English language
Published May 9, 2022 by Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group.
What a delight in dreaming and the joy of who can offer us support. Very glad I purposefully picked with one up (to expand my interest in dragons ;) )
I wanted to love it. I enjoyed the bits and pieces of female rage. But when I got to the plot climax - an unsurprising, hard-to-believe, and disgusting bit of male abandonment - and realized I still had fully half the book to go, I gave up.
We get it. Men are terrible. The patriarchy is terrible. Homemaking is hard, caring for a sibling is hard, doing it all on your own while the patriarchy actively tries to thwart you is hard. I became exhausted reading it. I've got a threshold for how much worse-and-worse a book can get before it gets better, and this book surpassed it and then some.
DNF. I was told women would be dragons. Women were... mostly oppressed and silenced. Relentlessly depressing when I thought it would be galvanizing.
L'histoire d'une adolescente blanche dans les années 50, dans des États-Unis marqués par la transformation soudaine de plus de 600.000 femmes en dragons. Un récit plein de rage et de frustrations, d'émotions et de vie, sur le poids des non-dits, des silences imposés et d'une discipline intériorisée. Mais c'est aussi une histoire d'affirmation et, à terme, de libération. Un livre au concept un peu déroutant de prime à bord (ces transformations en dragons dans le décor terriblement figé et oppressif de l'Amérique des années 50) mais qui se révèle tellement attachant, et se lit d'une traite et accompagne durablement.
I have mixed feelings about this book. The story was interesting. The premise was interesting. It was paced well for the style. I didn't love it.
Maybe some of the challenges faced by Alex were too close to home. Maybe the idea that being connected to your responsibilities would keep you from dragoning was just too judgmental for me.
Yet, there were scenes that were amazingly moving for me. The poignancy of Bea's story struck me hard. The arc with Alex and Sofia was wonderfully written.
Includes: LBGTQ+ in both positive and negative lights, poly romance, McCarthyism, the liberalization of America, parental death and abandonment, ADHD character represented positively.
This book is extremely well written and powerful. I highly recommend it.
I think this was the fastest I've ever read a book. The chapters are short and punchy in the beginning, each referencing a significant moment in the "authors" life. The book is written as a memoir with scientific journals/court docs/opinion piece in newspapers mixed in between.
I loved the descriptions of knot magic throughout the book as an avid knitter/crocheter/weaver, so that may be what was pulling me through the first half of the book.
I really appreciated that the dragon allegory and society's reaction to it in the book can be applied to several topics outside of the classic 1950's feminism talking points. Yes you can slap the "They're talking about women's periods" onto it and just leave it be, but the book does spend a healthy amount of time talking about the emotional "why" of dragons and if you're looking, it very much isn't a biological thing.
I …
I think this was the fastest I've ever read a book. The chapters are short and punchy in the beginning, each referencing a significant moment in the "authors" life. The book is written as a memoir with scientific journals/court docs/opinion piece in newspapers mixed in between.
I loved the descriptions of knot magic throughout the book as an avid knitter/crocheter/weaver, so that may be what was pulling me through the first half of the book.
I really appreciated that the dragon allegory and society's reaction to it in the book can be applied to several topics outside of the classic 1950's feminism talking points. Yes you can slap the "They're talking about women's periods" onto it and just leave it be, but the book does spend a healthy amount of time talking about the emotional "why" of dragons and if you're looking, it very much isn't a biological thing.
I feel this book lets readers take a few different things away from it, but it doesn't throw them in your lap. I feel like I had a better emotional experience with this book reading between the lines of characters actions, but I will acknowledge I have very similar life experiences to the main character.
I was so excited for this, but unfortunately it left me bored. If I wasn't so stubborn I probably would have DNF'd. I'm struggling to put into words what didn't work for me, but I think I was expecting more from the dragons in a few ways. They just disappeared? For years? And came back with no acknowledgement of the pain they left behind? And the whole explanation of "well some people just sometimes feel called to dragon" was lacking as well, tell me why women are turning into dragons and more about how they're burning down everything that held them back please!
2.5 stars
I was hoping for dragons, what I got was a book about not talking about dragons. The metaphor is clear, but repetitive and slow.
During the Mass Dragoning of 1955, 100,000s of women transformed into dragons and fled. The response of 50s America? Blush and say we don’t talk about women’s things. Nothing to see here, especially if you’re likely to be fed up with institutional misogyny and have a secret desire to run away from your husband and pursue your dreams.
It gives a lot of insight into the enforced silences and erasure that comes with patriarchal society, how you police yourself and the best weapon is ensuring people remain ignorant of their true power. The beautiful act of dragonning is liberating from this oppression. And yes, trans women also become dragons.
