Carrie Schmidt's Reviews > The Last Woman Standing

The Last Woman Standing is gritty and blunt and paints a decidedly unromantic (probably more realistic) picture of the Wild West. Told from Josie’s perspective, almost as though she dictated her memoir to Thelma Adams, the narrative has a casual and easy cadence and I enjoyed the style of the writing voice. It felt like we were sitting down for a conversation and that’s my favorite kind of first person narrative.

The problem with the narrative being from Josie’s perspective is that Josie can be (is often) coarse and crude. In fact, I almost stopped reading after the first couple of chapters because her frankness and vulgarity was just too much for me. However, I gave it one more chapter since I’d committed to this review for a blog tour and the crudeness did lessen considerably so I decided to keep reading.

This kind of historical fiction brings to life in new ways the people we’ve read about in textbooks and/or watched in documentaries & movies. It gives them a different sort of humanity and always creates in me the urge to delve into further research like the history nerd that I am. I want to know more about Wyatt Earp and his brothers now after reading this book – they seem like the best sort of rogues. I also want to find out more about Johnny’s son Albert.

Sadly though, I didn’t connect with Josie. She’s extremely focused on her own beauty and sexuality (though I did love seeing her with Albert, in that softer selfless motherly role) and at the same time very naive. It’s like she wants the best of both worlds – innocence and experience – but for a good portion of the book she only winds up with the worst of each. I expected Josie’s story to be one where she fought for her own independence, a strong heroine who balked against the roles that society ordained for her. While there’s a smidgen of that element to Josie’s story, she really just goes from one man to another, and I never saw much spirit or fire in her except at the very beginning (and then that was too crude for me to enjoy).

Bottom Line: The Last Woman Standing will appeal to fans of the Wild West, especially anyone who loves the movie Tombstone. I wouldn’t recommend it, however, to anyone who is easily offended. As I said already, it’s blunt and uncomfortable. It will certainly give you a new perspective on the events at the OK Corral and on the players involved, but it’s not a pretty perspective. Like the dust on the streets of Tombstone, this book and its characters are gritty.