Upright Women Wanted

Upright Women Wanted by Sarah Gailey, 176 pages

After years of admiring the roving librarians of the Southwest, Esther has finally stowed away in their wagon in the hopes of becoming one of them. But as she soon finds out, being a librarian is a lot more complicated than delivering Approved Materials to the small towns of Arizona and New Mexico. Instead, the community of librarians is full of subversive lesbians and non-binary folks who are not accepted elsewhere, and must fight for their existence against bandits and sheriffs alike.

I love the idea of casting librarians as subversive agents against the state, and I dug the characters Gailey created. But they were a bit heavy-handed on the belonging-to-a-community elements. I get it — Gailey was reflecting on their own journey to self-acceptance, and I certainly don't begrudge them the mission to make sure others see themselves — but I also felt like it was hammered in so hard that I have a bit of a headache now. All in all though, I enjoyed the book, and I'd love to see Gailey continue with these characters in future novellas.