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A review by broomgrass
Silver on the Road by Laura Anne Gilman
4.0
I grew up reading and watching Westerns; one of my first loves was Little Joe from Bonanza. I know the genre, and its faults (*waves at representations of Indigenous people and women*) pretty well, and I have both a healthy dose of nostalgia and skepticism for media that starts playing with the West.
Which is part of why, I think, Silver on the Road was such a pleasant surprise! It has solid prose, it treats Indigenous people as distinct cultural groups (though I'm still uncomfortable with the devil/etc acting as a colonizing figure), and the growth of the characters and relationships managed to avoid being caricatures/tropes while still falling into patterns. This is the first 16yo in ages that I didn't grow tired of, and including Gabriel as a PoV character created a nice balance.
I liked the pacing, the episodic feeling that the plot and travelling created. The (somewhat predictable) plot - young girl with a lot of responsibility has to grow into her powers - also reminded me of my favourite novels from when I was younger, like The Blue Sword (which also featured a lot of riding, dry territory, etc).
Which is part of why, I think, Silver on the Road was such a pleasant surprise! It has solid prose, it treats Indigenous people as distinct cultural groups (though I'm still uncomfortable with the devil/etc acting as a colonizing figure), and the growth of the characters and relationships managed to avoid being caricatures/tropes while still falling into patterns. This is the first 16yo in ages that I didn't grow tired of, and including Gabriel as a PoV character created a nice balance.
I liked the pacing, the episodic feeling that the plot and travelling created. The (somewhat predictable) plot - young girl with a lot of responsibility has to grow into her powers - also reminded me of my favourite novels from when I was younger, like The Blue Sword (which also featured a lot of riding, dry territory, etc).