When Women Were Dragons

I”m a little behind, as When Women Were Dragons (2022) by Kelly Barnhill, was a nominee for a Goodreads Choice Awards for Best Fantasy that year. I loved the concept, and have come to realize that I especially enjoy historical fantasy.

Told from the perspective of Alex Green, who is recalling her childhood in a small town in Wisconsin, from later in life, we learn about the Mass Dragoning of 1955, where thousands of women across the country turned into dragons and flew away, leaving children behind, along with destruction of homes and husbands, if the rage was great enough. No one knows where they went and no one will talk about it. Alex lost her beloved Aunt Marla, and Marla’s daughter Beatrice is now Alex’s sister.

We learn Alex’s mother had been amazing at math, put through school by Marla, who also took care of her after having had cancer when Alex was very small. Marla had fixed vehicles during the war and had been irrepressible until finally settling down with a drunk and having Beatrice. When the Dragoning happens, Beatrice comes to live with them and becomes Alex’s most important person. Alex’s father is a banker and not really present.

When the worst possible thing happens, Alex and Beatrice are on their own, essentially, and Alex does her best to continue high school and raise Beatrice. She is determined to get to college, but it is not easy.

Anger is a funny thing. And it does funny things to us if we keep it inside. . . . Who benefits, my dear, when you force yourself to not feel angry? She tilted her head and looked at me so hard I thought she could see right into my bones. She raised her eyebrows. Clearly not you.

Slowly Alex learns what really happened, as Dragonings continue on occasion. Luckily the local librarian helps, and Aunt Marla has not been far away either. Eventually, when the dragons come back and the world changes, Alex begins to grow into herself.

And it felt good to be uncontained, the way a bird must feel when it realizes that the thing constraining it was nothing more than an eggshell, delicate and fragile, and just waiting to be cracked open.

When Women Were Dragons is so, so good. Full of queer themes, both regarding same-sex attraction and relationships, and transitioning into one’s true self. Not a spot of anti-fatness, either. The writing is beautiful–I don’t have any complaints about this book, at all.