Reading: Upright Women Wanted (167/365)

Sarah Gailey's novella Upright Women Wanted is set in an authoritarian future US where all resources are directed towards fighting a long-running war (with who, we never learn) and where the resource-starved southwest looks a lot like the Wild West, complete with bandits, gunslingers and covered wagons. After her best friend and secret lover Beatriz is executed for possession of illegal materials, Esther flees her home, stowing away with the Librarians, who travel from town to town, delivering approved propaganda, hoping that she can make a new life with these "chaste, upright women" which will expunge the sin of her queerness. However, it turns out that Librarians aren't, after all, the pillars of the controlling State that Esther thought they were, and in the course of her journey with them she's forced to re-evaluate much of what she thought she knew, about herself and about how the world works.

I was fascinated by the worldbuilding of this novella, and I really hope Gailey writes more set in this world, as I'd love to find out more about it. I also loved the novel's celebration of queerness and individuality. I thought the plotting was a bit contrived, though, and was surprised by how quickly Esther finds a new love interest after losing her former lover in such traumatic circumstances. Also, I know it's a gunslinger story, but there definitely seemed to be a slightly disturbing amount of shooting first and asking questions later going on (possibly entirely justifiably, in-universe, but it still felt like a lot). Despite these flaws, it was definitely a lot of fun.