Pope Joan: A Novel by Donna Cross


My rating: 4 of 5 stars
I really love historical fiction. I really liked the story and the message throughout about reason being a corollary to faith and not the antithesis to it, and of course the feminist message that women are as capable as men. I did think that the prologue argument for the existence of Pope Joan was a bit of a stretch, though, and the arguments against her existence are equally persuasive (this from my reading of wikipedia, of course, I am not a historian and have not researched it beyond wikipedia and this book). If Pope Joan did exist it is equally unlikely that she was such a reasonable and charitable person as portrayed in the book, but that's the best part of historical fiction, the characters can be fleshed out with whatever characteristics the author wishes. I'm fine with this as long as the attributes endowed by the author don't contradict actual historical evidence.

View all my reviews >>