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**Macmillan has now reversed its position on the embargo mentioned below:




I was really looking forward to this. I absolutely loved River of Teeth and Taste of Marrow, and the alt-history with a Western feel that Gailey captured so well there. In Upright Women Wanted we have near future with a Western feel, but unfortunately I didn't feel Gailey pulled it off quite so successfully.

The main problem I think for me was that the world building was just not fleshed out at all. I know it is somehow post-present because of the references to fossil fuel cars ("that everyone used to have") and tanks, and apparently there is a war on, and queerness is not permitted, but that is literally the extent of what we know about what the world is like, let alone how it got that way.

Even the actual setting the story moves through minute by minute wasn't all that clear. The reasons for things like why they have only glass bottles, and who is responsible for the "restricted materials" that limits what everyone can read was just not at all obvious to me. The story is about gender and sexuality oppression in this future world, and how the librarians are apparently fighting back, but because of the lack of substance in the setting and general world building I felt seriously ungrounded in the story.

Also not helping in my particular case was that I started by listening to the audiobook, and I did not care for the narrator at all. She had an interminably chipper storytelling style that seemed at odds with the limited sense of setting I actually got, which I believe was intended to be quite gritty. Her voice did not portray in the characters what the words of the story were saying. For example, a character would be described as saying something flatly with a cold smile, but then the narrator would use a really upbeat and lighthearted voice, which resulted in a bit of cognitive dissonance on my part.

A little over half way through I switched from audio to print, and yes, that improved things for me. So, if you have a choice, I would recommend print over audio for this one. Unfortunately this book is from an imprint which is part of the publishing industry's anti-library agenda, which includes a policy of permitting libraries to purchase only a single digital ebook copy for the first 3 months after release if it is a book the publisher feels will be popular. The irony that Upright Women Wanted is about librarians trying to rebel against state control is definitely not lost on me here!

The embargo doesn't apply to audiobooks (yet), so it may be that your decision is made based on how you are able to access this title. What I can say is that for me, switching from audio to print increased my initial rating from 2.5 to 3 stars.

Regardless, this was just ok for me. Not bad, but certainly nowhere near as good as I had hoped for.

Keep fighting. It will be hard, and it will be awful, and it will be worth it. Don't give up, even when it feels like dying. Don't give up. This is only the beginning.