When Women Were Dragons

Alex Green is the protagonist and an unreliable narrator, as any author who writes from childhood memories must be. Alex writes of her experiences coming of age in a society that seeks to control, confuse, and mislead her in a multitude of ways. At the heart of this societal control, however, is a deep fear of what she has the potential to become—and this fear is manifested in both those who distrust her and those who love her.

Because of the society-wide fear of dragons and dragoning that surrounds her, Alex must conquer her own internal contradictions and biases before she can experience a transformation of her own in the novel, and although she never dragons, Alex most certainly changes. As a child, she learns early to curb her rage and avoid asking awkward questions about the hidden realities and unspoken truths that haunt her family. As she gets older, however, she unleashes the rage born of years of such suppression—often against her wishes and toward the people she loves the most, much like her mother did to her when she was young. After these incidents, however, Alex learns that in order to accept her reality, she has to embrace her own fear and internalized shame about dragoning.