This isn't for the Read Harder Challenge, but I did have to talk for a minute about When Women Were Dragons by Kelly Barnhill because I read it for book club, and then had a genius moment and forgot when we met, so didn't get to flail at people about how DELIGHTFUL this book was.
The basic plot is that in the 1950s, several hundred thousand women suddenly became dragons and flew off, and how the people left behind dealt with (or didn't) their absence. The book uses becoming a dragon as a shorthand for a lot of conditions, the most obvious of which was the sublimation of women's emotions under the patriarchy, but the second most obvious was as a metaphor for being gay. It works either way, honestly, and as a woman who's frequently felt angry enough that I wanted to breathe fire and destroy buildings, I get it.
I know I'm not a child of the fifties (THANK GOD), but my parents were, and the societal tone reads true. A lot of admonitions to keep your head down (metaphorically IRL, but literally in the text), to conform, to make yourself smaller and more agreeable sound familiar, and the rationale still rings hollow.
Other things that I adored:
- The power of a well-funded librarian.
- Civil rights dragons! GOD, how much further would we be as a society if we had giant stompy monsters to stare down bigots?
- A lesbian love story that doesn't end in tragedy, but in change, and our POV character finds happiness and contentment!
