Novella Review – Upright Women Wanted by Sarah Gailey (4/5 stars)
Reading Level: Young Adult
Genre: Post-Apocalyptic/Western
Length: 176 pages
Publisher: Tor.com
Release Date: February 4, 2020
ISBN-13 : 978-1250213587
Stand Alone or Series: Stand Alone
Source: Borrowed from Library
Rating: 4/5 stars
“Esther is a stowaway. She’s hidden herself away 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 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.”
Series Info/Source: This is a stand alone book that I borrowed from the library.
Story (4/5): This was a fun and quick read and I enjoyed it. It’s set in a post-apocalyptic world that has a very western feel to it. We mainly travel with Librarians who travel from town to town to distribute Approved reading materials. Esther stows away in a Librarian wagon in hopes of both escaping an unwanted marriage and learning how to be a better person (by ignoring her love of other women). She does not find what she thinks she’s going to in this group of adventurous Librarians.
Characters (4/5): The characters are well done and I liked them. Esther comes off as pretty naive and vanilla, but grows a lot through the story. The characters she travels with are well done and I wanted to get to know them better. I think all of the side characters here could have really good stories if Gailey ever opts to write more in this world.
Setting (4/5): The world development is a bit thin here, we don’t get a ton of background but there’s enough surrounding detail to picture the world you’re in and figure out the general gist of its history.
Writing Style (4/5): I enjoyed the pacing and adventure. Again, this isn’t a complex read but just a fun little peek into this world. I would love to read more books set in this world and really enjoyed this.
My Summary (4/5): Overall I really enjoyed this. This is a fairly simple story, set in an interesting world. I would love to learn more about both this world and the characters here. I enjoyed Gailey’s writing style and will be looking up more books by her in the future. I would recommend this if you enjoy stories set in a post-apocalyptic western flavored world.
