Book Review: ‘When Women Were Dragons’ by Kelly Barnhill

When Women Were Dragons by Kelly Barnhill is a fantasy novel with strong feminist tones that crosses over into the sub-genres of magical realism and alterative history.

Set in primarily in Wisconsin during the 1950s and 60s, When Women Were Dragons follows Alexandra ‘Alex’ Green and her extended family. Alex is a talented student with a gift for mathematics but she is trapped by the limitations society forces on women. Living with her unloving father and sick mother, Alex finds solace whenever she can with her adventurous Aunt Marla and wild young cousin Beatrice. But in 1955 the world changes forever when thousands of housewives and mothers transform into dragons. Alex’s family is torn apart and the patriarchal society is scandalised by the event. As a result the topic of dragons becomes completely taboo. The story follows Alex’s path through this constantly changing world.

For this book Barnhill chose an unusual storytelling style. Typically fiction novels follow the basic rule of ‘show don’t tell’. When Women Were Dragons does the opposite of this. The reason for this can be found on the very first page when the book is set up as a manuscript written by an older Alex. With her mathematical and scientific outlook, Alex would write an account not to entertain people but rather to inform them. The events of Alex’s life and the world around her are often shown in a factual and chronological way (supported by the inclusion of articles and journal extracts). Yet even Alex is not immune to succumbing to the complex emotions of her teenage years when she recalls certain parts of her turbulent upbringing. This informative style of Barnhill’s book gives it a unique tone that I couldn’t help but enjoy and find compelling as I wanted to keep reading more.

While dragons are a real physical presence in the story, for the first two-thirds of the narrative, their importance comes more from what they symbolise and represent rather than their actions.

In the book dragons are synonymous with all things feminine. It becomes just as unseemly to discuss dragons in public at it would be to mention menstruation (and men think women are the delicate ones?). Dragons becomes forbidden topics of discussion and people are trained to forget family members who have ‘dragoned’. This attempt at complete erasure of the dragons acts as a metaphor for the plight of woman and the inequality we have faced across history. Becoming a dragon is a way from women to regain their independence and freedom.

The main exception to this is Alex who, despite the many struggles she faces, fights against the repeated urges of her body to ‘dragon’. She is determined to prove that the freedom of a better future for herself can be achieved through her hard-won education and intelligence. I really liked this contrast of Alex as a character compared to the other women in the book. Despite being a fantastical premise it shows that, like in real life, there is more than one path to accomplishing your goals and dreams.

One thing that I wasn’t sure about was whether the attitude of society matched the time period the story was set in. To be fair, When Women Were Dragons can be classed as an alternative history story (albeit one with a fantasy twist) but with society as a whole not realising the existence of dragons until 1955 it could be argued that this is the point when history truly diverges. For the America of the book this means its population has likely still experienced both World Wars and, as a result, the Suffrage Movement which granted women the vote in 1920. It is worth pointing out that it wasn’t until 1965 that all women regardless of background or ethnicity were allowed to vote – which fits better with the book’s timeline if not necessarily the events. When Women Were Dragons depicts a country where all women are expected to be housewives and nothing more. How accurate was this idea? Where the book depicts all women as being on the same hierarchal level in reality would there not have been a class divide between women with some having more privileges than others? As the story focuses on female unity the idea of a divide is not something that is explored however I think it would have been interesting to see a minority of women campaign against the dragons just as in real life there were women who campaigned against the Suffrage Movement.

Although I tend to prefer higher fantasy novels, I really enjoyed the concept of placing something so iconically fantastical as dragons in a real world setting. I found Barnhill’s choice of a more factual writing style to be an interesting one and I frequently found myself wanting to read just one more chapter before I put the book down. When Women Were Dragons is definitely a novel I plan on re-reading in the future.

---

Related Posts:

If you enjoyed this review you may also like these reviews: