Scan barcode
A review by murderbot_hates_planets
When Women Were Dragons by Kelly Barnhill
challenging
dark
emotional
reflective
sad
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
3.0
I WANTED MORE DRAGONS!!!!!!!
An impulse buy due to the awesome cover and title. Ah, wicked marketing! This book was not really about dragons. I agree with some other reviews that it's outdated in its feminism, almost a love letter to the Second Wave. So 100% not what I was expecting. I was expecting housewives to rip off their gingham aprons and crush the glass of their kitchen windows as they flew off into the sky. Instead, repression. Allllll the repression.
What I liked: The MC as a kid. Alex, I believe. (Whoa, just finished "Plain Bad Heroines" with an Alex MC as well, huh.) She was realistic and the story was somber and stressful but had a lot of promise. I still had hope for dragons at this point, lol. The day-to-day 1950's life was finely drawn and just as suffocating as I'm sure it was. (My parents were born in the late 1940's, so they're quite a bit older than most millennial parents and I know things were different. This book def goes hard on the dismal/gloomy side of things. Makes me wonder what kind of 2020's historical gloom is gonna happen in, say, 2090. Ha.)
Oh and I did like the little cousin/sister character bunches, not sure why she wasn't the MC, she would've been way cooler. I'm sure that was the point (to have a plain, "boring" MC) but I still really don't know why... So many books switch narrators and we could've switched to the little sister and had zero suffering, like ideally sometime during the high school/apartment days.
What I didn't like: It felt VERRRYY heavy-handed for a book that had dragons carrying purses. Still not sure if that was meant to be comic? I feel like the story in this book didn't need dragons, which was a bummer, and I liked reading the story but it really felt more like a 1950's historical family drama. I don't need to be convinced that it sucks to deny someone rights based on their gender, idk, maybe the author's generation is still processing that things suck but I'd have preferred imagining a better future/past (which is what I expected with dragons!!!!!!!).
... In retrospect I suppose there were, technically, dragons, but not in the lighthearted, delightful, expansive way I was hoping. They were just kind of there and always portentious, and never allowed to be as wild & fun as an alt-1950's feminist fantasy sounds like it could be.
An impulse buy due to the awesome cover and title. Ah, wicked marketing! This book was not really about dragons. I agree with some other reviews that it's outdated in its feminism, almost a love letter to the Second Wave. So 100% not what I was expecting. I was expecting housewives to rip off their gingham aprons and crush the glass of their kitchen windows as they flew off into the sky. Instead, repression. Allllll the repression.
What I liked: The MC as a kid. Alex, I believe. (Whoa, just finished "Plain Bad Heroines" with an Alex MC as well, huh.) She was realistic and the story was somber and stressful but had a lot of promise. I still had hope for dragons at this point, lol. The day-to-day 1950's life was finely drawn and just as suffocating as I'm sure it was. (My parents were born in the late 1940's, so they're quite a bit older than most millennial parents and I know things were different. This book def goes hard on the dismal/gloomy side of things. Makes me wonder what kind of 2020's historical gloom is gonna happen in, say, 2090. Ha.)
Oh and I did like the little cousin/sister character bunches, not sure why she wasn't the MC, she would've been way cooler. I'm sure that was the point (to have a plain, "boring" MC) but I still really don't know why... So many books switch narrators and we could've switched to the little sister and had zero suffering, like ideally sometime during the high school/apartment days.
What I didn't like: It felt VERRRYY heavy-handed for a book that had dragons carrying purses. Still not sure if that was meant to be comic? I feel like the story in this book didn't need dragons, which was a bummer, and I liked reading the story but it really felt more like a 1950's historical family drama. I don't need to be convinced that it sucks to deny someone rights based on their gender, idk, maybe the author's generation is still processing that things suck but I'd have preferred imagining a better future/past (which is what I expected with dragons!!!!!!!).
... In retrospect I suppose there were, technically, dragons, but not in the lighthearted, delightful, expansive way I was hoping. They were just kind of there and always portentious, and never allowed to be as wild & fun as an alt-1950's feminist fantasy sounds like it could be.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Death of parent
Moderate: Terminal illness and Misogyny