When Women Were Dragons
When Women Were DragonsKelly Regan Barnhill
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When Women Were Dragons (2022)

Kelly Regan Barnhill

Others: Mostly positive

A rollicking feminist tale set in 1950s America where thousands of women have spontaneously transformed into dragons, exploding notions of a woman’s place in the world and expanding minds about accepting others for who they really are. The first adult novel by the Newbery award-winning author of The Girl Who Drank the Moon. Alex Green is a young girl in a world much like ours, except for its most seminal event: the Mass Dragoning of 1955, when hundreds of thousands of ordinary wives and mothers sprouted wings, scales, and talons; left a trail of fiery destruction in their path; and took to the skies. Was it their choice? What will become of those left behind? Why did Alex’s beloved aunt Marla transform but her mother did not? Alex doesn’t know. It’s taboo to speak of. Forced into silence, Alex nevertheless must face the consequences of this astonishing event: a mother more protective than ever; an absentee father; the upsetting insistence that her aunt never even existed; and watching her beloved cousin Bea become dangerously obsessed with the forbidden. In this timely and timeless speculative novel, award-winning author Kelly Barnhill boldly explores rage, memory, and the tyranny of forced limitations. When Women Were Dragons exposes a world that wants to keep women small—their lives and their prospects—and examines what happens when they rise en masse and take up the space they deserve.

ISBN:
9780385548229
Length:
424 pages

Genres: fantasy, historical fiction

Lists: …

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Reviews4

BooksandLala
Not a fan

this one opened up with a woman or a girl, I don't remember how old she was, who was losing her mother and her aunt was becoming involved in her family and there was some like tension and confusion as a young person about what was happening. And then the next chapter, it wasn't technically a chapter, was it? it yeah it was like an in between interlude of a history of dragons like from a book called the a brief history of dragons and I got a lot of information about dragons that didn't make me want to read the book anymore.