted lacked character development and enough depth to really grip me. The writing was enjoyable to read, and I liked the representation of LGBT+ characters, but it just didn't hold my interest as I’d hoped.
This is a short story that packs a punch, but in my opinion ultimately the book suffers the problem of being far better in concept than in execution. It’s fun and entertaining, but the story felt insubstantial and lacking in depth. I feel this would've worked much better if it was a full-length novel with a lot more details and development.
Overall reaction: