Upright Women Wanted by: Sarah Gailey

⭐️⭐️⭐️.5

I picked this one up because Sarah Gailey is one of my favorite authors and I'm determined to read as much of their catalog as I can.

"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."

- from Storygraph

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I will say, this was my least favorite of Sarah Gailey's novels. It was hard not to compare it to Outlawed, which in comparison was much more fleshed out. With this being a novella, it lacked a bit in both story and character development. I felt like Esther didn't have a ton of time to really grow at the right pace. That being said, the characters were all a delight, especially Cye. I liked how Esther dealt with a lot of internalized homophobia and misogyny and we got a chance to see her work through and unlearn that. There was a normalization of genders and relationships connected in her internal development as well as the development of the story itself. I would've loved to see this built out into a much larger story, but for the short read it was, it was still enjoyable.

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Prompts Completed:

• 2022 POPSUGAR Reading Challenge (A sapphic book)

• Alphabet Reading Challenge (U)

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Content Warnings: Gun violence, death, dead bodies, sexism, homophobia