When Women Were Dragons by Kelly Barnhill

Format: Audiobook (BorrowBox)

Read: June 2024

I’m hovering between two and three stars for this one but I am not sure I would have finished it if I’d been reading on the page rather then listening to it so I landed on two.

Set in 1950-60s America this novel imagines an alternate history where women turn into literal dragons. The story is told from the POV of Alex who is a four years old when the first “mass dragonings” began and follows her through her early adulthood. The chapters are interspersed with the academic writings of a scientist who made dragonings his life’s work.

The dragonings are a barely disguised allegory for the feminist movement. Initially it seems the dragonings presented are wives and mothers, triggered by frustration and rage at the terrible men in their lives. However as the book progresses it is clear that dragoning phenomenon occurs at all stages of life and is not limited to biological women. Examples are given of drag queens and somebody’s son dragoning, and women in happy marriages who with husbands who try to make things work.

While it is a cool idea I don’t think it has enough substance for a novel, or perhaps it just wasn’t executed well as a novel. I found it incredibly repetitive both in both the content and the writing style.

This author really likes to belabour a point. If she’s describing Alex experiencing a strong emotion (anger, fear, panic) she’ll repeatedly describe it in three or four different ways. Once I noticed this it bothered me more and more! Then there is the ‘Beatrice, my sister’ thing over and over.. we know you had to pretend she was your sister but she’s your cousin. It’s not cute, it’s annoying.

The examples of dragoning are also incredibly repetitive, example after example of women leaving bad husbands or bosses. Women who had to give up or were excluded from careers. Women whose complaints of workplace danger or harassment were ignored. It’s the same thing repeatedly. Eventually a couple of examples outside of this are sprinkled in, to my recollection there was one example of black women protesting but everyone else is white.

It’s take on feminism is so flat, and so shallow it feels a bit redundant for a reader in the 2020s. I also found as an allegory the dragonings got really muddy. It starts out reading as a protest, it’s female rage exploding and breaking away from the patriarchy. Then later it is an expression of joy.. like I guess it’s something to do with “being yourself” but then how does that fit with all the angry depressed housewives who snapped into dragons earlier?

The magical realism of the dragons also didn’t work for me. I couldn’t figure out the tone. At first they are beautiful, fierce and massive beasts. Then suddenly they’re carrying purses and wearing lipstick and aprons and somehow fitting inside buildings and sit on stools… What?

Why the fuck are dragons putting on lipstick and carrying handbags?

At this point I’m confused about how I’m meant to be picturing them.. are they massive magical beats or are they regular humans?!

Then there is the fact that all the principle characters are super special geniuses in some way. At a certain point this really started to irk me. Not everyone is special, what about those of us who are average, who aren’t super intelligent, or charming and spirited? What about the quiet, normal girls that groups of incredible people don’t automatically gravitate to and devote their lives to supporting?

There are “normal people” who dragon sprinkled in but they don’t get any focus in the novel. I actually wish that Alex had not been a super genius, to be honest I don’t really understand why she was.

I never connected to Alex.. partly I think because the narrator very much sounded like an old American lady (and doesn’t have an accent I enjoy, she proved “shone” like “shown” and it was so distracting!) which makes sense in the final chapter but for the most of the book Alex is a teenager so I felt at distance from her experience.

Its not a bad book, the characters lives just felt a bit too contrived and too narrow if this alternate history was meant to reflect real life.