A review by bluejayreads
Upright Women Wanted by Sarah Gailey

reflective fast-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Character
  • Strong character development? Yes
  • Loveable characters? Yes
  • Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.5

This is a short, quick, and fairly enjoyable novella in a dystopian version of the American West. 

Being so short, there isn't a lot of worldbuilding. Librarians distribute approved materials, people get executed for having unapproved materials, it's illegal to talk about Utah, and there's a constant war going on somewhere in the country, and the rest expects you to have a passing familiarity with the western genre and fill it in with your imagination. Since it's a novella and I do have a vague idea of how westerns work, it was fine. In anything longer it would have needed more. 

This is definitely a character-driven book, focusing on Esther's discovery that there are people out there like her (i.e. queer) and that being queer does not mean she's bad, broken, or destined to hurt the people she loves. The society around her is very homophobic (and transphobic, the nonbinary Librarian requests to be misgendered around other people because it would be unsafe otherwise), but she definitely has a lot of the homophobia internalized too and much of her emotional journey is learning that it's okay for her to exist as she is. 

Of course, there is an external journey too, as the Librarians Esther stowed away with are delivering a "package" somewhere and also doing their job of distributing approved materials across the southwest. There's gunfights, bandits, safe houses and not-so-safe checkpoints. They keep the story interesting, but the heart of it is the world telling these people it's not okay to be themselves and love who they want and them standing up and saying they're gonna do it anyway. 

For a novella, it does have a lot of emotional depth, but it's still a quick read. There are a lot of dark events and a lot of people dying so I would absolutely not call this light or fun, but despite being dark it is ultimately hopeful. If you like westerns and want to see a western with some queer protagonists, I wouldn't hesitate to tell you to pick up Upright Women Wanted. 
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