When Women Were Dragons: A Novel
The first adult novel by the Newbery award-winning author of The Girl Who Drank the Moon is 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.
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Readers say *When Women Were Dragons* is a beautifully written novel blending historical fiction and fantasy, praised for its evocative prose and comp...
I found it exceptionally difficult to come up with a rating for this book, because I was torn between two extremes in my reactions.
On the one hand, I think the feminism is fairly surface level in this book. The allegories within the book never felt particularly deep, and worse, were pretty repetitive. There were some efforts at a more intersectional feminism within the book, including trans women and women of color, but ultimately those were basically anecdotes, and not integral to the story whatsoever. When you are telling a story that is fundamentally about women finding their place in society, it feels odd for the stories of a large chunk of women to be so marginal that they could be removed without any plot changes.
On the other hand, the book was just so readable. Barnhill seems to be a fantastically talented writer, with prose that I could lose myself in. She also created some characters I truly cared for, and I felt real, true love between the sort of found-family that emerges.
Ultimately, it's a beautiful book with some serious short-comings in its message, but I loved it all the same.
On the one hand, I think the feminism is fairly surface level in this book. The allegories within the book never felt particularly deep, and worse, were pretty repetitive. There were some efforts at a more intersectional feminism within the book, including trans women and women of color, but ultimately those were basically anecdotes, and not integral to the story whatsoever. When you are telling a story that is fundamentally about women finding their place in society, it feels odd for the stories of a large chunk of women to be so marginal that they could be removed without any plot changes.
On the other hand, the book was just so readable. Barnhill seems to be a fantastically talented writer, with prose that I could lose myself in. She also created some characters I truly cared for, and I felt real, true love between the sort of found-family that emerges.
Ultimately, it's a beautiful book with some serious short-comings in its message, but I loved it all the same.
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