My mittens, sitting on the ground next to Beatrice and me, began to change. I watched as the yarn unwound itself and rewound differently, writhing gently like a basket of snakes … And it wasn’t just the mittens.” The pacing was a little slow but I felt it worked well with the atmospheric and detailed storytelling—particularly the historical accounts, newspaper clippings, diary entries and other “classified” dragon related items that are scattered throughout the narrative which added a depth and richness to the world building.

Marla's daughter Beatrice is absorbed into the family and becomes Alex's sister with Alex's family, and the rest of the country, determined to pretend the dragoning never happened despite individual dragonings continuing to occur with regularity. When Women Were Dragons is a fabulously fierce, utterly original and unapologetically feminist novel that explores centuries of female rage, due to subjugation, violence and misogyny—leading women to spontaneously transform into DRAGONS. A relevant and timeless coming of age story that’s heartfelt, complex and thoroughly addictive.As the narrator is young and confused, for at least 3/4 of the book, we unfortunately don't get to experience dragoning in a way that is satisfying. Every potentially powerful moment is shown to us so passively that this book loses any hope of igniting the spark this concept promised. This was a brilliant book to read, at times I admit it did get a bit far-fetched, but it still kept up the flow and feel of the story. I think at times I actually forgot some of the characters were dragons! The pacing is a slog, Alex evolves from "precocius child" to "dull, pointless protagonist" soon enough, and halfway through the book I just couldn't buy her relationship to Beatrice or just about anything that involved Alex having feelings because everything about her is so souless and inconsequential. This is a book about women turning into dragons in a burst of fiery female rage and somehow manages to be boring about it - and about as subtle as a ton of briks to the head but I wouldn't have cared about that if it had been entertaining. Alas, it stopped being entertaining a third into the book. This is also a book about a resourceful smart young woman that made me absolutely hate its main character because I got very tired of Alex's specialness and informed intelligence without the author doing any work whatsoever to show us that she is at least half as smart and special as this book kept telling me she was. And then it all got fixed and wrapped in a neat little bow within the space of a handful of chapters. The end.

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; andThe 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.

We see the gradual return, and grudging acceptance and integration of the dragons into American society. The silence and conformity – “mass forgetting” are as suffocating as a world that uplifts men while constraining women to secondary roles.There are other truly wonderful characters that I adored, in particular the local librarian, Mrs. Gyzinska, who was Alex’s biggest supporter and whose own story I would love to read as a companion novel.

Barnhill transforms that suppressed rage into a wellspring of power, creating an alternate timeline where women told to suffer in silence instead spontaneously transform into dragons, often immolating abusive men in the process. 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. There's very little we can control in this life. All we can do is accept whatever comes, learn what we can, and hang onto what we love. And that's it. In the end, the only thing you can hope to control is yourself. In this moment. Which is both a relief and a huge responsibility." P 236”

The idea is incredibly interesting; delivery is shotty. Some of it is spectacular, but there will be slow-paced, boring passages and another excellent part.