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Book Review: When Women Were Dragons
This week I finished When Women Were Dragons by Kelly Barnhill, a low-fantasy pseudo-historical novel where women occasionally and spontaneously become dragons.
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.
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.
I have mixed feelings on this book. On the one hand, I think the metaphor does work well and the theme of reclaiming power is rewarding. On the other, I think the book loses the plot partway through and I didn't find the author's prose particularly engaging.
Within the book, "dragoning" as it's called serves as an analogy for basically anything about women that society, historically, has not liked to discuss. This can be brutal things like domestic abuse, sexual assault, and harassment, but it can also be more seemingly mundane yet equally "uncomfortable" topics like ambition, lack of motherly sentiment, queerness, and menstruation/women's bodies generally. One woman dragons because she feels trapped in a marriage to an unpleasant and ungrateful husband. Another dragons because she realized she was in love with another woman. Thus, while dragoning can be analogous to female rage, it can also be analogous to female joy, expressed in a way that society finds unbecoming.
Some spoilers below.
The story is told through the perspective of Alex, who is four years old at the start of the novel and witnesses with some confusion the events around her. One of the things the novel excels at is capturing the confusion, anger, and upset that come with a lack of context. Because all the adults around Alex refuse to discuss dragons, she has no framework for how to understand the things she's seeing and hearing whispers of. When her aunt dragons during the Mass Dragoning event, she's not allowed to speak of it and therefore in addition to her confusion, has no outlet for the grief she feels over the loss of her aunt. In the same way, when Alex's mother develops cancer in Alex's youth, no one speaks of it. One day her mother is present, and the next she is gone, and when she finally comes back scarred and sickly from the hospital, Alex gets no answers about what happened to her.
The dragon metaphor works in part because it's so ridiculous. Dragons are huge, scaly apex predators capable of breathing fire. Forget the elephant in the room—we've one-upped it. Yet characters in the book will go to truly ridiculous lengths to avoid talking about or even looking at dragons because they're just "too feminine"! And in this way, the author captures how equally ridiculous societal aversion to discussing these other topics is—like women's physical health, like regrets about motherhood, like queer and gender non-conforming women.
The dragon metaphor also works, to me, because it's about reclaiming a power these women always had. Allowing them to seize power in such an undeniable way is satisfying. What could be more satisfying than watching a bunch of abused women at an office dragon and set fire to the building and devour their sexually abusive supervisor? There's a catharsis in the dragon metaphor.
A criticism I've seen crop up in other reviews is about how the dragons return near the end of the book and resume life within society as their dragon-selves. I understand why this didn't land for some people. For some readers, the fantasy will be in escaping society forever, and to have the dragons return to mundane tasks like baking bread or building houses or repairing cars may feel like they've given up the freedom they had earlier seized. However, my take on the Great Return was this: society must learn to live with these women. They have a right to a place within our world. Queer women have a place here, and should have it. Abused women have a place here and should be permitted to discuss and acknowledge their experiences. The female body has a place here and should be seen and respected. It's easier for society when the dragons wing off, out of sight out of mind, and stay away. Their return forces a reckoning with the society that led to their dragoning in the first place, and their demands for space once they've returned cannot be ignored.
The book is about as lowkey as a dragon. If you are looking for a subtle and nuanced feminist take, it's not here.
The writing is similarly simplistic, at about a middle-grade level, and Alex's vocabulary within her narration often feels limited. This made more sense when she was a child, but she's a high schooler for significant portions of the book.
I will also agree with other reviews that the pacing of the novel feels off. We spend most of the book with Alex's childhood and then whip through her college experience in a few chapters, which makes the book feel like it's racing towards the end.
On a smaller note, I did appreciate that Sonja and Alex are not endgame. To me, it's a tired narrative trope that your first love is your forever love, when so often your first love is inherently tied to your immaturity at the time and the place in your life you were at then—and most of us change quite a lot from the person we were then. I think it makes perfect sense that although Sonja and Alex reconnect and cherish their love, their lives ultimately go in incompatible directions, and Alex finds a life partner in someone else later in life.
I also enjoyed Alex's father. Not because he was likeable in any way, but because of the complicated relationship Alex has with him. The author could have gone even harder on making him an asshole, but we get a glimpse of his love for Alex's mother—too little, too late—and even after he's mistreated her Alex still desires his care and attention. It felt realistic, particularly given the time period.
Similarly, Alex's own flaws felt real and appropriate. With the environment she was raised in, it makes perfect sense that even Alex's logical mind is often overridden with how we don't talk about dragons. Seeing her lose her temper with Beatrice hurt, but it felt realistic. Beatrice is challenging foundational values of Alex's upbringing; even if Alex can logically recognize Beatrice hasn't done any harm, her emotions surrounding the issue—and her fear of being alone--overpower that. Likewise, her lingering anger at Marla also makes sense, and I enjoyed that it doesn't just dissipate on their reunion.
My most significant criticism though is of the rather utopian ending. I think the book would have been perfectly meaningful if it left off with the dragons returning and finding ways to make society accommodate them. "Dragons end war" was so hokey and last minute that even in a book about dragons I raised an eyebrow. Furthermore, Alex and Sonja being open about their same-sex relationship in the 1960s and never having this commented on by anyone was also strange, particularly given how alive and well sexism and other prejudices obviously are here, including the homophobia that colored Alex's youth.
Ultimately, I agree with the conclusion that this book would have worked better as a concentrated short story focusing only on the Mass Dragoning of 1955. There's just not enough here to fill out the 340 pages in a satisfying way.
Crossposted from![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
rocky41_7
Some spoilers below.
The story is told through the perspective of Alex, who is four years old at the start of the novel and witnesses with some confusion the events around her. One of the things the novel excels at is capturing the confusion, anger, and upset that come with a lack of context. Because all the adults around Alex refuse to discuss dragons, she has no framework for how to understand the things she's seeing and hearing whispers of. When her aunt dragons during the Mass Dragoning event, she's not allowed to speak of it and therefore in addition to her confusion, has no outlet for the grief she feels over the loss of her aunt. In the same way, when Alex's mother develops cancer in Alex's youth, no one speaks of it. One day her mother is present, and the next she is gone, and when she finally comes back scarred and sickly from the hospital, Alex gets no answers about what happened to her.
The dragon metaphor works in part because it's so ridiculous. Dragons are huge, scaly apex predators capable of breathing fire. Forget the elephant in the room—we've one-upped it. Yet characters in the book will go to truly ridiculous lengths to avoid talking about or even looking at dragons because they're just "too feminine"! And in this way, the author captures how equally ridiculous societal aversion to discussing these other topics is—like women's physical health, like regrets about motherhood, like queer and gender non-conforming women.
The dragon metaphor also works, to me, because it's about reclaiming a power these women always had. Allowing them to seize power in such an undeniable way is satisfying. What could be more satisfying than watching a bunch of abused women at an office dragon and set fire to the building and devour their sexually abusive supervisor? There's a catharsis in the dragon metaphor.
A criticism I've seen crop up in other reviews is about how the dragons return near the end of the book and resume life within society as their dragon-selves. I understand why this didn't land for some people. For some readers, the fantasy will be in escaping society forever, and to have the dragons return to mundane tasks like baking bread or building houses or repairing cars may feel like they've given up the freedom they had earlier seized. However, my take on the Great Return was this: society must learn to live with these women. They have a right to a place within our world. Queer women have a place here, and should have it. Abused women have a place here and should be permitted to discuss and acknowledge their experiences. The female body has a place here and should be seen and respected. It's easier for society when the dragons wing off, out of sight out of mind, and stay away. Their return forces a reckoning with the society that led to their dragoning in the first place, and their demands for space once they've returned cannot be ignored.
The book is about as lowkey as a dragon. If you are looking for a subtle and nuanced feminist take, it's not here.
The writing is similarly simplistic, at about a middle-grade level, and Alex's vocabulary within her narration often feels limited. This made more sense when she was a child, but she's a high schooler for significant portions of the book.
I will also agree with other reviews that the pacing of the novel feels off. We spend most of the book with Alex's childhood and then whip through her college experience in a few chapters, which makes the book feel like it's racing towards the end.
On a smaller note, I did appreciate that Sonja and Alex are not endgame. To me, it's a tired narrative trope that your first love is your forever love, when so often your first love is inherently tied to your immaturity at the time and the place in your life you were at then—and most of us change quite a lot from the person we were then. I think it makes perfect sense that although Sonja and Alex reconnect and cherish their love, their lives ultimately go in incompatible directions, and Alex finds a life partner in someone else later in life.
I also enjoyed Alex's father. Not because he was likeable in any way, but because of the complicated relationship Alex has with him. The author could have gone even harder on making him an asshole, but we get a glimpse of his love for Alex's mother—too little, too late—and even after he's mistreated her Alex still desires his care and attention. It felt realistic, particularly given the time period.
Similarly, Alex's own flaws felt real and appropriate. With the environment she was raised in, it makes perfect sense that even Alex's logical mind is often overridden with how we don't talk about dragons. Seeing her lose her temper with Beatrice hurt, but it felt realistic. Beatrice is challenging foundational values of Alex's upbringing; even if Alex can logically recognize Beatrice hasn't done any harm, her emotions surrounding the issue—and her fear of being alone--overpower that. Likewise, her lingering anger at Marla also makes sense, and I enjoyed that it doesn't just dissipate on their reunion.
My most significant criticism though is of the rather utopian ending. I think the book would have been perfectly meaningful if it left off with the dragons returning and finding ways to make society accommodate them. "Dragons end war" was so hokey and last minute that even in a book about dragons I raised an eyebrow. Furthermore, Alex and Sonja being open about their same-sex relationship in the 1960s and never having this commented on by anyone was also strange, particularly given how alive and well sexism and other prejudices obviously are here, including the homophobia that colored Alex's youth.
Ultimately, I agree with the conclusion that this book would have worked better as a concentrated short story focusing only on the Mass Dragoning of 1955. There's just not enough here to fill out the 340 pages in a satisfying way.
Crossposted from
rocky41_7