More than anything, this book is angry, in a deeply relatable, quietly suppressed way. I particularly enjoyed the combination of dragons (ordinarily a feature of dramatic, action-packed second-world fantasy) and the upsettingly normal life of a girl who just wants to study mathematics in world that thinks she should become a secretary until she ‘lands a good husband.’ The prose is luscious, the setting - 1950/60s USA - is atmospheric in it’s stiflingly wilful silence, and the arc of Alex, the main character, is heartwarming and heartbreaking in equal measure. There is very little I don’t love about this book. Women small – and examines what happens when they rise up. Kelly Barnhill is a sweeping magnetic feminist tale set in 1950sĪmerica which exposes a world that wants to keep girls and The first adult novel by the Newbery Medal-winning Than ever the upsetting insistence that Marla never even existed Īnd watching her beloved Beatrice becoming dangerously Independent teenager, she must face the consequences of the Massĭragoning: a society closing in on itself a mother more protective Nor does she want to.Īlex is desperate for answers and, as she grows into a fiercely Such feminine, embarrassing things are not discussed!īut Alex won’t forget.

Sister? Alex doesn’t know, and no one will answer her questions. Scales and talons and take to the skies in a blaze of fire and fury,Įight-year-old Alex Green is one of those left behind.Īlex’s adored aunt Marla transform when Alex’s mother did not?Īnd why does her mother insist that her cousin Beatrice is her When hundreds of thousands of ordinary women sprout wings, The dragons inside them are about to be set free –Īnd nothing will ever be the same again. In a world where girls and women are taught to be quiet,

When women were dragons a novel reviews