Loved this story. Perhaps it is because perimenopause has made me well-acquainted with the feeling of suppressed rage. This rage can apparently make women become dragons in this alternate reality, and amazingly, society still tries to suppress what is happening to the women 😑 Well-developed, complex characters add to a fairly standard plot.

Traveling back to 1950s America, When Women Were Dragons takes a fantastical approach to show how oppressive society was and the drastic way women broke out of those roles.

Incredibly Feminist
I love a good feminist novel, especially one as empowering as this one. When Women Were Dragons paints an incredibly accurate picture of what 1950s American society looked like, with one clear difference: women could turn into dragons.

Women have magic in them; that theme comes up repeatedly throughout the story as Alex, our narrator, recounts her life from childhood to adulthood, trying to understand the Mass Dragoning of 1955. This event changed her life and that of her cousin/sister/daughter. It wove lies into their lives as they tried to live everyday lives while feigning innocence of the events.

Alex’s aunt was part of the Mass Dragoning, and early on, it is clear she was not the picture of what a 1950s woman should be. She did not fit the mold. A mechanic with her own business, a woman who bragged of her sister’s intelligence and mocked the idea that she was not as “smart as any man,” often pressed upon Alex that there was magic in women. And when forced into the mold, Alex’s aunt showed her the shackles that came with it and, eventually, the magic of breaking out.

Complex & Thoughtful
But there were consequences.

There are no easy answers here. But it asks questions: Should Marla have (Alex’s aunt) stayed human and allowed her sister to change? Should women have been forced to give up who they love and want to be to fit into the status quo? Should anyone sacrifice their happiness for the sake of others? Marla chose not to, but in the end, she ended up burdening her sister with the daughter she abandoned.

Throughout the story, Alex recounts all these events. Through an adult lens, she looks back at who she was as a child, thinks back as a child, and gives the reader a view of what the world looked like.

However, the complexity of the narrative is so compelling and also empowering. It forces the reader to look, to listen, to allow the magic we have in ourselves to awaken. This novel tells the reader to be who they want to be, to reach for the stars, to spread their wings and fly. Some sacrifices may be necessary, but we can all choose our happiness by living our true selves. Life is not easy; it is incredibly complex, and When Women Were Dragons delve into that complexity of what it means to live.

Nevertheless, Barnhill examines the unfairness of gender and the injustice of having people conform to an oppressive mold that forces them to ignore their happiness. So oppressed are these women that when the magic unleashes, it transforms them into fearsome fire-breathing dragons.

Final Thoughts
When Women Were Dragons is an extraordinary novel, there is so much I want to say and applaud that it pains me to end this review here. If I could spend hours and hours talking about this novel, I would. But, for now, this will have to suffice.

I love how so many things happened in the book. I could not keep myself from the book because it was so good

“THIS IS WHAT WE KNOW: On April 25, 1955, between the hours of 11:45 AM and half past two Central Time, 642,987 American women — wives and mothers, all — became dragons. All at once. A mass dragoning. The largest in history.”

A novel set in 1950s middle America where one day wives and mothers inexplicably turned into dragons (some devoured husbands, some destroyed their homes, some did both, while others simply took to the skies and vanished). As if that wasn’t enough to have me literally embody the 🤩 emoji, this book was directly inspired by Christine Blasey Ford’s testimony.

I’ve noticed a trend in storytelling - maybe it’s always been around but that it’s only just now started gaining mainstream attention. Female rage. Angry women. Consequences and actions that leave destruction (or in the cast of this book, devoured limbs) in their wake.

And I am H E R E for it.

*3.5 Stars*

As a big fan of The Girl Who Drank the Moon, I was excited to see that Barnhill was coming out with an adult fantasy book.

Set in the 1950s and spanning decades, When Women Were Dragons is an alternate history retelling in which a mass dragoning of hundreds of thousands of women occurs. Barnhill explores feminist themes throughout When Women Were Dragons such as gender inequalities, norms, and expectations. I thought the idea to create a story where women dragon as a result of female oppression and rage was such a unique concept. Barnhill also dives into topics such as dysfunctional families, friendship, loss, sexuality, government censorship and more. There is a lot to unpack in this story.

Alex was a strong main character, she is smart, dedicated, hardworking, however she is also stubborn and temperamental. Alex felt very realistic, so it was easy to sympathize with her throughout this story and root for her success. The relationship between Alex and her cousin/sister/daughter, Beatrice, was a delight.

Despite all the positives of When Women Were Dragons, there were a few drawbacks for me. Barnhill alternates chapters of Alex’s story with chapters that give the reader a bird’s eye view of the world through testimonies, reports, hearings, etc. While I appreciated the larger context, these sections, for me, took away from the main storyline and broke up the flow to the story. Another issue I had with this book was the portrayal of the dragons. I struggle with magic realism, it always feels disjointed to me. The dragons in this story just felt off, almost if they were caricatures in the story.

Overall, this was an enjoyable read. I would recommend this to fans of magic realism, feminist themes, and alternate histories.

Big thanks to NetGalley for providing an eArc in exchange for an honest review.

Thanks to Netgalley and the publisher I was able to read this book in exchange for an honest review.
***
When Women Were Dragons by Kelly Barnhill is the author’s first adult novel (if you haven’t read The Girl Who Drank the Moon or The Ogress and the Orphans yet please do so, they’re wonderful MG books by the author). The story starting in the 50s follows the story of Alex and with her we witness the world through her young eyes when the Mass Dragoning, woman spontaneously turning into dragons, of 1955 happens and how it affects her life. On that day in 1955 many women turned, left destruction and just took to the skies leaving everything behind. Everyone.
When Women Were Dragons is a feminist tale that explores a world where women refused to stay small to appease men and take their space, own it even, where rage, memory, and women’s forced silence is explored. Alex is a small young girl when things start but growing with her as the world changes and dragons are addressed was powerful and beautiful. You will hurt for Alex and cheer for her and silently wish for her to accept her body’s want to turn into a dragon to get away from everything, to be more. Alex was wonderful, painful, exhausting, sad and amazing.

The Mass Dragoning of 1955 was a pivotal event in history. It was especially significant to Alex Green, the narrator of When Women Were Dragons, as her life begins to fall apart, and she has to work so hard to succeed and understand herself and the world around her. I was drawn to this book by the description and was mesmerized by the writing. An interesting, unique story that can be enjoyed on many levels. My favorite read of 2022. Highly recommend. 5 stars.

This is a book of broad strokes. The characters, almost to a one, are either are straw men or tired generalities: the scientist whose scientific work amounts to saying "I believe in facts" over and over, the near-deified librarian who knows everything about everything, the absent "how-hard-could-housework-be" father, and the secondary/tertiary male characters, every single one of whom is a chauvinist pig. Like...every single one. It's easy to make a joke - and I probably have - in that vein about men, but reading it makes for a very flat experience. It's not interesting. And I also don't believe it accurately reflects reality. I'm not saying I'm an optimist, I'm just saying there's more nuance in real life - and that was not at all reflected here. You can also take for example the portrayal of girls. Beautiful girls with their exuberant joy and their willingness to help one another, no questions asked or mocking allowed, through their first periods: yeah, right. That unspoken camaraderie, that repeated line about how all women are magic is a fairy tale. It, again, lacks nuance. (It's worth saying that Barnhill does drop a line or two about how women sometimes put down other women but it's a very much "told not shown" thing.)

The primary characters are not much better developed. Beatrice, in particular, I found particularly aggravating to read. She's perfection, she's potential energy, she's a whirlwind: she's a string of adjectives without depth (and the ultimate end to her character arc was so eye-roll inducing I almost strained myself). The only thing that makes her interesting is how Alex is thrust into the role of her mother and how that relationship reflects a warped version of her mother's and Marla's (not wanting her to dragon in particular). But the thing that made Marla and Alex's mother's relationship (i.e. the only well-written relationship in the book) so interesting was that Barnhill allowed threads of darkness in: there was resentment, there were clashes, there were bad decisions. How can I really be expected to believe that as a "selfish teenager" (did you know teenagers were selfish? no? well, don't worry the narrative will make sure to explicitly remind you) Alex would feel nothing but love towards Beatrice when she's made to be her sole caretaker? It doesn't ring true. And the way Beatrice is (under)written does nothing to make me feel like I would be the same were I in Alex's shoes.

But, you know, considering the strength of the concept here, the book could have chugged along without the benefit of well-written characters - if a) the narration wasn't so obsessed with obscuring the plot and making sure the reader knew it was obscuring the plot ("there's freedom in forgetting" blah blah), and b) if the dragons themselves weren't such a pale fantasy. The narration thing, where Alex talks circles around things we know to be true ("I don't have an aunt, Beatrice is my sister," etc), is just boring. The dragons as they are realized near the end of the story...they're depressing. They come back to be caretakers and to make bread and to fix cars and to build houses and to be part of the ~community...and yeah, that's very kumbaya and all, but it completely undermines any sort of tension between Alex and the characters who dragon near the end (because if they're just going to do normal stuff...what's the point in uttering that tired line of "don't go where I can't follow?"), and also it just...it just feels too nice. These women are now all bulletproof walking flamethrowers and they ALL want to just...come home and do good? Nixon and Reagan still get to be president: it's sad. Even in our fantasies, we still end up having to hold back the rage.

Maybe if this had come out last year, or five years ago, I'd have felt differently about the way the dragons are dealt with. But I no longer buy into that "all women are magic" line of thinking. If I had any of that left in me at all, Coney Barrett certainly crushed the last nail into its coffin.

Maybe people who still want that fluffy, be-who-you're-meant-to-be-girl! feeling will enjoy this. But it certainly did not work for me.

At first I was unsure about how much I would enjoy this book. It goes back and forth between Alex's story and government and scientific reports about the occurrences of dragoning in America (and those got a little dry). But I persisted and it was well worth it. Definitely an original story blending the fantasy notion of dragons in 1950's America. It's also a revealing story about how women were treated and how they chose freedom as a dragon over the human bonds of family, work or societal demands. Definitely add this to your feminist/LGBTQ list of wonderful reads.

What a prescient first adult novel from Queen Kelly Barnhill. Here is a story about a time when women's tightly contained rage exploded out so ferociously that they became dragons. I know I wouldn't mind being a dragon at times. I really enjoyed this book, but there were some issues with pacing, it became a little bit of a slog in the middle, but I think it manages to pick back up when Alex goes to prom and on from there. Overall, an admirable first outing from an autobuy author for me.

Thanks to Netgalley and the publisher for an eARC in exchange for a fair and honest review.

Women are magic. In 1955, hundreds of thousands of women turned into dragons and left behind their husbands, children, and ordinary lives. During the mass dragoning, Alex lost her aunt Marla. Dragoning, considered taboo, is not talked about, discussed, and the women who dragoned are never mentioned again. Marla's daughter Bea, was quietly taken in by Alex's mother. Years later, Alex's mother becomes sick and dies. Her father quickly marries and shuffles Alex and Bea off to an apartment and orders teenage Alex to take charge. Determined to graduate, Alex struggles to come to terms with her aunt's dragoning, her mother's death, and her father's abandonment.

This was a very interesting premise. I thought it was a clever and intriguing idea. The story itself was a bit dry and slow moving. The characters were a bit bland and stereotypical. I liked the bits of history the author threw in between chapters, it added to the lore of dragoning. Overall, 3 out of 5 stars.

I had suuuper high hopes for this one, but it just didn’t deliver the way I hoped, unfortunately. When I dove into Barnhill’s explanation of her story as being more about the trauma of womanhood, I understand more what she did with this story - but with the concept of women turning into DRAGONS?! I was ready for an empowering, feminist, burn-it-all-down manifesto, and that’s not what I got. I will still love Kelly Barnhill’s writing until the end of forever and read her subsequent books, but I wanted something to call me into action, not stew in injustice.

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

I loved the whole premise of When Women Were Dragons. Kelly Barnhill delivered a unique adult historical fantasy. Women who were constrained by their societal roles in the 1950s begin to shapeshift into dragons. The story is told by Alex remembering her childhood during this time. Her mother dies and her aunt "dragons". With topics of abandonment, identity, family, and feminism, this novel feels very current. My only complaint was it felt a bit drawn out in the middle.

I was excited for this book but I must admit that I was sorely disappointed. I expected a historical fantasy; while the book has fantastical elements, I think those elements are overshadowed by an inadequate examination of feminism and intersectionality. (There were no mentions of Black women, WOC, or trans women in this novel.)

The beginning half of When Women Were Dragons is reminiscent of late 20th century feminist sci-fi and the simultaneous rage and dreams of women. Similarly, the main character Alex was quite unlikable for at least the same first half, if not longer. Alex is understandably young and confused, having been told to ignore/deny the existence of dragons while also raising her younger "sister", the latter who cannot contain her own dragoning.

Every potential powerful, satisfying moment is given to us passively. This leaves the reader salivating without enjoying the full effect of the text; for example, the experience of dragoning is never given to us completely, There was so much potential for the concept this book tried so hard to be, with not enough nuance and too much being told what to think and feel.

This is a very unique book, mixing feminism with magical fantasy. While outside the box, I found this story to be rather bizarre. Because of that, I’m not sure I got all the metaphors. I felt the story probably could’ve ended 100 pages sooner as it started dragging. Not bad, but I’m not sure I got everything I should’ve from this one. 3 stars.

MY REVIEW: 4.5 Stars

First off let us appreciate the beautiful cover of this book!!

I had mixed thoughts on the book. In the beginning I loved reading about these women turning into dragons. I was hoping it was going to be more about these dragon women. But, the book focused on Alex and her coming of age story.

Alex goes through a lot of sadness in this book. I give kudos to her for taking care of her cousin/sister Beatrice, while still in school.

There were a couple of things here and there I didn’t care for but over all I loved it and want the hardback.

I totally get where the book was going at the end with the dragon women and what this was actually standing for in the world back in the day.

Like I said, I definitely hope to add the physical copy of this book to my collection

*Thank you to Netgalley for a digital copy of the book.

This was a little slow to start, but once it got going about two-thirds of the way in, I was INVESTED. I think having dragons in the title when they don't show up until near the end of the book is a bit ambitious and misleading, but I won't detract any stars in my rating for it - just a personal opinion I wanted to note.

As an alternate history type of "American retelling", I really enjoyed the time period and setting and how the author handled things in terms of believability and world-building. There were a few moments where it felt like maybe this could've benefitted from being a bit longer, because some of the ideas felt a little unfinished or not fully formed - this only pulled me out of the story a couple of times, though, and I was able to continue without issue.

I think the style of storytelling (switching between a character & some writing) is unique and worked well here, although the pacing felt off at times for me - there were moments where I feel like the reports could've come a bit later, after another chapter or two. Still, I think that overall this was a good story with some deep messages that the reader can pull from it - I'll probably grab a finished copy to reread and annotate myself later.

Thank you @netgalley for the eARC!

I am trying to get more into fantasy so that’s what drew me to request this one. It didn’t quite do it for me. It wasn’t until 2/3 through the book where the dragon action finally took place. I kept waiting and waiting. All I wanted was to be immersed in the world and it just took a long time to get there.

What I did love about the book was the relationship between Alex and her cousin/sister/daughter. I despised Alexs father. And was pretty angry with Marla at the beginning. I guess what I’m saying is, there could’ve been more action and visuals and some of the relationships just made me too mad to be focused on the overall story.

A very cool concept in line with the likes of The Upstairs House and Nightbitch, this book imagines what would happen if female rage could turn women into dragons. Avery lyrical piece of speculative fiction that doesn't do quite enough, but is still an enjoyable read.