Vida is a strong resistance fighter (who is eventually relegated to being a healer during the war), and Dela, a trans woman, is graceful and clever and a key part of their victory, but Eona never reflects on her relationship to them and what their strengths mean for her gender. Her mother’s arrival about two-thirds of the way through Eona was a wasted opportunity to show the strength of her bloodline she meets with her mother once, and then never speaks to her again. Despite being part of a female Dragoneye bloodline and having plenty of wonderful female role models around her-like Dela and Vida-she is never truly given the space to celebrate being a woman. Eona thinks poorly of women and womanhood throughout the books and never untangles her internalized misogyny. Women are not allowed to be Dragoneyes, and their bodies are largely for men’s use and not much else. Eona (known as Eon when she is trying to pass as a boy) lives in a world that treats women as inferior. While there are female warriors and dragons, unfortunately, Eon and Eona are rife with unexplored misogyny. If you are looking for a book that features female warriors, dragons, and nuanced discussions of gender… look elsewhere.

It is a series full of political intrigue, sword battles, and interpersonal struggle. Warnings: Discussions of ableism, misogyny, sexual assault, and transphobia.Īlison Goodman’s duology, Eon and Eona, is about a young person in training to be a Dragoneye, one of the 12 masters in the Empire of the Celestial Dragons whose connection with a dragon gives them the power to control the weather and bring prosperity to the empire.

Eon duology