This book is set in 1955 in the United States where thousands of women have transformed into dragons. Alexandra Hall, Alex, is a young girl when this happens. Her aunt Marla is one of the women who has sprouted wings, scales and talons. She disappeared, leaving her young daughter Beatrice behind. Alex’ parents adopt little Bea and from then on they’re not cousins but sisters. Then their mother becomes ill and passes away. Their father can’t bear to look at them and when he marries his secretary, he sets the two girls up in an flat and sends them money every month, if they’re lucky he calls them once a week.
Alex is a brilliant mathematician, like her mother, and wants to go to university after high school. Her father is dead set against it. Alex starts to wonder why her aunt Marla turned into a dragon and her mother didn’t. When little Bea is starting signs of wanting to be a dragon, Alex is terrified of losing her, but instead finds the ones she loves are very much present in her life.
The feminism is pretty in your face in this book, and in some respects it’s necessary- for instance when Alex’ dad tells her she should give up her dreams of going to uni and become a wife and mother instead my blood was boiling. All in all I enjoyed listening to this book.
Read for the PopSugar Reading Challenge 2024.
Prompt 35: A book with magical realism.
Rating: ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
