Westering Women A Novel

3.5 stars When I read the plotline for Westering Women, I realized that I had read a few books about settlers immigrating to the western half of the country. Just on that, I decided to read Westering Women. While I am glad that I read Westering Women, I felt slightly disappointed by it too. The plotline for Westering Women was medium paced. I didn’t mind it being medium paced. It was well suited for the book. But, I didn’t like the flow of the book. There were points where it lagged. But the author did a great job of getting the book back on track. The characters in Westering Women made this book. In an age where women were considered weak, they showed the men exactly what they were made of. I loved it. I also loved the variety of women showcased here. From the preacher’s wife to the former prostitute to the unwed teen mother to the upper-class woman with her servant to the abused wife, they were all showed here. I loved seeing this group of women coming together and supporting each other. Whenever something happened to one of the group, they stood together. It did result in some unusual situations. I am not sure how realistic life on the trail was portrayed, but it made for an exciting read. The views the men had were correct for the time. I do want to include a trigger warning with this book. Several scenes put me on edge while reading it. There was a scene where a major character relived abuse, the death of her son, and the rape of her four-year-old daughter. There were several scenes of racism (one of the secondary characters was black). There were two scenes of attempted rape. There was a scene of a brutal fight after one of the women was brutally beaten. There was a scene where a child dies from drowning, and one dies from premature birth. I will admit these did affect my rating for the book. The end of Westering Women broke my heart. I wasn’t expecting the death of one of the women on the train. I sobbed because that woman was one of my favorites. The epilogue also made me cry. But, at the same time, I was left feeling a little unfulfilled. I know it was because of that death.

Thank you to Netgalley and St. Martin's Press for a free digital copy of the book in return for my honest review. This book has many high points for me. Chief among them is the community that the women create along the trail, the intrigue of each traveler's past, and the clear labor of love that went into the research. I really enjoy the writing and the atmosphere that Sandra Dallas is able to conjure. However, this book can't be a 5 star read for me as I had some issues with the characterization of people outside of the wagon train, particularly the representation of Native Americans. The time period depicted is particularly fraught for the region's tribes, with multiple instances of begging and violence shown. Maybe Dallas was just highlighting the truth as she saw it in her research, but the way our heroines spoke and thought about the tribes rubbed me the wrong way (they were called a "noble race" by more than one person and shown trying to steal/barter for women and a child to grow their families. This is then followed by mormonism and plural wives.) Additionally, men outside their group (and even the two men of God leading the team, for the most part), are pretty flat. They're either dangerous and need to be killed/scared off by the larger women in the group or upright and denouncing the first group. The book is still enjoyable, but I didn't feel it was the sweeping epic that many 5 star reviews promised.