After finishing Outlawed by Anna North, I had to take some time to sit with it and truly explore how I felt about the story. My initial gut reaction was that I generally enjoyed the story but I was not sure if I loved it; however, the more I sat with it the more I discovered how impactful this work truly is and how much it affected me.
This amazing novel is a great queer feminist adventure set against the backdrop of the American west. Granted this is not your traditional western novel since it appears to draw inspiration from other great works, such as the Crucible, but it provides plenty of cowboy actions to keep you fully engaged. While westerns aren’t my usual choice, the author does a phenomenal job of keeping us focused on the characters and their struggles while subtly reminding us that this is set in a quasi-dystopian wester world where a large portion of the population has perished, the U.S. no longer exists, and barren women are executed as witches.
To be honest, I really fell for the characters and found that I was hurt for them, outraged for them, and eventually rooting for them despite their less than reputable actions. My only reason for not giving this novel 5 stars, is that it felt like it tried to cover too many topics at once and so the effort at including areas of intersectionality sometimes felt forced or one-dimensional. Despite this minor criticism, I loved reading a western novel that had queer, BIPOC, women leading the charge. The representation in this novel was beautiful and I felt empowered reading this story. This is a must read.
*I would like to thank @netgalley and @bloomsburypublishing for an Early copy of Outlawed, which I received for free in return for an honest review.