Title: Outlawed

Author: Anna North

Publisher: Bloomsbury 2021

Genre: Fiction - Alternate History; Western

Pages: 261

Rating: 4/5 stars

Reading Challenges: Unread Shelf Project; Seasonal RC

In the year of our Lord 1894, I became an outlaw.

The day of her wedding, 17 year old Ada’s life looks good; she loves her husband, and she loves working as an apprentice to her mother, a respected midwife. But after a year of marriage and no pregnancy, in a town where barren women are routinely hanged as witches, her survival depends on leaving behind everything she knows.

She joins up with the notorious Hole in the Wall Gang, a band of outlaws led by a preacher-turned-robber known to all as the Kid. Charismatic, grandiose, and mercurial, the Kid is determined to create a safe haven for outcast women. But to make this dream a reality, the Gang hatches a treacherous plan that may get them all killed. And Ada must decide whether she’s willing to risk her life for the possibility of a new kind of future for them all.

I was so excited to grab this on from Book of the Month back in January. It was a very enjoyable story, but missed the mark just a bit for me. The book was slightly slow to start, but once Ada arrived at the Hole in the Wall Gang, everything started to pick up. From there, I was reading at a decent clip to get to the end of the adventure. Ada is at times, a very sympathetic character and a very annoying character. I enjoyed many of the other characters, and wished we had learned a bit more about some of them (e.g. Lo and Newsy). The book misses the mark just a bit by getting bogged down in Ada’s obsession with having a child/getting married. In this sections, I was less likely to keep reading the book. Upon reflection, I think this is a really good feminist alternate history western. But for my 5 star read, I would turn to Upright Women Wanted by Sarah Gailey. I love their take on a feminist western.

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