Om de een of andere reden heb ik nooit echt iets gehad met de boeken van Simone van der Vlugt, maar Jehanne valt dan nog wel mee. Het vertelt het verhaal van Jeanne D'Arc, naar wie ook het boek is vernoemd. Natuurlijk een bekend verhaal, maar toen ik het boek las, kende ik nog niet alle details. Geen dik boek, en het leest ook lekker snel weg, maar ik vond het niet heel bijzonder.

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For some reason I never really like the books written by Simone van der Vlugt (especially her books for adults) but Jehanne was an okay book. It's the story of Jeanne D'Arc, after which the book is also called. The story of course is well known, but at the time that I read it, I didn't know so much about it, so it was still quite nice. It's a rather short book, and reads very quickly, but I didn't think it was very special.

I read at washingtonpost.com recently that the percentage of adults that recalled reading one poem in the last year had dropped from 14% to 7% over the past ten years. I believe that reading this book could change the waning interest in poetry in this country.

Each poem is written with such attention to detail and verbal economy that the exchanging of even one word would lessen it. The poems taken together are a memoir of both a woman who is a victim of history and her own circumstances and the daughter trying to decipher it later from her own childhood memories and family photographs.

Overall, a sensitive depiction of a life lived as well as possible under the circumstances. A book written exceedingly well.

I'm grateful I received this book in a Goodreads giveaway but that has not impacted my review.

—Jehanne d'Arc, The Maid, Kimberly Cutter.