I just finished reading Upright Women Wanted, by Sarah Gailey.
This was a very good book. My only actual problem with it is that it’s kind of short–it tells the story it wants to tell in that space, very efficiently, but some things are compressed dramatically due to the limitations of pagecount. It’s a little jarring to have the main character go from crying for the loss of her best friend and secret lover to crushing on one of the librarians she’s travelling with, over the course of a couple of hours. I really feel like there should be more time there.
That said, I really can’t complain that much because the rest of the book is so good. The hints at why the world is the way it is, the subtle examination of the systems of oppression that keep things the way they are, the chaotic gunfights, getting to watch the gradual realizations hit Esther that things don’t have to be as bad as she’s been taught…all of this is wonderful. The book has a very strong and important message, from an author who has clearly gone through a similar experience in the past, and I can’t recommend it highly enough to anyone who wants a queer, rebellious sort of sci-fi western (and by that I mean I recommend it to everyone, because who in their right mind wouldn’t want to read that).
Also, I’d like to take a moment to appreciate the title. Upright Women Wanted is such a great phrase to use here, applying its connotations from old advertisements for frontier teaching positions with some delicious subversion from the fact that the Librarians in the novel carry both anti-establishment propaganda and taboo sexual orientations. The sort of women who want to escape their lives and take up a dangerous position on the decaying frontier aren’t generally the sort that someone writing an ad looking for upright women would be thinking of, which plays straight into the anti-authoritarian themes of the story. Fascism has a lot of blind spots, the title reminds us. It’s never hopeless, and there is absolutely a place for you out there. Keep fighting.