Joan

Joan

By Katherine Chen

1412. France is mired in a losing war against England. Its people are starving. Its king is in hiding. From this chaos emerges a teenage girl who will turn the tide of battle and lead the French to victory, an unlikely hero whose name will echo across the centuries.

In Katherine J. Chen's hands, the myth and legend of Joan of Arc is transformed into a flesh-and-blood young woman: reckless, steel-willed, and brilliant. This deeply researched novel is a sweeping narrative of her life, from a childhood steeped in both joy and violence to her meteoric rise to fame at the head of the French army, where she navigates both the perils of the battlefield and the equally treacherous politics of the royal court. Many are threatened by a woman who leads, and Joan draws wrath and suspicion from all corners, even as her first taste of fame and glory leave her vulnerable to her own powerful ambition.

This took me forever to read, almost six weeks. I did okay ish in the beginning but then read the afterward where the author said that they just made stuff up and changed the historically accepted facts (like, that Joan didn't actually fight) to suit her narrative and that soured me on it. 

It's also not nearly as exciting a book as you'd think it would be, being that it is based on the wholly unlikely story about a woman peasant who was elevated to the savior of France during the Hundred Years' War.

We spend almost somewhere around a third to a half of the book on various made-up scenes of Joan's youth, centering primarily around her abusive father. The village is attacked and her sister raped. Joan finds herself summarily ejected from her house and fate lands her in the king's lap after she performs miracles like: breaking a man's wrist with one hand, landing every arrow on target, being a virtuoso at every weapon she picks up. It's so weirdly unreal I can't think why Chen chose to go in this direction. Why spend time trying to come up with a back story on how Joan became so strong and self assured and then just make her a Mary Sue? 

In this version, Joan doesn't set foot in a church for her whole youth, but then prays to God for victory. She's better than anyone else in the army despite never having any experience or training. I felt like rolling my eyes every time Joan hits multiple bullseyes, which happens a lot.

The better parts of the book are those when we're offered explanations for Joan's accomplishments and downfall: her grit, and her belief in the rightness of her cause. But we also spend just a few chapters on the crucial battles and none at all after her capture by enemy forces. I mean, we all know what happened, but the framing period feels off too. No pages to spare for her trial?

I originally read this one for the "left-handed character" prompt but I don't believe her handedness was mentioned once in the whole book, and after I re-categorized Convenience Store Woman, thought this would nicely fit the single lady prompt.

24: A Book With A Happily Single Woman Protagonist