Actual Reading Experience:įirst off, I love dragons in stories, and the thought of women breaking free from all the patriarchal knots by becoming dragons made my heart happy on so many levels. Lastly, the cover is gorgeous, and if you look closely enough, you will see the dragon hidden among the foliage. I wonder if women turning into dragons is a metaphor. I’ve read a few empowerment stories lately, and this one stands out because of the fantasy angle. It sounds like it will be poignant, horrifying, and ultimately utterly heartfelt and rallying. Reading the blurb, I expect a unique women empowerment story of down-trodden women metamorphosing into dragons. When Women Were Dragons by Kelly Barnhill is a poignant look at the subjugation of women throughout history and what it took for them to break free from the knots that bind them. When Women Were Dragons exposes a world that wants to keep women small-their lives and their prospects-and examines what happens when they rise en masse and take up the space they deserve. In this timely and timeless speculative novel, award-winning author Kelly Barnhill boldly explores rage, memory, and the tyranny of forced limitations. It’s taboo to speak of.įorced 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. 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. The first adult novel by the Newbery award-winning author of The Girl Who Drank the MoonĪlex 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.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.

When women were dragons