Backwards to Oregon
By Jae
4.5/5
()
About this ebook
“Luke” Hamilton has always been sure that she’d never marry. She accepted that she would spend her life alone when she chose to live her life disguised as a man.
After working in a brothel for three years, Nora Macauley has lost all illusions about love. She no longer hopes for a man who will sweep her off her feet and take her away to begin a new, respectable life.
But now they find themselves married and on the way to Oregon in a covered wagon, with two thousand miles ahead of them.
This is the revised and expanded second edition. It includes the short story "A Rooster's Job."
Jae
Jae grew up amidst the vineyards of southern Germany. She spent her childhood with her nose buried in a book, earning her the nickname "professor." The writing bug bit her at the age of eleven. For the last seven years, she has been writing mostly in English.She works as a psychologist. When she's not writing, she likes to spend her time reading, indulging her ice cream and office supply addiction, and watching way too many crime shows.
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Reviews for Backwards to Oregon
83 ratings8 reviews
- Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5Luke Hamilton, a former army lieutenant, has a dream of traveling to Oregon and starting a horse ranch. The problem is that Luke is really a female who disguises herself as a male. In order to appear more masculine (and, for other reasons, which the reader discovers later), Luke decides to take a wife - Nora, a prostitute he barely knows, and Amy's young daughter. Nora has absolutely no idea that her new husband is a woman, but she's very intrigued by the kind way he treats her.I really, really expected to like this book more than I did. I understand that this is Jae's first published novel in English, so I am trying to give a little leeway here, although I read the revised version, which has presumably been edited. It's not that the book is BAD; it just isn't all that great, in my opinion.My first problem is that the character of Luke is just...too good. She's (and that is how Luke refers to herself, so I use the feminine pronouns) just too perfect. She almost never raises her voice, takes to raising Amy like a duck to water, and is extremely understanding to circumstances that involve Nora (that'll be under the spoiler section). And that kind of leaves her as two-dimensional. I'd have much preferred some more PTSD from her (she's gone through a lot in her life) and maybe some instances when she really does lose her temper over something (besides the cardboard villains, that is).I didn't really bond with the character of Nora. I found her rather boring. SPOILERS BELOWI also thought it was highly unrealistic that Nora was so accepting of being pregnant by a customer. Hell, Luke is incredibly accepting, too. I mean, doesn't she have a moment of doubt? A moment of wondering who the father is, what this baby is going to be like? Look like? I can imagine that I would spend many a sleepless night wondering just what was growing inside of me, no matter the fact that I know a baby is a baby, blah blah. But Nora doesn't have any of those doubts.Another thing - the villains. Ugh. Could they be any more cardboard? (The answer is no.) They almost needed a mustache to twirl.And the amazing coincidences - running into Nora's brother on the trail? When he's originally from Boston? Out of thousands upon thousands of people traveling the trail each year? Really? END SPOILERSLike I said, I didn't HATE the book. It was okay. But it was just okay.
- Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5One of my all time favorite books. It was written and researched but best of all, the characters were great to read about. It's a story that just makes you smile, cringe, and root for the good gals. Yes, some times Luke is too good to be true and Nora is just a bit much but they work well together. Amy is just adorable. I loved it.
- Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Beautiful and so gay!!! I am obsessed with historical fiction, and this is the first sapphic one I've found that portrays both leads as strong women.
- Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5It was a decently contrived and written lesbian novel. Author Jae obviously did a little research into the way of life on the Oregon Trail and it reflected in the trials and tribulations faced by the Hamiltons and the rest of the families. I know, I know...it makes for a good story, however, it is a little hard to believe that a woman can spend years as a man in a military setting.
- Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5A splendid historical work! Even people who don’t enjoy historical fiction will love this one.
- Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5what a lovely story...
- Rating: 2 out of 5 stars2/5This was an extremely difficult book to read.As historical fiction, it's fine, even if it leans pretty hard into harmful stereotypes. It's one thing to have the characters in the story be realistically racist; it's another entirely to have literally the only speaking role of a Native American being an attempt to barter one woman for another (against their wills). Shortly before we find out that this character didn't know how a sword worked. Despite the fact that his group were carrying muskets, meaning they had definitely had contact with European settlers at some point.That was pretty uncomfortable, but it wasn't personally affronting the way the trans narrative was. I use the term 'trans' very broadly here, since it's never made completely clear in any direction.I feel like Luke definitely is trans, or at least not a woman, but the author doesn't seem to come to the same conclusion. Luke more than once makes it clear he doesn't think of himself as a woman, and he makes no moves toward changing his presentation even when he's no longer in a position of having to maintain it.Regardless of a fictional character's internal gender identity, there's constant misgendering. The other characters use male pronouns for Luke (except occasionally); the author uses female pronouns when Luke isn't around other characters (except sometimes). That inconsistency was viscerally uncomfortable for me. Again, there's a difference between characters being believably shitty about gender things and the author doing the same thing.I understand that the author is most known for lesbian fiction, and I think that's what this was going for, but the story it's telling is uncomfortably close to a particular, extremely harmful, stereotype that some real shitty people use to discredit trans-masculine people. Namely, that trans men are just confused lesbians who are victims of their own internalized misogyny. 'Butch flight' is the specific term I've most often heard.I am myself trans-masculine, and this is the exact kind of hateful rhetoric that's resulted in literally years of unnecessary suffering. I still struggle with it even now, despite recognizing it for the (at best) complete nonsense that it is.To be clear, I don't think this was intentional on the author's part. I think it was little more than thoughtless, along with the other issues I had with the book (like the racism and the constant shitting on sex workers).I believe the author is German, and I genuinely don't know if the TERFs have the same sway there as they do in the US and the UK. I sincerely hope not, because that would make this so much harder to chalk up to ignorance. And also because TERFs are hateful people, and less of that sort of thing would be just great.This isn't the first Jae book I've read, but it's probably going to be the last.
- Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5I know that it's probably very problematic (yes, thank you Xena Warrior Podcast for putting that word in my brain...) But, I really enjoy these types of stories, like Divided Nation, United Hearts by Yolanda Wallace, or Words Heard in Silence by T. Novan. Something about the combination of historical fiction and the Deborah Sampson sort of story hits the right notes for me. Although, I do have to say that in the case of this story, it was less about Luke dressing up as a man, and leaned more towards Luke being a Transgender Man.As hinted at above, it's about a man named Luke and a woman named Nora. They meet in a woman named Tess' brothel (where Nora is a prostitute), although they do not have sex. Three days after they meet Luke asks Nora to marry him. They set off on the Oregon Trail the next day, along with Nora's daughter Amy.And that's the story. The journey of Nora and Luke's relationship (as well as their personal growth journeys) set to the back drop of the massive (and massively hard) journey west to Oregon.It was soo good. I felt like I'd read it before, but, at the same time I sometimes had no clue what was coming next. Also, I had some hard core flashbacks to Apple IIe's Oregon Trail computer game (I didn't finish that darn thing until I was in my 30s).This was a fun novel that sucked me in faster and more fully than any book has in a while, and I look forward to reading more in its world sooner rather than later.