The Book of Joan

I found this book on numerous “best of” lists for 2017. While I've seen it portrayed as a “modern re-telling of the Joan of Arc story,” this classic tale is mostly tangential to the plot. It takes place in a future where humans have almost completely destroyed the earth and it's creatures. The elite ones who remain orbit in a space station like structure above the earth. Life there is strangely disconnected from sexuality and all other types of physicality. Bodies serve as canvases upon which huge flaps of skin are grafted to show social status and stories are written in a tattoo-like process.

While there is action to the plot, much of the story is the atmospheric creation of this future human existence and the building of the rebellion which threatens to topple it. For me, one who enjoys reading novels with alternative realities not too different than our own, the basic question about the world constructed is: Would I want to experience the world further by reading a sequel? The world of this novel leads me to answer “no” and thus my review is lower than it might be otherwise.