Upright women wanted

Author: Sarah Gailey

Genre: Western, Dystopian, Fiction

Original publication date: February 4th, 2020

Book Description (from GoodReads): 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.

Thoughts:

It is set in a dystopian near-future America, and yet we see society do a huge set aback regarding rights for women and be it so closely related to religion and very old fashioned ideas of what a person can and can't do. In this society, women have no purpose other than marrying a man her family decides upon and be a housewife. 

Obviously, same-sex couples are frown upon and the punishments for being such a forbidden person would get people killed. In this story, we only see female-female relationships and the main characters not only partake in these relationships but have the task of helping others like them who are trying to run away from the society that hunts them to punish them for falling in love.

I assume that in the society, as we see very little of it, men-men relationships are also frowned upon and men face the same limitations and face the same dangers, it was not even hinted but I assume so. It would have been great to have a bit more of the society shown to us, we only see the librarians who have the task of going from place to place to provide the approved reading material the government assigns. Everything is so controlled and even traveling among one place and the next can be seen as a crime unless the person can prove a legitimate reason to do so. The reasons cannot simply be because they wish to see the rest of the country, it must be government approved. 

This is a character-based story. The re is very little world-building, there is very little plot.  The story is the same from beginning to end, in the big picture, the only difference being made to the main characters, their personal life is the only thing that suffered a change.  Be warned.

If you like Esther and the other librarians, then you'll love it!!

Personally, the love story, between Esther and the other character, which I will not mention to avoid any spoilers, felt off. I was not liking where it was going from the start, it felt like it did not make any sense. Esther had just seen the "love of her life" be executed, which affected her so much that she risked getting killed and decided to leave her home, her family, and join the librarians. 

She did not see to mourn if she cared that much for her deceased lover she certainly had a very good coping mechanism, she did not seem to suffer or struggle to get over that loss. It felt a cheap way to excuse her leaving her town and deciding to become a librarian to tell the truth.

I would have enjoyed it more if it was altogether skipped or if the romance had not taken place. It feels cheap to have Ester fall for someone a few days after she lost the person she cared about the most in the world.

Still, I enjoyed the banter, the story each character had, and the reasons why they fight against such an oppressive government. They make small defiant acts, like providing safe passage to women who do not wish to live the life dictated by their family, for those who wish to be free to love whom they want and not listen to the choking law that says that the only right relationships are men-women.

We see personal growth, even while fighting to be free from her ties they have to struggle to let go of the ideology they have been taught as the only option. Esther struggles to accept that what she felt for her friends or any other female who also has feelings for another woman is not wrong and does not deserve to be punished. The ideals are so integrated into them that fighting is not only done to the outside but their internal struggle to accept themselves is also a long one.

This book I recommend you will enjoy it for the most part and its a  quick read.