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When Women Were Dragons
Goodreads Choice Award
Nominee for Best Fantasy (2022)A rollicking feminist tale set in 1950s America where thousands of women have spontaneously transformed into dragons, exploding notions of a woman’s place in the world and expanding minds about accepting others for who they really are.
The first adult novel by the Newbery award-winning author of The Girl Who Drank the Moon.
Alex Green is a young girl in a world much like ours, except for its most seminal event: the Mass Dragoning of 1955, when hundreds of thousands of ordinary wives and mothers sprouted wings, scales, and talons; left a trail of fiery destruction in their path; and took to the skies. Was it their choice? What will become of those left behind? Why did Alex’s beloved aunt Marla transform but her mother did not? Alex doesn’t know. It’s taboo to speak of.
Forced into silence, Alex nevertheless must face the consequences of this astonishing event: a mother more protective than ever; an absentee father; the upsetting insistence that her aunt never even existed; and watching her beloved cousin Bea become dangerously obsessed with the forbidden.
In this timely and timeless speculative novel, award-winning author Kelly Barnhill boldly explores rage, memory, and the tyranny of forced limitations. When Women Were Dragons exposes a world that wants to keep women small—their lives and their prospects—and examines what happens when they rise en masse and take up the space they deserve.
The first adult novel by the Newbery award-winning author of The Girl Who Drank the Moon.
Alex Green is a young girl in a world much like ours, except for its most seminal event: the Mass Dragoning of 1955, when hundreds of thousands of ordinary wives and mothers sprouted wings, scales, and talons; left a trail of fiery destruction in their path; and took to the skies. Was it their choice? What will become of those left behind? Why did Alex’s beloved aunt Marla transform but her mother did not? Alex doesn’t know. It’s taboo to speak of.
Forced into silence, Alex nevertheless must face the consequences of this astonishing event: a mother more protective than ever; an absentee father; the upsetting insistence that her aunt never even existed; and watching her beloved cousin Bea become dangerously obsessed with the forbidden.
In this timely and timeless speculative novel, award-winning author Kelly Barnhill boldly explores rage, memory, and the tyranny of forced limitations. When Women Were Dragons exposes a world that wants to keep women small—their lives and their prospects—and examines what happens when they rise en masse and take up the space they deserve.
367 pages, Paperback
First published May 3, 2022
About the author
Kelly Barnhill
48 books3,714 followersKelly Barnhill is an author and teacher. She won the World Fantasy Award for her novella The Unlicensed Magician, a Parents Choice Gold Award for Iron Hearted Violet, the Charlotte Huck Honor for The Girl Who Drank the Moon, and has been a finalist for the Minnesota Book Award, the Andre Norton award, and the PEN/USA literary prize. She was also a McKnight Artist's Fellowship recipient in Children's Literature. She lives in Minneapolis, Minnesota with her three children and husband. You can chat with her on her blog at www.kellybarnhill.com
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 7,417 reviews
May 21, 2022
not completely unreadable, but the magical realism and lyrical tone are undermined by the second-wave-feminist unexamined, uncomplex, unintersectional tone. this is a book about how hard it was to be a post-war white housewife and it fails to tread any ground left vacant by the stepford wives (doing, frankly, even less than that seminal novel), making it essentially redundant reading in 2022, when feminism, even and maybe especially righteous feminist fury, is concerned with more complex matters. the lack of interest in what happens post-dragoning to the liberated dragon-women free to rage and burn and live as they please, is glaring, as is a vague air of terfdom that associates womenhood intrinsically with the reproductive system and ability to have children-- while we're given this perspective by hysteria-adjacent male scientists, the trans, post-menopausal, sterile, intersex, post-hysterectomy, etc point of view is entirely invisible, much less the point of view of poor women, women of color, or immigrant women. the focus on white middle class lesbians in lieu of this feels pointed, particularly given the extremely loud subset of mostly-white lesbian terfs. it all cycles back to this incredibly reactionary feminism that focuses on a time period far in the past in order to feel comfortable ignoring what that feminism built for us and how we look at feminist issues in the modern day. barnhill could have had her mass dragoning at any time-- she chooses the 50s on purpose, because she has no answer for how her feminist parable would play out in a world concerned with people whose lives do not resemble hers.
edit: will you kindly get your terf bullshit out of my replies, thanks.
edit: will you kindly get your terf bullshit out of my replies, thanks.
May 4, 2022
eARC provided by NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.
Considering this was one of my most anticipated reads of the year, I am sorely disappointed.
The book is written in the style of a historical memoir; our MC Alex recalls her life from childhood, interspersed with newspaper articles, court case records, scientific journals, etc. Unfortunately, there was no differentiation in writing style to separate the personal memoir and the historical pieces.
I was not expecting a concept so brilliant as “oppressed often gay housewives in the 1950s get so angry they transform into dragons and eat their oppressive husbands before flying off” to be boring. I wanted to DNF at 20%, and 30%, and 40%; and at 65% was still not enjoying the book but just determined to see it through to the end in the hopes of a spectacular ending to redeem it.
As the narrator is young and confused, for at least 3/4 of the book, we unfortunately don't get to experience dragoning in a way that is satisfying. Every potentially powerful moment is shown to us so passively that this book loses any hope of igniting the spark this concept promised.
At every moment we are told exactly what to feel, "show not tell" is not considered in this novel. There is a lot of repetition early on in particular that becomes tedious to read, especially when Alex is trying to convince herself of her mother and father's lies. While I believe it was attempting to convey the level of indoctrination of society's refusal to admit dragons exist, the assertions felt out of place. Similarly, the links to real life (e.g. segregation, silencing of climate scientists, homophobic and transphobic laws) are so blunt that Barnhill is really hitting us over the head to make sure we don't miss them. A little more nuance and subtlety with the ideas would have improved the reading experience greatly.
I wanted the feminism; I wanted the female rage. Instead, I got oppressed 1950's women and a confused child, with not enough angry dragons to redeem it.
Where did the dragons go? I want to see the ones that visited the stars, that were protecting the great whales, or living in the mountains; not just the ones who longed to be mothers again. If we're going with the feminism is the freedom to choose message, then please also show us the women who chose something else for themselves, too.
Additionally, the lack of intersectionality was a major no for me. Are we not including Black women, WOC, or trans women in a feminist novel in 2022?
Overall, a brilliant concept that failed to perform. I cannot express how much I desperately wanted to like this book.
TWs: homophobia, death, parent death, misogyny, child abuse
Considering this was one of my most anticipated reads of the year, I am sorely disappointed.
The book is written in the style of a historical memoir; our MC Alex recalls her life from childhood, interspersed with newspaper articles, court case records, scientific journals, etc. Unfortunately, there was no differentiation in writing style to separate the personal memoir and the historical pieces.
I was not expecting a concept so brilliant as “oppressed often gay housewives in the 1950s get so angry they transform into dragons and eat their oppressive husbands before flying off” to be boring. I wanted to DNF at 20%, and 30%, and 40%; and at 65% was still not enjoying the book but just determined to see it through to the end in the hopes of a spectacular ending to redeem it.
As the narrator is young and confused, for at least 3/4 of the book, we unfortunately don't get to experience dragoning in a way that is satisfying. Every potentially powerful moment is shown to us so passively that this book loses any hope of igniting the spark this concept promised.
At every moment we are told exactly what to feel, "show not tell" is not considered in this novel. There is a lot of repetition early on in particular that becomes tedious to read, especially when Alex is trying to convince herself of her mother and father's lies. While I believe it was attempting to convey the level of indoctrination of society's refusal to admit dragons exist, the assertions felt out of place. Similarly, the links to real life (e.g. segregation, silencing of climate scientists, homophobic and transphobic laws) are so blunt that Barnhill is really hitting us over the head to make sure we don't miss them. A little more nuance and subtlety with the ideas would have improved the reading experience greatly.
I wanted the feminism; I wanted the female rage. Instead, I got oppressed 1950's women and a confused child, with not enough angry dragons to redeem it.
Where did the dragons go? I want to see the ones that visited the stars, that were protecting the great whales, or living in the mountains; not just the ones who longed to be mothers again. If we're going with the feminism is the freedom to choose message, then please also show us the women who chose something else for themselves, too.
Additionally, the lack of intersectionality was a major no for me. Are we not including Black women, WOC, or trans women in a feminist novel in 2022?
Overall, a brilliant concept that failed to perform. I cannot express how much I desperately wanted to like this book.
TWs: homophobia, death, parent death, misogyny, child abuse
May 21, 2022
You ever read a book and think, damn this would have been so much better as a short story?
The messages, the metaphor behind the "dragoning", the layering of meaning and trauma would have been more impactful in a skillfully crafted short story. This has Margaret Atwood short story vibes and I wish I could have read that instead. Feminism, horror, dytopia, womanhood, motherhood... In longer form, the messages and meaning become repetitive, pounding you in the head, over and over, and I found myself saying I GET IT, OK? It's a magical realism version of Kate Chopin's The Awakening, with a particular focus on what trauma her children are left with after their mother chooses to abandon them.
A "document" (testimony, report, government hearing, etc.) divides each chapter and I ended up skipping reading them because they were so repetitive and provided nothing new. The story itself had To Kill A Mockingbird and A Tree Grows In Brooklyn vibes - coming of age in the 50s of a young woman left on her own to survive and raise a sibling - and there was some comfort in that familiarity. Honestly, the least interesting part of this book is the dragoning, which is unfortunate because it is so insistently present. You're reminded again and again, women are imprisoned by society and have no rights, their only liberation can be in abandoning their human form and leaving society, at least until they can change society and return in their new forms to integrate.
The representation of women in the 50s is very flat. I had a difficult time believing the portrayal that women are all kept housewives, completely restricted by their husbands from having any ownership of self. That their lives were utterly depressing and hopeless, that all men are evil, that all members of society happily imprison women to their homes and do not want them to be educated. This is a stereotype, a Hollywood myth, that serves the old-school flavor of feminism that the author favors in this book. There are times that this stank of TERF feminism - there's no outright TERFness but it certainly smelled similar to it. I had a very hard time believing society would cover up thousands of women turning into dragons - that it was censored from the news. Perhaps a strongly religious, cultish town would, but not national news.
I'm uncomfortable that race was not addressed AT ALL. [Note: if it was, it was in the "documents" interspersed in that I gave up on reading because they were repetitive.] The characters are all white (I'd actually read the main character and her aunt as Black until a description several chapters in confirmed they're white.) There are "marches" and protests - the book borrows from the civil rights movement in the 60s and claims it for its own. Instead of Black rights, they're marches for dragons - women. While feminism is the promotion of equality for all, this re-writing of history takes away the power of the work Black people have done.
I wish it had further explored the fact that it is also only dragons - women - who are able to change society. So women don't really get the freedom they sought by changing because they have to return to perform the labor to fix society and gain equal rights. (Also, lol, disabilities are not addressed at at. Reforming society to physically accept dragons is PRIME material for addressing changing society to make buildings & every day life more functional and accessible for people with disabilities.) Women are always doing this labor (well, one hopes, but there is a decided overabundance of them voting for people who are taking away everyone's rights.) Again, regarding race, I would have liked to see it addressed how I am CERTAIN Black women were performing a hell of a lot more work and emotional labor than all these white women.
If this had been a short story, I could have seen it becoming English major canon. It scratched that itch from college, it is ripe for dissection...if it had been a short story. So...I'm left with feeling this is a decent story but I'm also disappointed and longing for something else. This started out as a 3 star review but ended with a 2 after verbalizing my discomfort of its treatment of race.
The messages, the metaphor behind the "dragoning", the layering of meaning and trauma would have been more impactful in a skillfully crafted short story. This has Margaret Atwood short story vibes and I wish I could have read that instead. Feminism, horror, dytopia, womanhood, motherhood... In longer form, the messages and meaning become repetitive, pounding you in the head, over and over, and I found myself saying I GET IT, OK? It's a magical realism version of Kate Chopin's The Awakening, with a particular focus on what trauma her children are left with after their mother chooses to abandon them.
A "document" (testimony, report, government hearing, etc.) divides each chapter and I ended up skipping reading them because they were so repetitive and provided nothing new. The story itself had To Kill A Mockingbird and A Tree Grows In Brooklyn vibes - coming of age in the 50s of a young woman left on her own to survive and raise a sibling - and there was some comfort in that familiarity. Honestly, the least interesting part of this book is the dragoning, which is unfortunate because it is so insistently present. You're reminded again and again, women are imprisoned by society and have no rights, their only liberation can be in abandoning their human form and leaving society, at least until they can change society and return in their new forms to integrate.
The representation of women in the 50s is very flat. I had a difficult time believing the portrayal that women are all kept housewives, completely restricted by their husbands from having any ownership of self. That their lives were utterly depressing and hopeless, that all men are evil, that all members of society happily imprison women to their homes and do not want them to be educated. This is a stereotype, a Hollywood myth, that serves the old-school flavor of feminism that the author favors in this book. There are times that this stank of TERF feminism - there's no outright TERFness but it certainly smelled similar to it. I had a very hard time believing society would cover up thousands of women turning into dragons - that it was censored from the news. Perhaps a strongly religious, cultish town would, but not national news.
I'm uncomfortable that race was not addressed AT ALL. [Note: if it was, it was in the "documents" interspersed in that I gave up on reading because they were repetitive.] The characters are all white (I'd actually read the main character and her aunt as Black until a description several chapters in confirmed they're white.) There are "marches" and protests - the book borrows from the civil rights movement in the 60s and claims it for its own. Instead of Black rights, they're marches for dragons - women. While feminism is the promotion of equality for all, this re-writing of history takes away the power of the work Black people have done.
I wish it had further explored the fact that it is also only dragons - women - who are able to change society. So women don't really get the freedom they sought by changing because they have to return to perform the labor to fix society and gain equal rights. (Also, lol, disabilities are not addressed at at. Reforming society to physically accept dragons is PRIME material for addressing changing society to make buildings & every day life more functional and accessible for people with disabilities.) Women are always doing this labor (well, one hopes, but there is a decided overabundance of them voting for people who are taking away everyone's rights.) Again, regarding race, I would have liked to see it addressed how I am CERTAIN Black women were performing a hell of a lot more work and emotional labor than all these white women.
If this had been a short story, I could have seen it becoming English major canon. It scratched that itch from college, it is ripe for dissection...if it had been a short story. So...I'm left with feeling this is a decent story but I'm also disappointed and longing for something else. This started out as a 3 star review but ended with a 2 after verbalizing my discomfort of its treatment of race.
![Profile Image for laurel [the suspected bibliophile].](https://cdn.statically.io/img/i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/users/1645808644i/7494844._UX200_CR0,6,200,200_.jpg)
June 22, 2022
Absolutely splendid.
I did have a couple of objections, as I always do with alternate histories that drastically maguffin the world, but fuuuuuuuuck. This book felt, to me, a capturing of midwestern white women and their rage at being constantly stifled and dismissed, all that seethingly brilliantly potential boxed into tiny coffins and sunk into thankless marriage.
This is a story of women and the universe, and all the ways we lie to each other to try to cope with reality and unreality, and the hypocritical normalcy of the 1950s and early 1960s. Of puns and euphemisms and saying without saying. Of mothers and daughters and aunts and cousins and first loves and growing up and figuring shit out. Of first loves and first losses. Of not just breaking outside of societal conventions, but smashing them completely and making something new. Of grief and joy and everything that comes in between. Of turning perceived weakness into impenetrable strength.
It is a love letter to libraries and the librarians who run them.
Also, the commentary on dragoning and its meaning and the inherent transness of it was breathtaking. Because this book is about transformation. Not into something else, necessarily, but into a true self.
And, of course, this is a book about dragons.
I did have a couple of objections, as I always do with alternate histories that drastically maguffin the world, but fuuuuuuuuck. This book felt, to me, a capturing of midwestern white women and their rage at being constantly stifled and dismissed, all that seethingly brilliantly potential boxed into tiny coffins and sunk into thankless marriage.
This is a story of women and the universe, and all the ways we lie to each other to try to cope with reality and unreality, and the hypocritical normalcy of the 1950s and early 1960s. Of puns and euphemisms and saying without saying. Of mothers and daughters and aunts and cousins and first loves and growing up and figuring shit out. Of first loves and first losses. Of not just breaking outside of societal conventions, but smashing them completely and making something new. Of grief and joy and everything that comes in between. Of turning perceived weakness into impenetrable strength.
It is a love letter to libraries and the librarians who run them.
Also, the commentary on dragoning and its meaning and the inherent transness of it was breathtaking. Because this book is about transformation. Not into something else, necessarily, but into a true self.
And, of course, this is a book about dragons.
July 17, 2024
When Women Were Dragons is an attention-grabbing title. It sounds like alternative history, is it? Yes. But is it also a metaphor? Yes. Or is it an allegory? Again, yes. It’s also in part a coming-of-age story. You see, it all depends how you look at it.
“I shall be but a shadow streaking across the sky—fleeting, speeding and utterly gone.”
—testimony from the Day of the Missing Mothers: the earliest case of scientifically confirmed spontaneous dragoning.
The story is told from the point of view of Alex Green. She is a young girl in a world very like our own, except for one thing. In her reality there are dragons: specifically wyverns, or two-legged dragons. The dragons first appeared one day in 1955, when hundreds of thousands of ordinary American women, many of whom were wives and mothers, sprouted wings, scales, and talons and took to the skies. Anything in their path was incinerated; anyone close to them annihilated, including:
“philandering husbands extracted from the embraces of their mistresses and devoured on the spot, in view of astonished onlookers”.
This was forever after referred to as the “Mass Dragoning” of 1955.
Nobody knew whether or not the spontaneous transformation was their choice. Nobody knew why some women “dragoned”, and became wyverns, and others did not. Nobody knew what was to become of those left behind. Alex knew no more than anyone else:
“I was four years old when I first saw a dragon. I was four years old when I first learned to be silent about dragons. Perhaps this is how we learn silence—an absence of words, and absence of context, a hole in the universe where the truth should be.”
It quickly became a forbidden topic, to the extent that scientists who studied the dragon transformations were silenced by the government, for being “un-American”. The dragons, far from being creatures of wonder, inspiring reverence and awe, or terror, as we might expect, were regarded as shameful. Talking about dragons was forbidden. The entire episode was never mentioned in polite company—never to be spoken of, or referred to. The very word “dragon” was taboo.
“Embarrassment, as it turns out, is more powerful than information. And shame is the enemy of truth.”
Alex was a well-behaved child. She cast her eyes down, as did all her friends, never looking at the skies. Her mother busied herself with domestic pursuits, excelling in homemaking skills. She was a loving mother, although she mysteriously disappeared for a while, before being brought back home by her father as a pale and weak imitation of herself. Alex’s aunt Marta came to help, while Alex’s father worked. He was never much in evidence, not even always coming home at the end of the day. Alex had so many questions about things, but understood that dragons and her mother’s absence were two topics the adults would never speak of. Any such questions were deflected, and Alex had a sense of shame about ever mentioning such indecent things.
We can probably guess the unmentionable topic in the 1950s concerning Alex’s mother , but it seems extraordinary for there to be silence about such a momentous event as the Mass Dragoning. With the disappearance of so many women—and even a tiny number of men—society had changed overnight. Most families had someone in their circle, or knew of someone who had dragoned, leaving a hole in their lives.
Almost straightaway this aspect alerts us to the fact that this book is something other than a fantasy. Why are we following the day to day life of Alex, and ignoring the dragons? The author must be telling us something else. We recognise the feminist slant, seeing that the focus is strongly on females, the few males evident being pompous, ignorant or merely inept. (Fortunately there are two notable exceptions, which saves this from becoming a travesty.) The novel is exploring and exploding the idea of a woman’s place in the world, and we can sense the barely suppressed rage of some of these characters. Set in the 1950s, this must then be partly about the tyranny of enforced limitations.
The author Kelly Barnhill says in the acknowledgements:
“I thought I was writing a story about rage. I wasn’t. There is certainly rage in this novel, but it is about more than that. In its heart, this is a story about memory, and trauma. It’s about the damage we do to ourselves and our community when we refuse to talk about the past. It’s about the memories that we don’t understand, and can’t put into context, until we learn more about the world.”
As we read more, we see that this describes Alex’s life. She is ever more full of questions, but forced to remain silent, although there are huge consequences of this astonishing event. Her mother is more protective than ever, her handicrafts seeming to take on a magical totem role. The decorative knots she constructs are everywhere, in furnishings, on clothes or to be worn; their intricate patterns carefully worked out in her mother’s tiny cramped handwriting in her notebook. Spells and incantations? Or higher maths? Alex has been told that her mother was a mathematical genius. Her mother smiles mysteriously, simply saying that the knots are to keep them safe.
“A good knot requires presence of mind to make, and can act as a unshakable force in a shaky, unstable world.”
But as Alex grows older, and shows an aptitude for physics, she tries to explain:
“Sometimes, she said the knots were magic. Sometimes, she said they were math. More often, though, she said that both were true, the way a particle can be both matter and light and no one knows why.”
This motif is repeated throughout the novel: knots of string and twine and wire We read that the sort of pretence and false memory Alex is witness to is replicated all over America. History is being rewritten.
It is clear that this aspect of the novel is a satire of America. Except for the final chapter, the rest of the world is only ever mentioned once. This, despite the obvious fact that means that there must have been a spark, or defining event in the USA, for Kelly Barnhill to write such a specific novel. Her thoughts here confirm it; it is a political book:
“I thought I was writing about a bunch of fire-breathing, powerful women. And while those women certainly are in this book, it isn’t about them. It’s about a world upended by trauma and shamed into silence. And that silence grows, and becomes toxic, and infects every aspect of life. Perhaps this sounds familiar to you now—times being what they are.”
Kelly Barnhill goes on to specify what prompted her to write this tale. It was an allegation of historical sexual assault by the professor of psychology, Christine Blasey Ford, against the judge Brett Kavanaugh, who would later become an Associate Justice of the Supreme Court. I am English, and had not been aware of this, and can’t make a proper assessment, but whatever the truth, wiki makes it clear that it was an extremely nasty and protracted case, with accusations of “victim blaming”. Kelly Barnhill is adamant, saying that:
“I, along with the rest of America listened with horror and incandescent fury to the brave, stalwart testimony of Christine Blasey Ford, as she begged the Senate to reconsider their Supreme Court Justice nominee and make a different choice, and I decided to write a story about rage. And dragons. But mostly about rage.”
I suspect that knowing this makes you expect a very different sort of book from what we have here. However, Kelly Barnhill has won major awards in the USA for what are termed middle-grade novels, i.e. books which are intended for readers who are between eight and twelve years old. When Women Were Dragons, published in 2022, is her first adult novel: for teenagers and above. It has a lot in keeping with novels written for younger readers. When later in the book I was reminded of humorous dragons in picture books. The dragons of fire and fury do not, in my mind, square with these handbag-toting, lipstick-applying domestic goddesses. The fact that they can wield a hammer, lay bricks, or whatever, does not do anything to destroy my mental image. I simply do not associate dragons with working to improving the community.
A second indicator of the target age group is a subplot:
“I had a friend once. But my father dragged her away. There was more to that story, but it hovered just out of my reach, insubstantial as smoke.”
The two best friends, But what is heavily signalled is “teenage crush”. The yearning feelings described, and the sweet chasteness of their relationship is targeted at the younger age of the readership, who will feel it as authentic.
Thirdly, the language is often quite simple and direct, if a little uneven. Altogether it feels very like a fun book for late teens, but with a not-so-hidden message. This world, perhaps a similar world to that of the readers’ grandmothers, wants to keep women small—both their lives and their prospects. But we see what happens when they rise en masse and take up the space they deserve. There is a clear message here about expanding your horizons: opening your mind to new possibilities, and accepting others for who they really are. These are suitable messages for everyone, but especially for what have come to be termed as YA books.
As the story continues, Alex is forced to become more independent. As they become older, help comes from an unexpected quarter in
In all this we can see clear parallels with America’s troubled political and social past, and its continuing legacy.
“But I am a scientist, sirs, and my allegiance is not to this body, nor even to myself, but only to the truth. Who benefits when knowledge is buried? Who gains when science succumbs to political expediency?”
“The beautiful thing about science is we do not know what we cannot know and we will not know until we know.”
There is a huge discrepancy here, since the existence of dragoning has only ever been mentioned as happening in America. Unfortunately this is another flaw in the book, which I feel may not have been so evident if it had been a short story or novella.
There are good things in the book. Between the chapters there are references to earlier reports of dragons, so we alternate between Alex’s recollections and historical documents such as transcripts, news articles, and extracts from scholarly works by Dr. Gantz, which fill in much of the back story which Alex would not have been privy to as a child. This is effective, providing a sense of authenticity.
Kelly Barnhill does not shy away from addressing many thorny issues in the book. As well as patriarchy and its machinations: the indoctrination of gender roles, the author explores dysfunctional families, she looks at feminism, and the taboos around women and anger. A large part of this is the concept of independence and self-discovery: the complicated aspects of gender identity, plus gender identity issues in society. The author additionally examines aspects of choice, freedom, the distortion of history and suppression both of information and of memory. The panic and suspicion around the dragons had led to suggestions of:
“sinister external forces (the Russians, the Chinese Red Army, domestically radicalized Trotskyites who had failed to be rounded up by Senator McCarthy’s hearings and so on”
“ … If the dragoning had been smaller in scope, there would have been a more concentrated effort at the suppression of news and a more robust campaign of misinformation in those early days. It had, after all, worked before.”
Knowledge of freedom is always precious. There are sorrows and injustices which might make a 21st century reader identify with the rage of the characters. It has to be said though, that even within the USA, the purview is small. The 1950s may not have offered many opportunities to women, but actually many of them did work outside the home, but in low paid jobs. Here in England too, the working class women, and most who were emigrating here from the Commonwealth, were stuck in dead-end jobs. Those who were housewives often thought of themselves as privileged, because they “didn’t have to work”. I have heard them say so, pointing out that they had the freedom to organise their day, in comparison with working women, or with their middle class husbands who were tied to office desks.
No, this would not have suited me, nor perhaps you, but the world was a different place then. The burning, building rage that is described is transposed from the perceptions of a 21st century woman. It is just not that simple. It’s also worth pointing out that these conditions still apply today, for some, and are not consigned to the history books. The USA today even has a term, “stay-at-home mom”, for those women who choose to do so, although the UK does not adhere to this concept.
We read:
“When power belongs, not to the violent, and not to the wealthy and well-connected, but to the people, a different sort of future begins to present itself.”
but we see very little exploration of other cultures and classes. 1950s America is presented as uniform and rather bland.
I wish I could have rated this book higher. In honesty it barely reaches my default of 3 stars. However, it is a brave attempt to say something important, and it manages to avoid the rigid gender binaries which most fantasy books, or those including magic fall prey to. The timeless political parallels are also worth exploring. But I think it was misguided of Kelly Barnhill to set the overall tone as light, and to depict one of the most terrifying monsters in mythology as she does. Ultimately, these dragons let the message down badly. They may be paragons of the community, but for my next read about dragons, I shall expect far more fire, fury and devastation.
“Time, in our experience, is linear, but in truth time is also looped. It is like a piece of yarn, in which each section of the strand twists and winds around every other—a complicated and complex knot, in which one part cannot be viewed out of context from the others. Everything touches everything else. Everything affects everything else. Each loop, each bend, each twist interact with each other. It is all connected, and it is all one.
But every once in a while, there are experiences that slice all the other moments apart—stark, singular things that mark the difference between Before and After. These moments are singular, separate from the knot. Separate even from the thread. They can’t be tugged at or loosened. They cannot be wound into something lovely or intricate or delicate. They do not interact seamlessly with the fabric of a life. They are of another substance entirely. Unstuck in time, and out of sync with a life’s patterns and processes.”
“I shall be but a shadow streaking across the sky—fleeting, speeding and utterly gone.”
—testimony from the Day of the Missing Mothers: the earliest case of scientifically confirmed spontaneous dragoning.
The story is told from the point of view of Alex Green. She is a young girl in a world very like our own, except for one thing. In her reality there are dragons: specifically wyverns, or two-legged dragons. The dragons first appeared one day in 1955, when hundreds of thousands of ordinary American women, many of whom were wives and mothers, sprouted wings, scales, and talons and took to the skies. Anything in their path was incinerated; anyone close to them annihilated, including:
“philandering husbands extracted from the embraces of their mistresses and devoured on the spot, in view of astonished onlookers”.
This was forever after referred to as the “Mass Dragoning” of 1955.
Nobody knew whether or not the spontaneous transformation was their choice. Nobody knew why some women “dragoned”, and became wyverns, and others did not. Nobody knew what was to become of those left behind. Alex knew no more than anyone else:
“I was four years old when I first saw a dragon. I was four years old when I first learned to be silent about dragons. Perhaps this is how we learn silence—an absence of words, and absence of context, a hole in the universe where the truth should be.”
It quickly became a forbidden topic, to the extent that scientists who studied the dragon transformations were silenced by the government, for being “un-American”. The dragons, far from being creatures of wonder, inspiring reverence and awe, or terror, as we might expect, were regarded as shameful. Talking about dragons was forbidden. The entire episode was never mentioned in polite company—never to be spoken of, or referred to. The very word “dragon” was taboo.
“Embarrassment, as it turns out, is more powerful than information. And shame is the enemy of truth.”
Alex was a well-behaved child. She cast her eyes down, as did all her friends, never looking at the skies. Her mother busied herself with domestic pursuits, excelling in homemaking skills. She was a loving mother, although she mysteriously disappeared for a while, before being brought back home by her father as a pale and weak imitation of herself. Alex’s aunt Marta came to help, while Alex’s father worked. He was never much in evidence, not even always coming home at the end of the day. Alex had so many questions about things, but understood that dragons and her mother’s absence were two topics the adults would never speak of. Any such questions were deflected, and Alex had a sense of shame about ever mentioning such indecent things.
We can probably guess the unmentionable topic in the 1950s concerning Alex’s mother , but it seems extraordinary for there to be silence about such a momentous event as the Mass Dragoning. With the disappearance of so many women—and even a tiny number of men—society had changed overnight. Most families had someone in their circle, or knew of someone who had dragoned, leaving a hole in their lives.
Almost straightaway this aspect alerts us to the fact that this book is something other than a fantasy. Why are we following the day to day life of Alex, and ignoring the dragons? The author must be telling us something else. We recognise the feminist slant, seeing that the focus is strongly on females, the few males evident being pompous, ignorant or merely inept. (Fortunately there are two notable exceptions, which saves this from becoming a travesty.) The novel is exploring and exploding the idea of a woman’s place in the world, and we can sense the barely suppressed rage of some of these characters. Set in the 1950s, this must then be partly about the tyranny of enforced limitations.
The author Kelly Barnhill says in the acknowledgements:
“I thought I was writing a story about rage. I wasn’t. There is certainly rage in this novel, but it is about more than that. In its heart, this is a story about memory, and trauma. It’s about the damage we do to ourselves and our community when we refuse to talk about the past. It’s about the memories that we don’t understand, and can’t put into context, until we learn more about the world.”
As we read more, we see that this describes Alex’s life. She is ever more full of questions, but forced to remain silent, although there are huge consequences of this astonishing event. Her mother is more protective than ever, her handicrafts seeming to take on a magical totem role. The decorative knots she constructs are everywhere, in furnishings, on clothes or to be worn; their intricate patterns carefully worked out in her mother’s tiny cramped handwriting in her notebook. Spells and incantations? Or higher maths? Alex has been told that her mother was a mathematical genius. Her mother smiles mysteriously, simply saying that the knots are to keep them safe.
“A good knot requires presence of mind to make, and can act as a unshakable force in a shaky, unstable world.”
But as Alex grows older, and shows an aptitude for physics, she tries to explain:
“Sometimes, she said the knots were magic. Sometimes, she said they were math. More often, though, she said that both were true, the way a particle can be both matter and light and no one knows why.”
This motif is repeated throughout the novel: knots of string and twine and wire We read that the sort of pretence and false memory Alex is witness to is replicated all over America. History is being rewritten.
It is clear that this aspect of the novel is a satire of America. Except for the final chapter, the rest of the world is only ever mentioned once. This, despite the obvious fact that means that there must have been a spark, or defining event in the USA, for Kelly Barnhill to write such a specific novel. Her thoughts here confirm it; it is a political book:
“I thought I was writing about a bunch of fire-breathing, powerful women. And while those women certainly are in this book, it isn’t about them. It’s about a world upended by trauma and shamed into silence. And that silence grows, and becomes toxic, and infects every aspect of life. Perhaps this sounds familiar to you now—times being what they are.”
Kelly Barnhill goes on to specify what prompted her to write this tale. It was an allegation of historical sexual assault by the professor of psychology, Christine Blasey Ford, against the judge Brett Kavanaugh, who would later become an Associate Justice of the Supreme Court. I am English, and had not been aware of this, and can’t make a proper assessment, but whatever the truth, wiki makes it clear that it was an extremely nasty and protracted case, with accusations of “victim blaming”. Kelly Barnhill is adamant, saying that:
“I, along with the rest of America listened with horror and incandescent fury to the brave, stalwart testimony of Christine Blasey Ford, as she begged the Senate to reconsider their Supreme Court Justice nominee and make a different choice, and I decided to write a story about rage. And dragons. But mostly about rage.”
I suspect that knowing this makes you expect a very different sort of book from what we have here. However, Kelly Barnhill has won major awards in the USA for what are termed middle-grade novels, i.e. books which are intended for readers who are between eight and twelve years old. When Women Were Dragons, published in 2022, is her first adult novel: for teenagers and above. It has a lot in keeping with novels written for younger readers. When later in the book I was reminded of humorous dragons in picture books. The dragons of fire and fury do not, in my mind, square with these handbag-toting, lipstick-applying domestic goddesses. The fact that they can wield a hammer, lay bricks, or whatever, does not do anything to destroy my mental image. I simply do not associate dragons with working to improving the community.
A second indicator of the target age group is a subplot:
“I had a friend once. But my father dragged her away. There was more to that story, but it hovered just out of my reach, insubstantial as smoke.”
The two best friends, But what is heavily signalled is “teenage crush”. The yearning feelings described, and the sweet chasteness of their relationship is targeted at the younger age of the readership, who will feel it as authentic.
Thirdly, the language is often quite simple and direct, if a little uneven. Altogether it feels very like a fun book for late teens, but with a not-so-hidden message. This world, perhaps a similar world to that of the readers’ grandmothers, wants to keep women small—both their lives and their prospects. But we see what happens when they rise en masse and take up the space they deserve. There is a clear message here about expanding your horizons: opening your mind to new possibilities, and accepting others for who they really are. These are suitable messages for everyone, but especially for what have come to be termed as YA books.
As the story continues, Alex is forced to become more independent. As they become older, help comes from an unexpected quarter in
In all this we can see clear parallels with America’s troubled political and social past, and its continuing legacy.
“But I am a scientist, sirs, and my allegiance is not to this body, nor even to myself, but only to the truth. Who benefits when knowledge is buried? Who gains when science succumbs to political expediency?”
“The beautiful thing about science is we do not know what we cannot know and we will not know until we know.”
There is a huge discrepancy here, since the existence of dragoning has only ever been mentioned as happening in America. Unfortunately this is another flaw in the book, which I feel may not have been so evident if it had been a short story or novella.
There are good things in the book. Between the chapters there are references to earlier reports of dragons, so we alternate between Alex’s recollections and historical documents such as transcripts, news articles, and extracts from scholarly works by Dr. Gantz, which fill in much of the back story which Alex would not have been privy to as a child. This is effective, providing a sense of authenticity.
Kelly Barnhill does not shy away from addressing many thorny issues in the book. As well as patriarchy and its machinations: the indoctrination of gender roles, the author explores dysfunctional families, she looks at feminism, and the taboos around women and anger. A large part of this is the concept of independence and self-discovery: the complicated aspects of gender identity, plus gender identity issues in society. The author additionally examines aspects of choice, freedom, the distortion of history and suppression both of information and of memory. The panic and suspicion around the dragons had led to suggestions of:
“sinister external forces (the Russians, the Chinese Red Army, domestically radicalized Trotskyites who had failed to be rounded up by Senator McCarthy’s hearings and so on”
“ … If the dragoning had been smaller in scope, there would have been a more concentrated effort at the suppression of news and a more robust campaign of misinformation in those early days. It had, after all, worked before.”
Knowledge of freedom is always precious. There are sorrows and injustices which might make a 21st century reader identify with the rage of the characters. It has to be said though, that even within the USA, the purview is small. The 1950s may not have offered many opportunities to women, but actually many of them did work outside the home, but in low paid jobs. Here in England too, the working class women, and most who were emigrating here from the Commonwealth, were stuck in dead-end jobs. Those who were housewives often thought of themselves as privileged, because they “didn’t have to work”. I have heard them say so, pointing out that they had the freedom to organise their day, in comparison with working women, or with their middle class husbands who were tied to office desks.
No, this would not have suited me, nor perhaps you, but the world was a different place then. The burning, building rage that is described is transposed from the perceptions of a 21st century woman. It is just not that simple. It’s also worth pointing out that these conditions still apply today, for some, and are not consigned to the history books. The USA today even has a term, “stay-at-home mom”, for those women who choose to do so, although the UK does not adhere to this concept.
We read:
“When power belongs, not to the violent, and not to the wealthy and well-connected, but to the people, a different sort of future begins to present itself.”
but we see very little exploration of other cultures and classes. 1950s America is presented as uniform and rather bland.
I wish I could have rated this book higher. In honesty it barely reaches my default of 3 stars. However, it is a brave attempt to say something important, and it manages to avoid the rigid gender binaries which most fantasy books, or those including magic fall prey to. The timeless political parallels are also worth exploring. But I think it was misguided of Kelly Barnhill to set the overall tone as light, and to depict one of the most terrifying monsters in mythology as she does. Ultimately, these dragons let the message down badly. They may be paragons of the community, but for my next read about dragons, I shall expect far more fire, fury and devastation.
“Time, in our experience, is linear, but in truth time is also looped. It is like a piece of yarn, in which each section of the strand twists and winds around every other—a complicated and complex knot, in which one part cannot be viewed out of context from the others. Everything touches everything else. Everything affects everything else. Each loop, each bend, each twist interact with each other. It is all connected, and it is all one.
But every once in a while, there are experiences that slice all the other moments apart—stark, singular things that mark the difference between Before and After. These moments are singular, separate from the knot. Separate even from the thread. They can’t be tugged at or loosened. They cannot be wound into something lovely or intricate or delicate. They do not interact seamlessly with the fabric of a life. They are of another substance entirely. Unstuck in time, and out of sync with a life’s patterns and processes.”
June 15, 2022
Why Does The Dragon Have A Purse??????
it kind of truly is a talent to take a concept as compelling as "1950s housewives spontaneously shift into dragons in bursts of feminine rage" and make it B o r i n g. absolutely nothing happened in this book, and not in a character-study way. alex was the least interesting character in the whole book so having her as the POV character made this entirely thing a slog. could have been 300 pages shorter. it was so repetitive. also, it's a stylized as a memoir, but alex kept doing the "oh, i mean my sister." like girl you already told us that beatrice is your cousin and your parents just decided to pretend she was your sister after your aunt left. like, we know. we get it. i found myself saying I Get It over and over and over again throughout this entire thing.
and it was way too inconsistent. turning into a dragon is about rage, no it's not. it's spontaneous, no it's not. it's distinctly female, no it's not. women change because their husbands suck, but wait actually some of them try to make it work with their husbands because they love each other. the dragons are enormous, wait no actually they can still fit in their houses and wear aprons, but wait no actually they're big enough to carry military aircraft. no one can even utter the word "dragon," well until they all just re-enter society out of the blue and people hesitate for like maybe a second but it's no biggie. like, the situation can be more than one thing but not when everything is spoken of in absolutes. the metaphor was just waaayyy too muddy for me.
plus, this whole thing reeked of gender essentialism.
it kind of truly is a talent to take a concept as compelling as "1950s housewives spontaneously shift into dragons in bursts of feminine rage" and make it B o r i n g. absolutely nothing happened in this book, and not in a character-study way. alex was the least interesting character in the whole book so having her as the POV character made this entirely thing a slog. could have been 300 pages shorter. it was so repetitive. also, it's a stylized as a memoir, but alex kept doing the "oh, i mean my sister." like girl you already told us that beatrice is your cousin and your parents just decided to pretend she was your sister after your aunt left. like, we know. we get it. i found myself saying I Get It over and over and over again throughout this entire thing.
and it was way too inconsistent. turning into a dragon is about rage, no it's not. it's spontaneous, no it's not. it's distinctly female, no it's not. women change because their husbands suck, but wait actually some of them try to make it work with their husbands because they love each other. the dragons are enormous, wait no actually they can still fit in their houses and wear aprons, but wait no actually they're big enough to carry military aircraft. no one can even utter the word "dragon," well until they all just re-enter society out of the blue and people hesitate for like maybe a second but it's no biggie. like, the situation can be more than one thing but not when everything is spoken of in absolutes. the metaphor was just waaayyy too muddy for me.
plus, this whole thing reeked of gender essentialism.
June 17, 2022
4.5 Stars
I really enjoyed this one and it’s another I hope to add to my physical shelves.
Mel 🖤🐶🐺🐾
MY BLOG: https://melissa413readsalot.blogspot....
I really enjoyed this one and it’s another I hope to add to my physical shelves.
Mel 🖤🐶🐺🐾
MY BLOG: https://melissa413readsalot.blogspot....
January 8, 2022
........holy shit.
March 17, 2024
This was a fantastic read that really surprised me! I won a copy of When Women Were Dragons on NetGalley, and I’m so excited for this to release! This was a lovely story about the changes we go through to become ourselves, talking about uncomfortable things, and accepting ourselves and those around us as they are. This book really surprised me. I didn’t know what to expect when I started and I am so glad I got to experience this story.
April 1, 2022
Brilliant book!
It has the most wonderful written characters and comes with an important message.
It made me cry, get so angry that I had to put it down for a bit, but it also made me happy.
If there is one book you should read this year it should be this one.
It has the most wonderful written characters and comes with an important message.
It made me cry, get so angry that I had to put it down for a bit, but it also made me happy.
If there is one book you should read this year it should be this one.
January 12, 2023
Read through page 70, at which point I was actively mad at the book and so definitely needed to stop. This is all ideology and no story—I’m a feminist and still couldn’t stand the way it pounds the reader over the head with seemingly every sentence. There’s not a single thought, action or character trait that isn’t specifically engineered to make a political point, and in fact our narrator barely has any character traits at all. The only character I had any interest in was the cool aunt and I think she’s only around at the beginning.
So, this book is about women turning into dragons as an answer to patriarchy, set in the American Midwest in the 1950s. Which despite the fact that in this version of the world, all women are able to turn into giant fire-breathing dragons if sufficiently pissed off, looks exactly like the real world in the 1950s. In fact, if there’s any deviation it’s that it’s a caricature of itself (my family was there; I don’t see them in this book at all). In a world where a woman even starting to get upset means her eyes glow a warning gold and the men in the room shut up, patriarchy nevertheless exists in exactly the same form as in the real world? I am very tired of the endless round of books insisting, essentially, that power is not power—that there is some essential state of victimhood unaffected by the massive, tangible power that a group in fact holds, as if the holding of power is some irrelevant sidenote in human power relations.
And you know, the book still could have made sense if the Mass Dragoning of the 1950s was the first such event, but no, the book insists at length (via the supposed scientific articles of an accomplished male scientist of the 1950s, which read like a 2020s woman’s sassy blog posts) that women spontaneously turning into dragons has always happened. But been ignored and suppressed by everyone. Because what’s easier to ignore than flights of fire-breathing dragons, which presumably need to live somewhere and eat something? Seriously—in the book, 650,000 new dragons are born on a single day and the only effect this has on society is that the women they once were are now missing? Dragons play no role in politics, warfare or transportation? They have no effect on the economy or environment? No political parties see points to score in allying with them or even acknowledging their existence? Mmmkay then. Sure.
The book’s actual focus—the life of narrator Alex Green—is scarcely more believable. Barnhill seems to believe that memory is a recording device, allowing one to simply replay moments even from early childhood with fully accurate detail, upon which she expounds at length. Also, everything about Alex’s life is engineered to point out her community’s resistance to her tomboy identity, to an absurd degree, in which she constantly asks to be called Alex while her teachers and even parents aggressively call her Alexandra—that’s a lot of name for a 4-year-old. Did they call her Alexandra in the cradle? Why did they give her this name in the first place when they oppose the most obvious nickname so vehemently? Each individual detail could conceivably happen, but pile them all on top of each other and it becomes absurd.
Perhaps I am just too immersed in social justice discourse, to the point I couldn’t hear the story over the dog-whistling—but I think it’s fair to say this isn’t a dog whistle, it’s a battering ram. I think I also just don’t identify with this brand of feminist rage. (Murdering men for cheating on women is okay, what? Presumably few people who believe this also think it’s acceptable to murder women for cheating on men. Isn’t feminism supposed to be about getting rid of double standards?) But it’s left me discouraged regarding recent fantasy generally—I need to go read other stuff until the taste is washed out of my mouth.
So, this book is about women turning into dragons as an answer to patriarchy, set in the American Midwest in the 1950s. Which despite the fact that in this version of the world, all women are able to turn into giant fire-breathing dragons if sufficiently pissed off, looks exactly like the real world in the 1950s. In fact, if there’s any deviation it’s that it’s a caricature of itself (my family was there; I don’t see them in this book at all). In a world where a woman even starting to get upset means her eyes glow a warning gold and the men in the room shut up, patriarchy nevertheless exists in exactly the same form as in the real world? I am very tired of the endless round of books insisting, essentially, that power is not power—that there is some essential state of victimhood unaffected by the massive, tangible power that a group in fact holds, as if the holding of power is some irrelevant sidenote in human power relations.
And you know, the book still could have made sense if the Mass Dragoning of the 1950s was the first such event, but no, the book insists at length (via the supposed scientific articles of an accomplished male scientist of the 1950s, which read like a 2020s woman’s sassy blog posts) that women spontaneously turning into dragons has always happened. But been ignored and suppressed by everyone. Because what’s easier to ignore than flights of fire-breathing dragons, which presumably need to live somewhere and eat something? Seriously—in the book, 650,000 new dragons are born on a single day and the only effect this has on society is that the women they once were are now missing? Dragons play no role in politics, warfare or transportation? They have no effect on the economy or environment? No political parties see points to score in allying with them or even acknowledging their existence? Mmmkay then. Sure.
The book’s actual focus—the life of narrator Alex Green—is scarcely more believable. Barnhill seems to believe that memory is a recording device, allowing one to simply replay moments even from early childhood with fully accurate detail, upon which she expounds at length. Also, everything about Alex’s life is engineered to point out her community’s resistance to her tomboy identity, to an absurd degree, in which she constantly asks to be called Alex while her teachers and even parents aggressively call her Alexandra—that’s a lot of name for a 4-year-old. Did they call her Alexandra in the cradle? Why did they give her this name in the first place when they oppose the most obvious nickname so vehemently? Each individual detail could conceivably happen, but pile them all on top of each other and it becomes absurd.
Perhaps I am just too immersed in social justice discourse, to the point I couldn’t hear the story over the dog-whistling—but I think it’s fair to say this isn’t a dog whistle, it’s a battering ram. I think I also just don’t identify with this brand of feminist rage. (Murdering men for cheating on women is okay, what? Presumably few people who believe this also think it’s acceptable to murder women for cheating on men. Isn’t feminism supposed to be about getting rid of double standards?) But it’s left me discouraged regarding recent fantasy generally—I need to go read other stuff until the taste is washed out of my mouth.
November 9, 2022
A moving and poignant historical literary novel that answers the question: "What if hundreds of thousands of women fed up with the 1950s patriarchy transformed into dragons, ate their shitty husbands, and flew off to enjoy some sweet, sweet freedom?"
July 10, 2022
There are some books that I appreciate but can't click with, and I'm left wishing I could have liked them more. Then there are books like this one, where I can say in all honesty that it's not me; it's the book. I wish this was a better book so I could enjoy it.
The premise is original and both meaningful and fun; the historical setting works very well for the kind of story this book is trying to tell; the in-universe excerpts and quotations add to the story and expand the worldbuilding. Alex's story starts out engaging and powerful, with a whimsical tone that really suits the magical realism premise, and there are some great passages and beautiful quotes... and all in all, finishing this book felt like a chore.
The pacing is a slog, Alex evolves from "precocius child" to "dull, pointless protagonist" soon enough, and halfway through the book I just couldn't buy her relationship to Beatrice or just about anything that involved Alex having feelings because everything about her is so souless and inconsequential. This is a book about women turning into dragons in a burst of fiery female rage and somehow manages to be boring about it - and about as subtle as a ton of briks to the head but I wouldn't have cared about that if it had been entertaining. Alas, it stopped being entertaining a third into the book. This is also a book about a resourceful smart young woman that made me absolutely hate its main character because I got very tired of Alex's specialness and informed intelligence without the author doing any work whatsoever to show us that she is at least half as smart and special as this book kept telling me she was. And then it all got fixed and wrapped in a neat little bow within the space of a handful of chapters. The end.
2.5 stars. Rounded up because I really did enjoy the beginning but this really suffered from an extreme case of premise stretched to the limits. Would've been infinitely better as a short story.
The premise is original and both meaningful and fun; the historical setting works very well for the kind of story this book is trying to tell; the in-universe excerpts and quotations add to the story and expand the worldbuilding. Alex's story starts out engaging and powerful, with a whimsical tone that really suits the magical realism premise, and there are some great passages and beautiful quotes... and all in all, finishing this book felt like a chore.
The pacing is a slog, Alex evolves from "precocius child" to "dull, pointless protagonist" soon enough, and halfway through the book I just couldn't buy her relationship to Beatrice or just about anything that involved Alex having feelings because everything about her is so souless and inconsequential. This is a book about women turning into dragons in a burst of fiery female rage and somehow manages to be boring about it - and about as subtle as a ton of briks to the head but I wouldn't have cared about that if it had been entertaining. Alas, it stopped being entertaining a third into the book. This is also a book about a resourceful smart young woman that made me absolutely hate its main character because I got very tired of Alex's specialness and informed intelligence without the author doing any work whatsoever to show us that she is at least half as smart and special as this book kept telling me she was. And then it all got fixed and wrapped in a neat little bow within the space of a handful of chapters. The end.
2.5 stars. Rounded up because I really did enjoy the beginning but this really suffered from an extreme case of premise stretched to the limits. Would've been infinitely better as a short story.
November 5, 2023
3.5 Stars
I am always on the hunt for unique fantasy stories and this one certainly fit the bill. The premise is so bizarre but it is easy to suspend disbelief because the story adopts such a serious time. While not a personal favourites, I love the feminine themes in this novel.
I am always on the hunt for unique fantasy stories and this one certainly fit the bill. The premise is so bizarre but it is easy to suspend disbelief because the story adopts such a serious time. While not a personal favourites, I love the feminine themes in this novel.
April 2, 2024
Another gender apocalypse novel that ultimately disappointed. Most folks seemed to love it though so don't let our opinion steer you away.
December 6, 2022
How ironic that a complaint the main character has about another character is the very same problem I have with this entire novel:
so wordy.
This was, disappointingly, a chore to read.
I was promised women raging, fighting oppression by turning into dragons. And instead I get a scientific yawn fest? WHY.
The feminism went a little too hard here. The discrimination is almost a little too extreme and maybe that's the point but it just seemed a bit too much for me. This is a world where ALL women are beat down and treated as no more than homemakers and child-bearers. There are essentially no males in this story to redeem the species. There is one male who is not a villain and he's too focused on the science of dragons to actually bother about standing up for women.
It took 200 pages to actually pick up, though, and I think part of me just smashed through the latter half just so I could be done with it. This book takes all the fun out of raging feminist dragons by making it all about scientific reports and whatnot. I was so bored. I came so close to the DNF but I'd bought this as a gift to myself on a rough day and I didn't want to give in.
The writing could easily have been livened up by changing the focus from a scientific one. No one wants raging dragons dulled down, man. Let us be free and wild with them.
Maybe more coherent thoughts later but for now I'm just too bummed. What a disappointment this was.
This was, disappointingly, a chore to read.
I was promised women raging, fighting oppression by turning into dragons. And instead I get a scientific yawn fest? WHY.
The feminism went a little too hard here. The discrimination is almost a little too extreme and maybe that's the point but it just seemed a bit too much for me. This is a world where ALL women are beat down and treated as no more than homemakers and child-bearers. There are essentially no males in this story to redeem the species. There is one male who is not a villain and he's too focused on the science of dragons to actually bother about standing up for women.
It took 200 pages to actually pick up, though, and I think part of me just smashed through the latter half just so I could be done with it. This book takes all the fun out of raging feminist dragons by making it all about scientific reports and whatnot. I was so bored. I came so close to the DNF but I'd bought this as a gift to myself on a rough day and I didn't want to give in.
The writing could easily have been livened up by changing the focus from a scientific one. No one wants raging dragons dulled down, man. Let us be free and wild with them.
Maybe more coherent thoughts later but for now I'm just too bummed. What a disappointment this was.
October 26, 2023
Kelly Barnhill is an extraordinary writer. I absolutely loved The Girl Who Drank the Moon and maybe love this one even more. What an imagination, what a way to get across anger at what is happening in the world, especially with women. An over the top, wonderful feminist telling of the mass dragoning of 1955, not many of us are still around from then.
What is not to like in this, dragons of course, an amazing hero Alex who suffers terribly growing up, yet survives and thrives, her sister/cousin/daughter/mother Beatrice and Mrs. Gyzinska, who follows and knows her story throughout. Can't love this book enough.
A couple of quotes that I cannot separate as I read on my Kindle for Mac on my laptop:
School principals and head teachers did not take kindly to potentially unruly students with the ability to breathe fire. The thinking went that the risk of insubordination with dragoned students was incalculable. How on earth could they be educated when they couldn’t be subdued?
Barnhill, Kelly. When Women Were Dragons (p. 299). Bonnier Publishing Fiction. Kindle Edition.
While it is true that there is a freedom in forgetting—and this country has made great use of that freedom—there is a tremendous power in remembrance. Indeed, it is memory that teaches us, and reminds us, again and again, who we truly are and who we have always been.
Barnhill, Kelly. When Women Were Dragons (p. 302). Bonnier Publishing Fiction. Kindle Edition.
What is not to like in this, dragons of course, an amazing hero Alex who suffers terribly growing up, yet survives and thrives, her sister/cousin/daughter/mother Beatrice and Mrs. Gyzinska, who follows and knows her story throughout. Can't love this book enough.
A couple of quotes that I cannot separate as I read on my Kindle for Mac on my laptop:
School principals and head teachers did not take kindly to potentially unruly students with the ability to breathe fire. The thinking went that the risk of insubordination with dragoned students was incalculable. How on earth could they be educated when they couldn’t be subdued?
Barnhill, Kelly. When Women Were Dragons (p. 299). Bonnier Publishing Fiction. Kindle Edition.
While it is true that there is a freedom in forgetting—and this country has made great use of that freedom—there is a tremendous power in remembrance. Indeed, it is memory that teaches us, and reminds us, again and again, who we truly are and who we have always been.
Barnhill, Kelly. When Women Were Dragons (p. 302). Bonnier Publishing Fiction. Kindle Edition.
December 29, 2022
4.5 stars
April 14, 2022
When Women Were Dragons is a fabulously fierce, utterly original and unapologetically feminist novel that explores centuries of female rage, due to subjugation, violence and misogyny—leading women to spontaneously transform into DRAGONS. A relevant and timeless coming of age story that’s heartfelt, complex and thoroughly addictive.
Set in an alternate 1950s America, where in a single day thousands of women and girls spontaneously transform into Dragons—so shocking an event that it’s literally forbidden to talk about.
Alex was a child when the day known only as The Mass Dragoning took place and her aunt sprouted wings and took to the skies, but her mother is determined to forget. Forced into silence Alex now must live with the consequences; a mother more protective than ever, a father growing increasingly distant, a dragon obsessed cousin she must now call sister and an aunt she must forget ever existed…
This was absolutely phenomenal! I was completely captivated by the lush and atmospheric prose and exquisitely detailed world building. I loved the originality in using dragons as a metaphor for women expressing themselves, freeing themselves from having to conform to limiting or stereotypical gender roles. The choice to also use them as a euphemism for anything “feminine” that makes people (mostly men) uncomfortable, was also really well crafted and perfectly captures the stigma that still surrounds certain “womens issues” in society today.
The pacing was a little slow but I felt it worked well with the atmospheric and detailed storytelling—particularly the historical accounts, newspaper clippings, diary entries and other “classified” dragon related items that are scattered throughout the narrative which added a depth and richness to the world building.
I really liked Alex, our protagonist/main POV character and loved that the plot acts as a sort of memoir to Alex who tells us her story—from her childhood, her experience of the mass dragoning and how such an event affected the lives of those left behind.
Her story, as a bright and academically inclined woman, with no plans to marry or have kids-in a time where society expected all women to exactly that-is far from easy. But, her resilience pays off despite the rampant sexism she faces, though I have to admit several scenes had me literally wanting to go full dragon whilst reading, as the injustice all the female characters faced made me really angry.
There were several other characters that I absolutely loved as well ; Marla (Alex’s aunt), Dr. Gantz (a scientist trying to research and help the women who’ve ‘dragoned’), Mrs. Gyzinska (the local librarian and a fierce supporter of Alex) and of course Beatrice, my absolute favourite-her personality and fearlessness literally bursts of the page.
I also loved the inclusion of LGBTQ+ rep with both Marla and Alex being lesbian and a mention (during a study) of trans women transforming into dragons, though I would’ve liked to have explored more of their stories alongside Marla and Alex’s.
Overall, this was a powerfully moving, feminist and wonderfully queer coming of age story that I absolutely LOVED!
Also, a huge thank you to Hot Key Books and Netgalley for the e-arc.
Set in an alternate 1950s America, where in a single day thousands of women and girls spontaneously transform into Dragons—so shocking an event that it’s literally forbidden to talk about.
Alex was a child when the day known only as The Mass Dragoning took place and her aunt sprouted wings and took to the skies, but her mother is determined to forget. Forced into silence Alex now must live with the consequences; a mother more protective than ever, a father growing increasingly distant, a dragon obsessed cousin she must now call sister and an aunt she must forget ever existed…
This was absolutely phenomenal! I was completely captivated by the lush and atmospheric prose and exquisitely detailed world building. I loved the originality in using dragons as a metaphor for women expressing themselves, freeing themselves from having to conform to limiting or stereotypical gender roles. The choice to also use them as a euphemism for anything “feminine” that makes people (mostly men) uncomfortable, was also really well crafted and perfectly captures the stigma that still surrounds certain “womens issues” in society today.
The pacing was a little slow but I felt it worked well with the atmospheric and detailed storytelling—particularly the historical accounts, newspaper clippings, diary entries and other “classified” dragon related items that are scattered throughout the narrative which added a depth and richness to the world building.
I really liked Alex, our protagonist/main POV character and loved that the plot acts as a sort of memoir to Alex who tells us her story—from her childhood, her experience of the mass dragoning and how such an event affected the lives of those left behind.
Her story, as a bright and academically inclined woman, with no plans to marry or have kids-in a time where society expected all women to exactly that-is far from easy. But, her resilience pays off despite the rampant sexism she faces, though I have to admit several scenes had me literally wanting to go full dragon whilst reading, as the injustice all the female characters faced made me really angry.
There were several other characters that I absolutely loved as well ; Marla (Alex’s aunt), Dr. Gantz (a scientist trying to research and help the women who’ve ‘dragoned’), Mrs. Gyzinska (the local librarian and a fierce supporter of Alex) and of course Beatrice, my absolute favourite-her personality and fearlessness literally bursts of the page.
I also loved the inclusion of LGBTQ+ rep with both Marla and Alex being lesbian and a mention (during a study) of trans women transforming into dragons, though I would’ve liked to have explored more of their stories alongside Marla and Alex’s.
Overall, this was a powerfully moving, feminist and wonderfully queer coming of age story that I absolutely LOVED!
Also, a huge thank you to Hot Key Books and Netgalley for the e-arc.
June 28, 2022
3.5*
I feel When Women Were Dragons is the perfect read at the moment. It follows something known as 'The Dragoning' where women voluntarily turned into dragons (not massive, Smaug-sized dragons; but big nonetheless. And they can fly and throw fireballs and all). However, as much as this is obviously fantasy, this book is not about dragons.
This book starts MANY conversations about what being a woman means and, more specifically, what being a woman in the United States is like. In a way, it's a picture in time where you get to see all kinds of treatment women have collectively received and how some have chosen to accept it, some like it, and some struggle under a patriarchal system that strives to invisibilize and minimize them.
Reading this made me very angry. The book is such a smooth, easy read, but it made me angry and frustrated for all the right reasons.
I didn't love-love the book, but I feel it was the perfect read for what's happening in the US.
I feel When Women Were Dragons is the perfect read at the moment. It follows something known as 'The Dragoning' where women voluntarily turned into dragons (not massive, Smaug-sized dragons; but big nonetheless. And they can fly and throw fireballs and all). However, as much as this is obviously fantasy, this book is not about dragons.
This book starts MANY conversations about what being a woman means and, more specifically, what being a woman in the United States is like. In a way, it's a picture in time where you get to see all kinds of treatment women have collectively received and how some have chosen to accept it, some like it, and some struggle under a patriarchal system that strives to invisibilize and minimize them.
Reading this made me very angry. The book is such a smooth, easy read, but it made me angry and frustrated for all the right reasons.
I didn't love-love the book, but I feel it was the perfect read for what's happening in the US.
May 20, 2022
WHEN WOMEN WERE DRAGONS by Kelly Barnhill
Publication: May 3, 2022 by Doubleday Books
Kelly Barnhill’s first adult novel is an absolute delight even though it delves into a heady mix of topics that have concerned society for ages. With tongue-in-cheek humor she explores the self actualization of a girl developing into womanhood along with the strength of sisterhood, love and family. Effortlessly brought into consideration is the patriarchal nature of our society, misogyny, cultural inequalities, and the fluidity of sexuality. Alexandra ( call me: Alex) Green provides the major point of view … looking from adulthood back to her childhood during the 50’s and 60’s. She saw her first dragon when she was just four years old. A kind old lady who she frequently visited, suddenly, in front of her, metamorphosed into a dragon. But no one would talk to her about dragons. In spite of numerous occurrences and corroborating evidence talk of dragons was squelched. “It created a hole in the universe where truth should be.” Then later, in 1955 there was a “Mass Dragoning”, where hundreds of thousands of wives, mothers, and other women, sprouted wings, scales, talons, and took to the skies, sometimes leaving in a path of fiery destruction. Sometimes leaving a path of male destruction. Alex’s aunt Marla was one of the women who dragoned. She was not your typical women of the time. Aunt Marla flew planes in the War and since returning worked as a mechanic in an auto repair shop. She was instrumental in encouraging and helping her mother finish college with a mathematics major. And, joyfully was raising her daughter, Beatrice. Suddenly, it was announced that Beatrice was “her sister” and there was offered no explanation about the absence of Aunt Marla. Her mother became more smothering, while her father grew more distant … virtually absent. Her father, for an unfathomable reason completely cut-off the burgeoning relationship between Alex and her best friend, Sonja.
Kelly Barnhill crafts a joyful tale utilizing the metaphor of “dragoning” to explore rage and
Inequality in a women’s world , in an effective tongue-in cheek manner, rather than a dogmatic, lecture style. This magical fantasy nicely explores self actualization, importance of sisterhood,
love, and relationships. Silence is not acceptable with ongoing injustice and inequality.
Thanks to NetGalley and Doubleday Books for providing an Uncorrected Proof in exchange for an honest review. I would anticipate that this book becomes a favorite for Book Clubs.
Publication: May 3, 2022 by Doubleday Books
Kelly Barnhill’s first adult novel is an absolute delight even though it delves into a heady mix of topics that have concerned society for ages. With tongue-in-cheek humor she explores the self actualization of a girl developing into womanhood along with the strength of sisterhood, love and family. Effortlessly brought into consideration is the patriarchal nature of our society, misogyny, cultural inequalities, and the fluidity of sexuality. Alexandra ( call me: Alex) Green provides the major point of view … looking from adulthood back to her childhood during the 50’s and 60’s. She saw her first dragon when she was just four years old. A kind old lady who she frequently visited, suddenly, in front of her, metamorphosed into a dragon. But no one would talk to her about dragons. In spite of numerous occurrences and corroborating evidence talk of dragons was squelched. “It created a hole in the universe where truth should be.” Then later, in 1955 there was a “Mass Dragoning”, where hundreds of thousands of wives, mothers, and other women, sprouted wings, scales, talons, and took to the skies, sometimes leaving in a path of fiery destruction. Sometimes leaving a path of male destruction. Alex’s aunt Marla was one of the women who dragoned. She was not your typical women of the time. Aunt Marla flew planes in the War and since returning worked as a mechanic in an auto repair shop. She was instrumental in encouraging and helping her mother finish college with a mathematics major. And, joyfully was raising her daughter, Beatrice. Suddenly, it was announced that Beatrice was “her sister” and there was offered no explanation about the absence of Aunt Marla. Her mother became more smothering, while her father grew more distant … virtually absent. Her father, for an unfathomable reason completely cut-off the burgeoning relationship between Alex and her best friend, Sonja.
Kelly Barnhill crafts a joyful tale utilizing the metaphor of “dragoning” to explore rage and
Inequality in a women’s world , in an effective tongue-in cheek manner, rather than a dogmatic, lecture style. This magical fantasy nicely explores self actualization, importance of sisterhood,
love, and relationships. Silence is not acceptable with ongoing injustice and inequality.
Thanks to NetGalley and Doubleday Books for providing an Uncorrected Proof in exchange for an honest review. I would anticipate that this book becomes a favorite for Book Clubs.
October 4, 2023
Catching up…
Reading a GR friends beautiful review reminded me that I needed to get mine posted.
Alex is a budding scientist, grows up in a small Wisconsin town, in a household full of secrets.
No one will tell her why her mother disappears for months, and/or why her unmarried Aunt Marla moves in to take care of the family.
Or…
Why her father disappears into his work, sometimes not returning home at night.
Meanwhile…
Something is going on in her community, as women spontaneously “dragon,” erupting that sometimes levels buildings.
Of course, these isolated eruptions are suppressed and not discussed by local news or police, and fire crews respond to the “incidents.”
Scientists who seek answers to the phenomenon are called in for questioning and blackballed from their universities.
Considering this stifling environment, Aunt Marla is a breath of fresh air. As a mechanic in a body shop she stares down men who cross her.
Then Aunt Marla disappears during a “mass dragooning” of nearly 650,000 women, leaving a baby behind. Beatrice is adopted as Alex’s “sister,” and any mention of her aunt or dragons is forbidden.
Her mother begins obsessively weaving knots, and her parents cut off Alex’s friendship with a neighbor girl, who then disappears.
The odder things became, the more Alex is forced to pretend she doesn’t see what she sees.
The silence and conformity – “mass forgetting” are as suffocating as a world that uplifts men while constraining women to secondary roles.
As a reader it feels like an indictment of a system of gender apartheid.
And yet as readers…
We have an opportunity to watch Alex navigate her first relationship and find her own path, and shift from the suffocating conformity of the 1950s.
But…
We can’t help but feel the bruising of the current decisions of the Supreme Court that have affected women, and the push to ban books, and how important freedom is…
Especially the voice of women.
We don’t ever want to lose that.
I believe the author was making a point here.
And…
It wasn’t subtle.
Books can provide important messages that way.
But…
Did she do it effectively?
Reading a GR friends beautiful review reminded me that I needed to get mine posted.
Alex is a budding scientist, grows up in a small Wisconsin town, in a household full of secrets.
No one will tell her why her mother disappears for months, and/or why her unmarried Aunt Marla moves in to take care of the family.
Or…
Why her father disappears into his work, sometimes not returning home at night.
Meanwhile…
Something is going on in her community, as women spontaneously “dragon,” erupting that sometimes levels buildings.
Of course, these isolated eruptions are suppressed and not discussed by local news or police, and fire crews respond to the “incidents.”
Scientists who seek answers to the phenomenon are called in for questioning and blackballed from their universities.
Considering this stifling environment, Aunt Marla is a breath of fresh air. As a mechanic in a body shop she stares down men who cross her.
Then Aunt Marla disappears during a “mass dragooning” of nearly 650,000 women, leaving a baby behind. Beatrice is adopted as Alex’s “sister,” and any mention of her aunt or dragons is forbidden.
Her mother begins obsessively weaving knots, and her parents cut off Alex’s friendship with a neighbor girl, who then disappears.
The odder things became, the more Alex is forced to pretend she doesn’t see what she sees.
The silence and conformity – “mass forgetting” are as suffocating as a world that uplifts men while constraining women to secondary roles.
As a reader it feels like an indictment of a system of gender apartheid.
And yet as readers…
We have an opportunity to watch Alex navigate her first relationship and find her own path, and shift from the suffocating conformity of the 1950s.
But…
We can’t help but feel the bruising of the current decisions of the Supreme Court that have affected women, and the push to ban books, and how important freedom is…
Especially the voice of women.
We don’t ever want to lose that.
I believe the author was making a point here.
And…
It wasn’t subtle.
Books can provide important messages that way.
But…
Did she do it effectively?
June 7, 2024
5.14 on CAWPILE
May 3, 2022
Ahoy there me mateys! I received an eArc of this fantasy novel through NetGalley in exchange for me honest musings . . .
I have read Barnhill's young adult work before so I was intrigued to see how she would deal with dragons. This book follows Alex Green. In 1955 America experiences the Mass Dragoning where over 300,000 women spontaneously turn into dragons. This book explores the event through the lens of Alex's childhood into adulthood and beyond.
I thought the first third was absolutely engaging. I loved reading about Alex's family and how the Dragoning manifested and was originally dealt with. I particularly loved Alex's aunt. I found the subsequent parts less compelling. The second third deals with what happens when Alex's family splinters and how she finishes high school. I did enjoy this section though the pacing was much slower. Sadly the last third of the book where the dragons reenter society and how Alex deals with the implications was much less fun.
I think the major problem about the last section of the book was how the internal logic seemed to make little sense to me and have no real point. And I really didn't like the ending at all. That said, I truly loved the beginning and did love Alex and the aunt as characters. I found the author's work to be well written with interesting societal commentary even if the parts didn't fully come together for me in the end. Arrrr!
I have read Barnhill's young adult work before so I was intrigued to see how she would deal with dragons. This book follows Alex Green. In 1955 America experiences the Mass Dragoning where over 300,000 women spontaneously turn into dragons. This book explores the event through the lens of Alex's childhood into adulthood and beyond.
I thought the first third was absolutely engaging. I loved reading about Alex's family and how the Dragoning manifested and was originally dealt with. I particularly loved Alex's aunt. I found the subsequent parts less compelling. The second third deals with what happens when Alex's family splinters and how she finishes high school. I did enjoy this section though the pacing was much slower. Sadly the last third of the book where the dragons reenter society and how Alex deals with the implications was much less fun.
I think the major problem about the last section of the book was how the internal logic seemed to make little sense to me and have no real point. And I really didn't like the ending at all. That said, I truly loved the beginning and did love Alex and the aunt as characters. I found the author's work to be well written with interesting societal commentary even if the parts didn't fully come together for me in the end. Arrrr!
September 23, 2023
The idea is incredibly interesting; delivery is shotty. Some of it is spectacular, but there will be slow-paced, boring passages and another excellent part.
It is hard to rate this because parts were beautifully done. The lack of consistency affected me, and I would have difficulty pushing on in parts.
I love the women fighting back and the "dragoning". Alex was a great character, but there wasn't a lot of buildup of characters outside of her and her sister/cousin.
I do love the speculation and the implications of this scenario.
Solid 3 Stars for me,
It is hard to rate this because parts were beautifully done. The lack of consistency affected me, and I would have difficulty pushing on in parts.
I love the women fighting back and the "dragoning". Alex was a great character, but there wasn't a lot of buildup of characters outside of her and her sister/cousin.
I do love the speculation and the implications of this scenario.
Solid 3 Stars for me,
November 27, 2022
4.5 stars!!
Gosh, where will I even start? This beautiful and powerful book pushed me in a rabbit hole researching dragons until 3 am and it was worth it. The mention of history and patriarchy with feminist undertones from the protagonist was just perfect. The text is not boring, although some of the dialogues were..predictable?
I didn’t have any strong connections with the characters but the overall book was 10/10!!!!
Gosh, where will I even start? This beautiful and powerful book pushed me in a rabbit hole researching dragons until 3 am and it was worth it. The mention of history and patriarchy with feminist undertones from the protagonist was just perfect. The text is not boring, although some of the dialogues were..predictable?
I didn’t have any strong connections with the characters but the overall book was 10/10!!!!
March 26, 2023
maybe i’ll write an actual review some day, but this was borderline unreadable. it would have been a great short story, but it doesn’t work well as a novel.
May 30, 2022
There is no subtlety to Barnhill's writing in this YA novel: at every turn, she tells you how you, as her reader, should think and feel.
There is no instance here of presenting something to the reader in a dynamic way - be it a slice of dialogue, an observed scene, pathetic fallacy, a piece of figurative language; a robust metaphor or an unexpected simile - in order to arouse in the reader the feeling that the author wishes to convey. No, Kelly Barnhill bashes her reader round the head repeatedly with what they're supposed to think and feel. I grew resentful of feeling so patronised.
I acknowledge that an author can appeal to many various readerships, so if readers who don't mind this type of lazy writing want to be led by the nose, then let them.
This ARC is prefaced with a letter to Barnhill's readers explicating her reasons for writing the book and what she wishes readers to see and to feel. The reader is then bombarded with three inscriptions, a frontispiece, and not one but two imaginary textual artefacts (where their attribution is almost longer than the excerpt itself) before the novel proper. Chapters are then punctuated by further fabricated textual 'sources', the tone and style of which are indistinguishable from the authorial voice used in the narrative, and suffer from a similarly overbearing condescension.
What's worse is that it seems the only emotion Barnhill wants to arouse in her reader is anger. My attention, I found, was focussed upon not what was being said, but how it was being said, effectively proscribing any emotional engagement with the novel or its incitement to righteous anger. I found no rhetorical engagement in 'When Women Were Dragons'.
Overall, the tone of the novel falls flat - if anything, pessimistic sarcasm dominates. And not in any focussed, witty manner; more like sloppy petulence. What actually angers me is that sensitive and urgent fundamental feminist messages are blighted or debased by slack discourse like this.
I couldn't wait to put this book down and move onto something more challenging and less belaboured.
However, my thanks are due to Hot Key Books for access to this uncorrected proof via Netgalley.
There is no instance here of presenting something to the reader in a dynamic way - be it a slice of dialogue, an observed scene, pathetic fallacy, a piece of figurative language; a robust metaphor or an unexpected simile - in order to arouse in the reader the feeling that the author wishes to convey. No, Kelly Barnhill bashes her reader round the head repeatedly with what they're supposed to think and feel. I grew resentful of feeling so patronised.
I acknowledge that an author can appeal to many various readerships, so if readers who don't mind this type of lazy writing want to be led by the nose, then let them.
This ARC is prefaced with a letter to Barnhill's readers explicating her reasons for writing the book and what she wishes readers to see and to feel. The reader is then bombarded with three inscriptions, a frontispiece, and not one but two imaginary textual artefacts (where their attribution is almost longer than the excerpt itself) before the novel proper. Chapters are then punctuated by further fabricated textual 'sources', the tone and style of which are indistinguishable from the authorial voice used in the narrative, and suffer from a similarly overbearing condescension.
What's worse is that it seems the only emotion Barnhill wants to arouse in her reader is anger. My attention, I found, was focussed upon not what was being said, but how it was being said, effectively proscribing any emotional engagement with the novel or its incitement to righteous anger. I found no rhetorical engagement in 'When Women Were Dragons'.
Overall, the tone of the novel falls flat - if anything, pessimistic sarcasm dominates. And not in any focussed, witty manner; more like sloppy petulence. What actually angers me is that sensitive and urgent fundamental feminist messages are blighted or debased by slack discourse like this.
I couldn't wait to put this book down and move onto something more challenging and less belaboured.
However, my thanks are due to Hot Key Books for access to this uncorrected proof via Netgalley.
Want to read
February 24, 2022I am NOT usually a reader of anything 1950s... or anything mid-1900s. The sexism, it gets to me. But a novel that reimagines that time period specifically with the agency of women found via a "Dragoning?" (Yes, it's what you're thinking. Women turned into DRAGONS!)
Yes. Just yes.
Thank you to the publisher for my copy in exchange for an honest review.
Yes. Just yes.
Thank you to the publisher for my copy in exchange for an honest review.
December 29, 2022
2022 Best Books of the Year [#02 of 11]
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