“Upright Women Wanted” by Sarah Gailey

This is another ebook that I got for free from Tor.com. It’s a lot shorter than some of the other ones, only a little over 100 pages.

The story takes place in a kind of Wild West area. There’s small towns with harsh rules, and there’s the Librarians that travel between towns and deliver Approved Materials. Esther decides to run away and join the Librarians after her girlfriend, Beatriz, is caught with Unapproved Materials and hung. Once with the Librarians though, she learns that they’re all gay and that they really are part of a kind of resistance network throughout the area. She also strikes up a budding romance with Cye, another Librarian in training.

It's a short book, there’s not a ton going on here really. There’s some cool representation with Cye, who uses they/them pronouns, and a poly throuple that the Librarians escort to safety. Other than that… It’s hard to say. There’s some aspects of the world building that I liked, but it’s not really fleshed out enough. I wish that there was more about Esther’s relationship with Beatriz, and Esther’s family, but not a ton about that either.

All in all, not a bad read, but not a particularly good one either. Having said that, I did get this book for free, so I can’t complain too much!