By: Kelly Barnhill
September 2022
Women’s Liberation meets the fantasy genre. Feminine rage literally turning women into dragons.
The story is set in an alternate universe where women can turn into dragons. It follows the events of the Mass Dragoning in the 1950s, when thousands upon thousands of women suddenly turned into dragons and the societal repercussions of large percentage of the population disappearing.
SPOILERS AHEAD. TREAD CAREFULLY.
The story was really unique and entertaining. I liked how they blended in “historical” accounts and court depositions of dragonings. However, the reasons behind the women turning into dragons didn’t have logical continuity. Mostly it was women being fed up with misogynistic behavior, but sometimes it was just a strong feeling, like love or pure joy, or being outside of the heteronormative that would turn women. However, once the women turned to dragons, they often abandoned their loved ones to the cruel circumstances that caused them to dragon in the first place. It wasn’t until the end of the book that the dragons returned and tried to function alongside society, which made the analogy to dragoning and feminism a fit together a little nicer.