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A review by wolfmouse
When Women Were Dragons by Kelly Barnhill
4.0
When Women Were Dragons is lushly atmospheric, evocative, and far more complex than it seems at first glance. I don’t think that it’s the type of book that I’d have finished ordinarily, and the audiobook narration deserves a great deal of credit.
The way the book disseminates womanhood and all of its binaries and restrictions resonates, in part, as an LGBTQ-affirming allegory, especially a trans-affirming one. Some reviewers take issue with the limited scope of that exploration—one that still centers on a white and cisgender experience—but I think that what the book offers equals to greater than the sum of its prospective parts.
It challenges biological essentialism, explores the necessity and inevitability of change, the profundity of loss, the power of memory and the injury of forgetting. It promotes the freedom in forgiveness and the joy of found families. It suggests that the choice to leave can sometimes be more painful than the choice to stay, and yet innately necessary for survival.
At least, it did so for me. YMMV.
The way the book disseminates womanhood and all of its binaries and restrictions resonates, in part, as an LGBTQ-affirming allegory, especially a trans-affirming one. Some reviewers take issue with the limited scope of that exploration—one that still centers on a white and cisgender experience—but I think that what the book offers equals to greater than the sum of its prospective parts.
It challenges biological essentialism, explores the necessity and inevitability of change, the profundity of loss, the power of memory and the injury of forgetting. It promotes the freedom in forgiveness and the joy of found families. It suggests that the choice to leave can sometimes be more painful than the choice to stay, and yet innately necessary for survival.
At least, it did so for me. YMMV.