No one will tell her why her mother disappears for months, and 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. A GOODREADS BEST BOOK OF THE YEAR • A fiery feminist fantasy 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. 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. 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.”

When Alex is 8, the Mass Dragoning event sweeps America. Among the scaled and sky-bound is her Aunt Marla, a former WAC pilot, skilled mechanic, and miserable wife, whose joyful toddler Beatrice is, in Alex’s eyes, “the most wonderful human to ever exist.” The family’s response to Marla’s disappearance echoes that of the discomfited country: silence, denials, and distortions take hold. Marla’s name becomes verboten, and Beatrice, ash-covered and rescued, declared Alex’s sibling. But you know what? We change lives. And I’m going to argue that we change lives precisely because we force open that too-small box that most human beings think they live in. The novel ends with Alex having achieved her academic promise, and Bea having now dragoned, becoming an ambassador for peace worldwide. How other countries responded to the dragons is not mentioned, nor what happened when they travelled or emigrated. 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.Ok, so I will admit the title of this book really called to me when I saw it. When Women Were Dragons is a reimagining with a definite fantasy thread, the dragons kind of give it away really!

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. 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. 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. Writing the review for WHEN WOMEN WERE DRAGONS is going to be one of the hard ones to write. This book is one of those that is just so incredible I'm lost for words. 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.When Women Were Dragons is a fierce, unapologetically feminist, novel that I read (almost in it’s entirety) in one sitting. Despite knowing essentially nothing about it apart from the fact I loved the cover, the blurb was intriguing, and Dragons I am so very glad this book exists. Well, that’s my cue,” my father said. “Be a good girl, Alexandra.” He extended the sharp point of his chin. “Marla,” he nodded at my aunt. “Make sure she lies down,” he added. He didn’t say anything to the stranger. My mother, I mean. He didn’t say anything to my mother. Maybe we were all strangers now. Eventually, her house was boarded up and her yard grew over and her garden became a tangled mass. People walked by her house without giving it a second glance.

The Monitor is a peculiar little publication that’s hard for the world to figure out. We’re run by a church, but we’re not only for church members and we’re not about converting people. We’re known as being fair even as the world becomes as polarized as at any time since the newspaper’s founding in 1908. Dumbfounded, Alex swallows her questions and goes along with the ruse. She adores her buoyant sprite of a “sister”; besides, she has work to do: Unlike the other girls in her class, Alex is determined to make it to college and study physics. After that day, Auntie Marla continued to come by the house early each morning and stay long after my father came home from work, only returning to her own home after the nighttime dishes were done and the floors were swept and my mother and father were in bed. She cooked and managed and played with me during my mother’s endless afternoon lie-­downs. She ran the house, and only went to her job at the mechanic’s shop on Saturdays, though this made my father cross, as he had no idea what to do with me, or my mother, for a whole day by himself.The Newbery Medal-winning children’s author dedicates her first novel for adult readers to Christine Blasey Ford, whose testimony at the confirmation hearings of Justice Brett Kavanaugh unleashed the rage of many women. philandering husbands extracted from the embraces of their mistresses and devoured on the spot, in view of astonished onlookers”. In all this we can see clear parallels with America’s troubled political and social past, and its continuing legacy.