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laurenaf's review against another edition
adventurous
dark
tense
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
3.25
This was a good and quick read. I enjoyed the idea of the book, but I honestly was not expecting the author to take this route in the story, based on what I read in the blurb- which made it interesting. I enjoyed the characters and the plot, but I do think more depth could’ve been given to both to create a more immersive story.
My biggest problem with this book is I had a lot of difficulty with that immersion aspect. Unlike other books I’ve read, I can easily imagine the setting or the characters. And while the author has great descriptions, I still wasn’t able to picture a lot of what was happening.
While I loved the characters, they are also detached from the reader in a way, where you know a little about them but not enough to create a connection.
For me, this book was only a 3 star until I got to the last quarter of the book where a majority of the action took place, which also could have been elongated.
My biggest problem with this book is I had a lot of difficulty with that immersion aspect. Unlike other books I’ve read, I can easily imagine the setting or the characters. And while the author has great descriptions, I still wasn’t able to picture a lot of what was happening.
While I loved the characters, they are also detached from the reader in a way, where you know a little about them but not enough to create a connection.
For me, this book was only a 3 star until I got to the last quarter of the book where a majority of the action took place, which also could have been elongated.
Content Warnings
Moderate: Murder
Minor: Incest, Rape, and Suicide
cassielaj's review against another edition
adventurous
challenging
emotional
tense
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.5
I’ve never read anything quite like this book. It’s fascinating, full of adventure and heart, sorrow and hope. If you like stories about outcasts, strong women, and found family, this one’s for you.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Medical trauma, Misogyny, Gun violence, Infertility, Medical content, Suicide attempt, Blood, Pregnancy, Sexual violence, Murder, Racism, Sexism, and Xenophobia
Moderate: Rape, Abortion, Animal death, and Self harm
Minor: Incest
denizens98's review against another edition
adventurous
dark
reflective
tense
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
3.0
Content Warnings
Moderate: Suicidal thoughts, Sexual violence, Sexual harassment, Racism, Outing, Injury/Injury detail, Homophobia, Gun violence, Grief, Child abuse, Abortion, Transphobia, Medical trauma, Body horror, Infertility, Hate crime, Incest, Domestic abuse, Suicide attempt, Suicide, Mental illness, Lesbophobia, Excrement, Death, Animal death, and Alcohol
cheye13's review against another edition
adventurous
dark
emotional
inspiring
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.0
This was very engaging and a fresh take on the genre. It's gave me exactly what I'd been missing from Sarah Gailey's Upright Women Wanted. The world was tangible, and I especially appreciated how well nuances were conveyed – depression, bisexuality, gender identity – without the vocabulary we use.
That being said, I don't think western stories are really for me? There's always such a deep pain and/or hopelessness within them that never seems to hit my catharsis button. This one came very close with each of the outlaw's backstories, but the ultimate plot just left me with, "Well. Okay."
This was definitely my favorite western I've ever read, though. Leagues above.
That being said, I don't think western stories are really for me? There's always such a deep pain and/or hopelessness within them that never seems to hit my catharsis button. This one came very close with each of the outlaw's backstories, but the ultimate plot just left me with, "Well. Okay."
This was definitely my favorite western I've ever read, though. Leagues above.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Injury/Injury detail, Death, Gun violence, Hate crime, Medical content, Misogyny, and Infertility
Moderate: Pregnancy, Grief, Blood, Abortion, Confinement, Miscarriage, and Homophobia
Minor: Ableism, Rape, Alcohol, Child death, Domestic abuse, Drug use, Incest, Infidelity, Racism, Sexual content, and Suicidal thoughts
ableism wrt: implied bipolar disorder (or perhaps other psychosis), implied post partum depression medical/injury content wrt: gunshot wounds, childbirth & miscarriage, castration, hypothermia, various illnessesseawarrior's review against another edition
adventurous
emotional
hopeful
sad
tense
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
5.0
Outlawed is a journey through the Wild West I've never experienced before, one which is emotionally gripping, genuinely frightening, and told through the perspective of those ignored or kicked down in traditional Western narratives. Through this journey we follow Ada, the teenage daughter of a midwife whose future is destroyed after she fails to conceive a baby, and is then accused of witchcraft by those she had once healed and trusted.
Ada is an interesting protagonist in many ways. She straddles the line between adolescence and adulthood, expertise and inexperience, wisdom and ignorance. Her mother's teachings have left her with adequate skills to practice medicine, but not much else. Once joining the Hole In the Wall Gang she shows poor judgement as a thief and as a peer, by making ignorant and insensitive remarks that strike a nerve with those whose life experience she's has yet to understand. Ada's shortcomings are not excused by the narrative or unrealistically healed by it, instead we're allowed to see both her perspective and those of the Gang members who are upset with her to form our own judgement that may differ from Ada's.
Throughout the book we are introduced to a number of characters who like Ada, have been discarded by society. Most of these characters are also infertile women, who found themselves in similar predicaments to Ada and had little other choice but to become outlaws afterward. I appreciated how even despicable acts such as killing were routinely told with empathy towards both the victim and the perpetrator. Within the world of Outlawed, violence is neither random nor justified, but understood as initiatives inflicted by the desperate or the powerful when one either has too much influence or not enough. The Hole in the Wall Gang reasons away their crimes because they have to in order to live with themselves, and because they feel that their victims are one face among many who would laugh as their lives were taken. Yet their violence is often more horrifying than it is grandiose, and always understood as a last resort effort for survival.
Though I read this book slowly I felt that North's writing style was effortlessly engaging and almost magical. Through Ada's eyes we see the beauty of human life and the environments that sustain it, both natural and man-made. Yet we are also made to feel the weight of the many tragedies she has witnessed, survived and inflicted. When Ada first ventures to find the Hole in the Wall Gang the tales she hears of their exploits are larger than life, and when she leaves them they are even more so. Within that time she learns that each of their members are only human and therefore flawed, with this possibly applying to the Kid most of all. The most powerful theme in this novel is how life goes on even after immense tragedy, and how we may find purpose in its midst.
Ada's purpose as a healer and her resolve that her knowledge is needed by the world at large is a striking motivation that propels her story forward and opens a well of emotion whenever her life is threatened. In these times North packs a punch by describing her grief towards her past and her possible future, with both realities linked by the medical and social wisdom her mother passed onto her. We come to accept as Ada does that on her survival hinges the lives of countless other infertile women who need an answer to their plight that will make the proponent theories of witchcraft and "race mixing" a thing of the past. Yet before she can achieve this dream Ada must learn through her failures while never giving up on herself, knowing she will one day find vengeance through the healing of others.
Ada is an interesting protagonist in many ways. She straddles the line between adolescence and adulthood, expertise and inexperience, wisdom and ignorance. Her mother's teachings have left her with adequate skills to practice medicine, but not much else. Once joining the Hole In the Wall Gang she shows poor judgement as a thief and as a peer, by making ignorant and insensitive remarks that strike a nerve with those whose life experience she's has yet to understand. Ada's shortcomings are not excused by the narrative or unrealistically healed by it, instead we're allowed to see both her perspective and those of the Gang members who are upset with her to form our own judgement that may differ from Ada's.
Throughout the book we are introduced to a number of characters who like Ada, have been discarded by society. Most of these characters are also infertile women, who found themselves in similar predicaments to Ada and had little other choice but to become outlaws afterward. I appreciated how even despicable acts such as killing were routinely told with empathy towards both the victim and the perpetrator. Within the world of Outlawed, violence is neither random nor justified, but understood as initiatives inflicted by the desperate or the powerful when one either has too much influence or not enough. The Hole in the Wall Gang reasons away their crimes because they have to in order to live with themselves, and because they feel that their victims are one face among many who would laugh as their lives were taken. Yet their violence is often more horrifying than it is grandiose, and always understood as a last resort effort for survival.
Though I read this book slowly I felt that North's writing style was effortlessly engaging and almost magical. Through Ada's eyes we see the beauty of human life and the environments that sustain it, both natural and man-made. Yet we are also made to feel the weight of the many tragedies she has witnessed, survived and inflicted. When Ada first ventures to find the Hole in the Wall Gang the tales she hears of their exploits are larger than life, and when she leaves them they are even more so. Within that time she learns that each of their members are only human and therefore flawed, with this possibly applying to the Kid most of all. The most powerful theme in this novel is how life goes on even after immense tragedy, and how we may find purpose in its midst.
Ada's purpose as a healer and her resolve that her knowledge is needed by the world at large is a striking motivation that propels her story forward and opens a well of emotion whenever her life is threatened. In these times North packs a punch by describing her grief towards her past and her possible future, with both realities linked by the medical and social wisdom her mother passed onto her. We come to accept as Ada does that on her survival hinges the lives of countless other infertile women who need an answer to their plight that will make the proponent theories of witchcraft and "race mixing" a thing of the past. Yet before she can achieve this dream Ada must learn through her failures while never giving up on herself, knowing she will one day find vengeance through the healing of others.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Misogyny, Police brutality, Self harm, Violence, Adult/minor relationship, Hate crime, Infertility, Miscarriage, Murder, Religious bigotry, Schizophrenia/Psychosis , Gun violence, Infidelity, Alcohol, Death, Grief, Medical content, Pregnancy, and Racism
Moderate: Incest, Sexual content, and Transphobia
breadwitchery's review against another edition
adventurous
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
5.0
Content Warnings
Graphic: Infertility, Death, Murder, Pregnancy, Racism, Misogyny, Mental illness, Gun violence, and Violence
Moderate: Sexual content, Miscarriage, Religious bigotry, Suicidal thoughts, Suicide attempt, Abortion, and Medical content
Minor: Alcohol, Infidelity, Slavery, Animal death, Rape, Incest, and Death of parent
itsdanibee's review against another edition
adventurous
challenging
informative
tense
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
3.75
Content Warnings
Graphic: Infertility, Injury/Injury detail, Medical content, Gun violence, and Pregnancy
Moderate: Animal death, Blood, Death, Racism, and Infidelity
Minor: Abortion, Incest, Miscarriage, Rape, and Suicide attempt
nothingforpomegranted's review against another edition
2.25
Ostensibly set in a mostly-dystopian 1894 Texas town that places a premium on women's ability to bear children and suspects infertile women of witchcraft, this book is narrated by Ada, a seventeen-year-old wife and midwife's apprentice who has been exiled from her community after a year of marriage with no child. Passionate about science and serving women, Ada finds herself in the company of the Hole in the Wall gang, a group of outlawed outsiders with a flexible and fluid approach to gender, love, sex, and justice.
This feminist take on a Western novel, filled with crime, adventure, and challenging authority, was certainly creative, but I was quite the right audience for it. Indeed, I was so distracted by the references to race, doctors, baby Jesus, the Flu and Fever, and the seeming dissolution of the United States that I was almost more focused on trying to figure out whether this was a dystopian alternative history (a Confederate win in the Civil War?) or a dystopian future (post COVID-19?), and I'm honestly still confused.
I also was pretty confused by the role of religion and by all of the characters. There were many, each with a painful background, but none was particularly well-developed, and the sub-plots detracted rather than added to the story. The one exception to this, in my opinion, was Lark's story, which surprised and intrigued me, but he, too, was an underdeveloped character who stuck around too briefly.
I appreciate the reviewer who acknowledged that this book offers a different take on the Hole in the Wall gang. I had no idea that this gang was a real concept and really disappointed that there was no Author's Note explaining that research and that choice (which guess means this is an alt-history novel?).
I picked this up because I needed a quick read to help propel me out of a slump (too many classics in a row/at a time can do that to you), and it was definitely successful in that respect. The story was engaging enough and kept me turning the pages for the few hours that this took to finish, but ultimately, I think Anna North bit off more than she could chew--infertility, religion, feminism, justice, gender fluidity, insomnia, mental health, medicine, mothering, Western adventure--and it really didn't work for me.
This feminist take on a Western novel, filled with crime, adventure, and challenging authority, was certainly creative, but I was quite the right audience for it. Indeed, I was so distracted by the references to race, doctors, baby Jesus, the Flu and Fever, and the seeming dissolution of the United States that I was almost more focused on trying to figure out whether this was a dystopian alternative history (a Confederate win in the Civil War?) or a dystopian future (post COVID-19?), and I'm honestly still confused.
I also was pretty confused by the role of religion and by all of the characters. There were many, each with a painful background, but none was particularly well-developed, and the sub-plots detracted rather than added to the story. The one exception to this, in my opinion, was Lark's story, which surprised and intrigued me, but he, too, was an underdeveloped character who stuck around too briefly.
I appreciate the reviewer who acknowledged that this book offers a different take on the Hole in the Wall gang. I had no idea that this gang was a real concept and really disappointed that there was no Author's Note explaining that research and that choice (which guess means this is an alt-history novel?).
I picked this up because I needed a quick read to help propel me out of a slump (too many classics in a row/at a time can do that to you), and it was definitely successful in that respect. The story was engaging enough and kept me turning the pages for the few hours that this took to finish, but ultimately, I think Anna North bit off more than she could chew--infertility, religion, feminism, justice, gender fluidity, insomnia, mental health, medicine, mothering, Western adventure--and it really didn't work for me.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Infertility, Sexual content, Sexism, Religious bigotry, Panic attacks/disorders, Mental illness, Medical content, Infidelity, Gun violence, Forced institutionalization, and Abortion
Moderate: Alcoholism, Child death, Death, Drug use, Emotional abuse, Hate crime, Incest, Medical trauma, Miscarriage, Misogyny, Rape, Racism, Racial slurs, Pregnancy, Police brutality, Suicide attempt, and Suicidal thoughts
remilymartin's review against another edition
adventurous
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
4.0
This was a really fun read. I didn't love the very ending, because it wasn't how I wanted it to end, but it was more than appropriate, and honestly if it hadn't have ended that way it would have just been a giant loose end, I suppose. I never thought I would read a feminist, queer western that takes place in an altered past, but I really enjoyed it.
Content Warnings
Moderate: Murder, Misogyny, Medical content, and Medical trauma
Minor: Abortion, Incest, and Mental illness
kissmyash0600's review against another edition
dark
emotional
inspiring
lighthearted
sad
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
3.5
I'm so split on this book - I liked the story, but I felt like it developed too slow and for too long. The climax was in the last 75 pages of the book, it seemed, and then it ended. It's quite a commentary on how women end up being blamed for so many things and shoulder the burden of the gender stereotype. Even today, when a woman fails to get pregnant, their fertility is looked at with such scrutiny. Our reproductive system and various issues that we have are barely understood and instead of a real effort to better understand these issues, we instead have to see several doctors and sometimes wait years to get a true diagnosis. This book is empowering to those who face gender stereotypes head on, as well as those who have been made to felt less than for not being able to fulfill expectations.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Infertility, Incest, Medical trauma, Miscarriage, Rape, and Toxic relationship
Minor: Abortion, Alcoholism, Death of parent, Death, and Domestic abuse