Reviews tagging 'Fire/Fire injury'

When Women Were Dragons by Kelly Barnhill

40 reviews

jeleigh16's review against another edition

slow-paced

3.25

The concept for this book is phenomenal. It would have made for a spectacular short story! Unfortunately for me, as a novel, I think it made a promise that it didn't quite keep. It said, "I'm going to tell you about the time thousands of women became dragons (for whatever their individual reasons might be), but then I'm just going to talk around that event for a few hundred pages and never really dig into the thick of it, okay?" I wanted to be alongside a woman who "dragoned". I wanted to see a POV other than the one we are given of a teenage girl whose aunt "dragons" in the 1955 event. The teen's perspective was interesting, yes, but I felt like it would have been even more intriguing if we saw a couple of other perspectives in this novel, mainly one of the women who turns into a dragon. There are so many missed opportunities here. So many. This is billed as a feminist rage novel by many, but I thought it was way too quiet for most of the book. Where was the rage?? It's there, sure, but I really had to search for it. I wanted more. 

I did appreciate the protagonist's story as a girl who is left behind and the narrative of her dealing with essentially raising her cousin after everything falls apart. I also appreciated the choice to include the reports of the events in between the chapters from the protagonist's POV - which helped give background - but I wished I could have seen those events as scenes instead. That's the stuff I wanted to dive into!

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Abandonment and Misogyny

Moderate: Fire/Fire injury, Terminal illness, Cancer, Death of parent, Grief, and Lesbophobia

Minor: Violence and Blood

savshanae's review against another edition

challenging emotional hopeful inspiring reflective sad tense slow-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? It's complicated
• Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.0

If “Labour” by Paris Paloma was a book, this would be it. To be frank, I was enraged for most of it. I don’t even know if I would really recommend this book to someone, unless they were looking to be so full of feminine outrage they wanted to burst into flames. But if that is what you want, this book is it. 
The writing was emotional and painted vivid pictures (it was also wordy). Sometimes repetitive, but I think it adds to the story by the end. 
The self-expression and ideas that it inspired are challenging and thought provoking, and I really enjoyed that it is written to feel like you are being TOLD a story, someone’s thoughts and life experiences. 
This book made me very angry, made me cry (lots), made me want to stop reading it. But it’s definitely worth the read and the rage. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Body shaming, Gaslighting, Homophobia, Chronic illness, Classism, Emotional abuse, Grief, Death of parent, Misogyny, Toxic relationship, Cancer, Child abuse, Death, Bullying, Sexism, and Terminal illness

Moderate: Blood, Addiction, Alcoholism, and Alcohol

Minor: Violence, Fire/Fire injury, Drug abuse, Animal death, and Domestic abuse

scarlett_f's review against another edition

emotional hopeful inspiring mysterious sad slow-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? No

3.5

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Hate crime, Death, Grief, Abandonment, Emotional abuse, Lesbophobia, Death of parent, Domestic abuse, Chronic illness, Homophobia, Cancer, Toxic relationship, Misogyny, and Outing

Moderate: Fire/Fire injury, Gaslighting, Alcoholism, Biphobia, and Addiction

Minor: Sexual content, Cursing, Infidelity, Pregnancy, and Panic attacks/disorders

hannahpings's review against another edition

emotional hopeful inspiring reflective medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? No
• Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

3.75

didn't really grip me until the third act, which was wonderful––and retrospectively enhanced the first and second, closing a loop and tying off a careful and intricate knot that barnhill began on dragons' first page. some strong craftmanship and a remarkably well-earned emotional payoff that i'm not ashamed to say made me weep.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Terminal illness, Misogyny, Cancer, Grief, Abandonment, Homophobia, Lesbophobia, Death of parent, Gaslighting, and Sexism

Moderate: Fire/Fire injury, Infidelity, Alcoholism, Child abuse, and Alcohol

Minor: War and Violence

val_theburrowofstories's review against another edition

emotional hopeful inspiring reflective medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

4.0

I predicted that this would be a new favorite book, sadly it isn’t, but still I really liked it and it’s a 4 ⭐ for me. 

I remembered so little of the synopsis I thought this was set in a time before Christ even or in just a little town in the middle of nowhere with very few civilization, I was very surprised when I saw that this was set in the second half of the 1900’s. 

I didn’t understand at first why so many women turned into dragons, I thought it was magic, but the fact that it’s presented as part of their BIOLOGY is crazy to me, it’s such an interesting concept. I don’t blame them at all for turning into dragons and leaving because it was mostly to escape men, but there were also some cases where they turned because it just made them happy and feel free and there was no men involved. 

The way Alex’s father made my blood boil so many times in this book… he got an easy death for what he deserved. Then there’s her mother who is just… shit at communication, the only good thing she did was not abandoning her but I almost wish she did and killed her father in the process, maybe the girls would’ve been better off that way. He made me so mad I almost wanted to DNF, but this isn’t about him and I would’ve given him the power he doesn’t deserve, so he can go to hell and I’m glad I kept reading. 

As Taylor Swift once said: fuck the patriarchy!

Her aunt Marla fits so perfectly the “stereotype” I just knew she loved women, and good for her because damn men are shit in this book, they’re all either sexist or misogynist, that’s the description of the society here to be honest.
 

We almost never see any representation of menstruation in books, so I was glad to have that here. 

I can’t begin to explain what I felt reading how Alex had her friend Sonja and how they clearly liked each other, you know? Like the first innocent love as a child. And when they are together again when they grow up I was just so happy for them. 

Alex is so incredibly strong because to Beatrice she was her cousin, sister and mother. She was a child raising another child and she did such a good job on her own and still stayed a good student. I felt sorry for her by the circumstance but at the same time I was proud and just wanted the best for her. 

This is a book I would love to have in my library and recommend to every girl, I feel it’s such an important read because it shows how a sexist and misogynistic society was and is, talks about menstruation, about how lucky we are to have education for little girls and women, the importance of family, girls loving girls, having a support system, being free… there could be so many conversations around this, and I love that. 

Dragons coming back is something I didn’t expected and it was so interesting to see how people reacted to this and changed their lives and spaces so dragons could study, work, be part of society. I really liked seeing Alex learning to live with and love her new family. 

I loved the ending for the sisters and reading who they grew up to be. 

Finally, I’ll just like to say that I absolutely LOVE this narrator, I loved picking up this audiobook and hearing her voice again, it was just so comforting and soothing, I will be checking out more of her work. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Death, Abandonment, Sexism, Gaslighting, Death of parent, Misogyny, and Cancer

Moderate: Fire/Fire injury, Grief, Lesbophobia, and Homophobia

Minor: Alcoholism

I’ll make a list of the trigger warnings and how they appear in the book.

- Death of parent / Grief: A bit of an spoiler, but if you wanna know,

both of her parents die.

- Abandonment: When women transform into dragons they leave to the abandonment issues these kids grow up with is crazy. And her father can go to hell.

- Sexism / Misogyny: This whole society.

- Cancer: I think her mother has breast cancer.

- Death: Sometimes dragons killed their husbands.

- Gaslighting: The way adults in society collectively agreed in silence to never speak about dragons and make children believe they didn’t exist.

- Fire injury: Obviously, there’s dragons lol

- Homophobia / Lesbophobia: Once again, her father can go to hell.

- Alcoholism: Aunt Marla married and alcoholic.

thequiltyreader's review

adventurous emotional hopeful mysterious slow-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.5

I've flip flopped a lot on how to review this book.

Initially I thought this book had a lot of promise based on the blurb and positive reviews. However I have mixed feelings now I've finished it.

Overall I did enjoy the read, however the first half was very slow and incredibly repetitive.  It touched on the life of women around the 1950's / 1960's and what they were often subjected to / expected of them.

I found there was nothing around the development of women's right but there was around dragons rights

.

I would also have preferred to have learnt a bit more about the dragons, how they felt, more around what they explored and why and

also why a lot chose to return and why at that point in time and why hadn't there been anyone else return from earlier dragonings

.

I also felt there was a lot of

suggestion that the knots somehow played a role in keeping Alex from dragoning but it was never explained if that was the case.

.

So overall I enjoyed it but felt it was lacking in some areas.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Terminal illness, Abandonment, Alcoholism, Death, Alcohol, Emotional abuse, Sexism, Cancer, Death of parent, and Fire/Fire injury

mamaewalk's review against another edition

adventurous challenging emotional inspiring medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Plot
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? No

4.5

Creative, unique, and utterly badass story. Reads like a memoir. 

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Gaslighting, Abandonment, Death of parent, and Misogyny

Minor: Cancer, Emotional abuse, Infidelity, Injury/Injury detail, Murder, Physical abuse, Violence, Domestic abuse, Sexual assault, Child abuse, Grief, Pregnancy, Sexual harassment, War, Fire/Fire injury, and Panic attacks/disorders

throwback682's review against another edition

adventurous emotional hopeful inspiring reflective sad slow-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? It's complicated
• Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.25

I almost DNF’d this book but I think I’m glad I didn’t. 

The first 30% felt painfully slow to me. The rest of the book moved slow but not miserably so. Also in the first third the allegory felt incredibly heavy handed. I feel like later in the book there was a bit more nuance and I was able to enjoy it more and apply more of my own experience to the metaphor. 

Things I liked:

- queer love stories
- affirmation that yes, trans women can dragon
- at least one vignette highlighting Black women’s particular struggles
- acknowledgment of sexual violence without triggering descriptions

I’m not sure what else to say; other people’s reviews will probably be more helpful. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Gaslighting, Fire/Fire injury, Abandonment, Alcoholism, Death of parent, Homophobia, and Lesbophobia

lady_valhella's review against another edition

challenging emotional funny hopeful inspiring lighthearted mysterious reflective medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? It's complicated
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
• Flaws of characters a main focus? No

5.0

The societal challenges women face are  so briliantly and ridiculously exposed in this book. Well maybe not exposed. But the analogy of how we don’t talk about all of the issues that affect us because it is indicent or inappropriate to talk about our reproductive health or our desires or our pain. How the society we built prefers to pretend those things don’t exist and yet we persist and defy and thrive. Thank you for writing this book. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Death of parent, Misogyny, Emotional abuse, Gaslighting, and Sexism

Moderate: Fire/Fire injury, Grief, Infidelity, Alcoholism, Cancer, and Chronic illness

corabookworm's review against another edition

challenging emotional inspiring sad slow-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? No
• Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

5.0

In 1955, in an event called the Mass Dragoning, thousands of women transformed into dragons and disappeared into the sky, leaving fire and destruction in their wake. Alex’s aunt was one of them. Shamed into silence, the girl struggles within the dynamics of her family and the oppressive world they live in.

When I read this book back in January, I expected exactly what the blurb pitched: a fiery feminist historical fantasy focused on female rage. Which I got. But (at least the first half of) this book was so much more. It covered complex themes of grief and motherhood and sisterhood and loss and love and shame and guilt and I devoured every single word. (And cried. Parts of this book struck close to home and OUCH.)

The concept itself is intriguing, and Barnhill’s execution is brilliant, packed with gorgeous prose and raw emotion. Parts of the story remain almost a mystery, unraveling through the passages between chapters and little clues scattered throughout the pages. 

This book definitely has its flaws, as well. A few other reviewers have pointed out that this book views feminism through a very white and middle-class lens, which is a fair criticism and something to think about while reading. There’s some events that stretch reality a little (not including the whole turning-into-dragons thing) and it won’t be everyone’s cup of tea–it’s slow-paced, with lots of focus on characters and concepts. 

However, if you enjoy literary fiction and historical fantasy, with a focus on the complexities of girlhood and female relationships, I’d check this one out! (Also there’s women. And dragons. <3)

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Grief, Misogyny, Abandonment, Cancer, Death of parent, and Sexism

Moderate: Homophobia and Lesbophobia

Minor: Fire/Fire injury and Panic attacks/disorders