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 show a placid acceptance of their lot, in returning to their humdrum lives, many even taking up their former roles. They may be paragons of the community, but for my next read about dragons, I shall expect far more fire, fury and devastation. Alex’s fire and desire for answers never dies and only intensifies as she grows into a fiercely independent teenager in the era of the Mass Dragoning. Society turning in on itself, a mother more protective than ever; the upsetting and confusing insistence that Marla never even existed and watching her beloved Beatrice becoming dangerously obsessed with the forbidden. by commentators, guest bloggers, reviewers, and interviewees are solely their own and do not reflect the opinions of Locus magazine or its staff.

There are other truly wonderful characters that I adored, in particular the local librarian, Mrs. Gyzinska, who was Alex’s biggest supporter and whose own story I would love to read as a companion novel. The main story follows Alex (not Alexandra, to be clear), a young girl who one day sees an old lady become a dragon. No one talks about, no one is allowed to report on it, but there is a phenomena where women transform into dragons, in particular the Mass Dragoning of 1955 where 300,000 women transformed, flying away and even punishing the men who hurt them in the process. But this isn’t a one time thing, it keeps happening but it’s just not talked about, the people left behind without lovers, mothers, sisters and so on, the girls feeling the urge to fly away, the girls feeling chained down … and throughout Alex’s journey, and her role as a daughter, a sister, a student and a partner, you follow her find her freedom her own way. 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: Just thinking about this book makes me smile, I love the message to it, I love how this book makes me feel, how clever it is, this book is a celebration of and a love letter to women. The pains and struggles of women are not glided over in this book but women are not made victims either. The writing style is easy to get your teeth into (no dragon pun), the characters likeable and good (mostly) but not perfect which makes them feel like someone you know. If much of the novel feels like a full-throated howl, an indictment of a system of gender apartheid, an alchemy occurs in the final chapters . . . Kelly Barnhill reimagines a world where women face 1950s-style constraints, and find a path out.”The story opens in a small Wisconsin town, where Alex, a budding scientist, grows up in a household full of secrets. 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.” Find this title with Libby, the award-winning and much-loved app for local libraries, by OverDrive. 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. The one thing I would say is that this book is being marketed as YA but, personally, it read as adult. Everything about it, from the tone to the themes to the way it followed through so much of Alex's life, felt like adult to me.

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 dragons can fly and could easily fly to other land masses—as well as the notion that if this was a result of women feeling oppressed in American society, a similar transformation would be happening all over the developed world—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: of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars When Women Were Dragons by Kelly BarnhillMy mittens, sitting on the ground next to Beatrice and me, began to change. I watched as the yarn unwound itself and rewound differently, writhing gently like a basket of snakes … And it wasn’t just the mittens.” 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: