Gunslinger Girl

by Lyndsay Ely

[Amber (The Literary Phoenix)]

Serendipity Jones, y'all.

My goodness, I loved this girl.

Full disclosure?  Gunslinger Girl was preordered about two days before release, and it's been sitting on my shelf every since.  I've been eyeing it with doubt and suspicion for two months until I picked it up last week thinking "might as well get this over with".

I am a fool.

I wish I had read this book two months ago.  Heavens, I wish I had received an ARC.  Pity and Max and Luster and the whole gang were exactly what I needed right now in my unenthusiastic reading drudge.  I mean, for starters - PITY.  Serendipity Jones is such a fantastic character.  She's Calamity Jane, she's Annie Oakley, and she's something fierce and powerful and entirely her own.  She's a straight shot with a six shooter and yet she's also a lost kitten.  You love her and you cheer for her and you ache for her.

Gunslinger Girl is one of those books where you know you're only just skimming the surface.  While we hear a good deal of Pity's story and even some of Max's - we know that there a whole lot  more world out there and everyone at Casimir has a deep, troubling past.  I want to know them all, in excruciating detail.  Moreover, this book is just ripe for a sequel and I'm hoping that's on the horizon in some SUPER SECRET vault somewhere.  It'll be called "Bounty Hunter" and it will be amazing.  Also, guys?  Just let me dream.  I have no idea if Lyndsay is planning a sequel but if she is, I will preorder it faster than Pity can shoot a tin can off a fence at fifty paces.

This book was refreshing and rich and fun and built up in this totally stunning world and from the moment I fell in love (page 24) I have been recommending this to everyone.  Ev-er-y-one.

So if you haven't read Gunslinger Girl yet and you're crazy about rich dystopias, performances a la The Greatest Showman, women who don't need rescuing, and government plots - good god y'all, what're you waiting for?