Gunslinger Girl

This novel was one that I wanted to like. When I first saw this at my local Barnes and Noble, I was interested because I thought it was a YA book with a Western theme. Imagine that, a WESTERN! We don't see many of those in mainstream Adult books, let alone YA. And this seemed to have come at just the right time. We seemed to be in that transition phase, where YA can't really make up its mind as to the next trend. Dystopias have been out for a few years now, and fantasies with kings and queens seemed to run its course, with only a few big series still going strong. Now, I thought that the YA genre was looking for the next big thing. At first, it seemed to be space operas, since Carve the Mark debuted to strong sales, but the controversy surrounding that release may have scared that genre off the market. Then next seemed to be fairy tale retellings, but those just seemed to be fine...not bad, or good, just fine. There there was Superhero stories, with the new Renegades novel by Marissa Meyer, but I've just heard that to be okay. So when I saw this book by Lyndsay Ely, I was thinking that this could be the next big thing, or at least this book was taking a sincere whack at the genre for teens. Unfortunately, it pains me to say that for something of a title like Gunslinger Girl, this novel tends to miss more than it hits.

This novel begins with our main character Serendipity “Pity” Jones, growing up in a patricarcial commune, mirrored on the old west. She finds out that her abusive father and jerk brothers plan to send her off (aka sell) to another commune that needs women in order to facilitate a larger community. Not wanting to live life as a pregnant wife to a stranger, Pity and her friend Finn decide to leave carrying only the barest necessities which include some water, food, and Pity's two silver revolver's that she got from her mother, which Pity is very talented at using. Sadly, that talent doesn't help much when a group of bikers run in to them, and end up killing Fiinn, and wounding Pity. She is soon picked up by a group of people who are a leading circus act called the Theatre Vespertine, located in a lawless city called Cessation. Pity is taken under the wing of Max, a painter for the local theater whom she takes a shining to, and she soon wonders if she can make a life for herself on the stage, showing off her sharpshooting skills. But not everything is so simple, and soon the theaters leader Seliana asks Pity to do more than she feels comfortable with. Can Pity do what needs to be done to survive in the only home she has, or will she have to use her guns for more than just cheap theater tricks?

This novel, despite its interesting premise, feels like it is ten years old. Pity is a girl who is a fighter, but this time instead of with a bow and arrow, she is a whizz with guns because she is a strong female character. She can kill when it is called for, but she feels bad about it and doesn't want to do it again, but she sure enough will because she is a strong female character. Max is a romantic love interest for her, but when he rebuffs her advances, she decides she doesn't need him because she is a STRONG FEMALE CHARACTER. You get the idea. There is very little built out of Pity other than that she is good with guns and hates killing people, but only when the plot calls for it. The main blurb of the book is that she is a mix of Katniss Everdeen and Annie Oakley, and she does feel like it, but without an interesting personality to call her own. As a character she is a blank slate that feels like she should have debued a decade ago.

The other characters are just as bland. We meet various different performers but they do not often make any kind of impression on the reader, to the point where one may even get them confused. As a result, when certain things happen, one does not really even care about the characters that may become hurt or even die.

If the characters are underdeveloped, the world building is even less so. We are given vague clues as to what may have happened to cause this dystopian mess, like a second Civil War, and groups like the confederates and the patriots, but it doesn't seem to stick in any fashion. They are all just named dropped and we are supposed to piece it all together for ourselves, which is not how I like my science fiction. In terms of this book, it felt like the world building was a vague excuse to bring the two genres of dystopia and western together, and it was not done very well. It was a poor excuse of a book as far as world building was concerned.

There is a saying in writing that anything can work, you just have to make it work. Sadly, Ely does not have the confidence or competence to match such an ambitious world with intriguing characters, and a compelling plot. I give it a two out of five. You may enjoy this book, but this is one I doubt I'll remember a month from now.