Upright Women Wanted

[psocoptera]

Upright Women Wanted, Sarah Gailey. Gailey is one of those authors who seems squarely relevant to my interests in theory, but who I don't click with in practice, and this was another case of that. Confusing action scenes (I never felt like I understood why anyone was doing the specific things they were doing), incoherent emotional arc - I don't mean to be monogamist about it, obviously people can have feelings/relationships in various states at once, but the flipflop from grieving the lost girlfriend to lusting for the new interest was jarring for me as a literary decision and it felt like they undercut each other. My recommendation if you want to read about badass queer ladies in a wild west type setting is to read Melanie Gillman's excellent graphic novel Stage Dreams, although of course if you need to read UWW for Hugo purposes that won't help.

Comments

[ruthling]

I also found this book emotionally incoherent and plotwise not much better, which is a shame, there were a lot of cool bits in it that didn't go anywhere. When I mentioned it here, someone reminded me that she also wrote Magic for Liars which was similarly nonsensical. I guess she isn't my thing.

[jedusor]

they

[psocoptera]

Thank you

[psocoptera]

I had another Gailey book on my shelf and this comment was exactly what I needed to realize I should just let it move on to someone who will appreciate it more, so thank you for that. :)