Rating: 
Summary: Very good historical fiction
Review: An all-time favorite here, this is great historical fiction built on fact. Keep in mind that it is historical fiction and therefore some small parts of the story that may seem questionable must be pardoned. The story is strong and well written and the author's chapter at the end that presents the facts provides and nice closing to an extremely enjoyable book. A great book!
Rating: 
Summary: Deeper than I expected; a Medieval feminist tale.
Review: I picked up this book hoping for a tale of a powerful and wily woman ruling the Medieval Christian church...I got something different than I expected, but enjoyed it nonetheless. The book focuses on the early life of the woman who would one day be Pope Joan, rather than exploring her (possible) reign as Pope. It is the story of her many struggles as a woman in Medieval England.Joan is the exceptionally bright daughter of an English priest and his Saxon wife. From an early age, Joan desires little more than to gain a formal education, and to be treated as equal to her brothers. She stubbornly refuses to accept her place as a subservient woman, instead coaxing her eldest brother into teaching her to read and write. Eventually, she overcomes numerous obstacles, chief among these being her overbearing and abusive father, to learn languages and philosophy, and later medicine. Joan's story is one of survival. She survives her father's wrath and beatings, then later a brutal Norse raid of her village, and still later the black plague. Her life is full of conflicting emotions and desires, and she is forced to live a man's life in order to continue her work. But Joan is still a woman, and she falls in love. This, ultimately, is both her triumph and her downfall. Well written, intricately woven, and wholly believable, with a good mixture of action and emotion. This book will probably appeal to women, and perhaps some men more "in touch with their feminine side."
Rating:
Summary: Very good depictions of Medieval Europe & decent scholarship
Review: Unlike one of the previous reviewers, I do find this book to be plausible, given the context. We're not talking about some random village girl who goes and does nothing with her life but get married and have a passel of babies. An extraordinary life is filled with extraordinary events. Equally fantastic, to my mind, is the life of Princess Clotild, who took over her convent with the aid of her sister nuns, recruited bandits and waged open warfare on the bishopric, and essentially made havoc of the clerical system at the end of the 6th century. Her tale seems outrageous, but is documented. Alas the poor fictional heroine, who does not conform to modern American standards of realism and self-help platitudes.... she will be despised! Ms. Cross got most of her history down - and where she miffed it, she usually realizes it. That alone makes this a valuable book for the average reader. There are no Victorian carriages or Renaissance barges intruding their way into the story. She crafted a world that most people have no clue about. Her scholarship is reasonably good; she is dealing with an era with little or no documentation. She might have looked into the papstfabeln a bit more, but otherwise, did a good job for a non-historian. Finally, I like the love story. Most of us will never have to face the choice between career and love; that has been one of the benefits of the feminist movement we forget to count. But until less than a century ago, that was the only option for women who did not want the standard path.... and so it is a glimpse for us to remind us how much we have gained.
Rating: 
Summary: More reality, please!
Review: "Pope Joan" should be a fascinating historical novel. It has at it's heart a compelling feminist figure who has been nearly forgotten by history. It has excellent research into daily life of the period (9th Century Europe). What's missing are believable characters to bring life to the drama. The early chapters bode well for the rest of the book. In the first 100 pages we meet Joan's narrow-minded fundamentalist- preacher father who forcibly converted his Saxon/pagan wife & watches hawklike over the spiritual health of his little settlement of Ingleheim (apparently in the Alsace region of France). We watch as he tyrannises over his family, forces one son into another's mold & ignores his daughter whom he considers a punishment from God. Joan learns to read & speak Latin on the sly, while remaining her mother's confidant & depository of pagan folk-tales. So far so good. The book starts to fall apart when Joan leaves to study at the scholarium at Dormstadt. Here she is boarded with a local Count Gerald who turns out to be not only devastatingly handsome, but intelligent, understanding, patient & a fearsome warrior to boot! What a guy! And what a name; is Gerald really a historical 9th century Frank name? Why not Dagobert for example? Of course the 15 year senior Gerald gradually realises his life would be incomplete without the teenage Joan, but alas! fate arrives in the guise of Vikings, & their love is torn asunder! Plucky Joan uses the opportunity to assume her dead brother's identity, & goes on to start her rise through the Church hierarchy. Every step of the way amazing coincidences, astounding chances & generally what might be termed "the hand of God" help Joan evade detection, follow her ambitions & advance the plot. After the 3rd or 4th narrow escape, I gave up on the book. It all got too silly. I'm sure there was a woman who became Pope in the 9th century. I just don't believe her life had much in common with the one depicted by Donna Woolfolk Cross.
Rating:
Summary: Entertaining historical fiction
Review: I first found this novel after seeing a documentary on the myth or truth of Pope Joan, and found that I wanted to know more of this amazing story. What I found was a well crafted and entertaining historical novel, and if I am none the wiser as to whether the story is truth or fiction, I am still well satisfied with the adventure and the characters. It is a richly detailed story of medieval life, and a story of a strong young woman with formidable intellectual abilities, stifled by her womanhood in a male dominated world. In an effort to gain the education she so badly wants, she takes on the persona of her slain brother, and rises through the church ranks to that of Pope. It may be a fanciful story, and it may not be. They say that truth is stranger than fiction. But in the absence of anything but shreds of myth, the story makes for very good fiction.
Rating:
Summary: 4 star history
Review: Speaking for myself personally, I prefer books with a lush sense of place and time, that use poetic language to really root the reader in the moment. This book was more cerebral (as one might well expect, seeing as it mostly concentrates on Joan's scholastic education), but even the moderately dry, fairly emotionless terminology brought this book down merely from five stars to four. It is still a novel I would highly recommend! It tells the story, of course, of the woman who rose from a peasant girl of mixed Saxon-English heritage to become first a monk then a priest then at last Pope, all this time disguised as a man and risking her own death to pursue the intellectual challenges she loves. She defies her family, traditions, and the church so that she can continue to read and know the wisdom of the ancients. The early parts were, to me, the most engrossing, telling the tale of her childhood stuck between the loving arms of her strange and "pagan" mother and the strict discipline of her disapproving father. In fact, Joan does not become Pope at all until the very last pages of the book - so those looking to delve into those two years of her reign will find this book somewhat slow-moving. But not very. Because nonetheless the author shows her imagination in the many occurances between childhood and the Papal crown, and it makes for an engrossing read with a good sense of the early Middle Ages.
Rating:
Summary: Engrossing historical fiction
Review: I absolutely adored this book as I read it... an involved plot with exciting twists and turns that made for smart reading, and (for me) encouraged a lot of thinking about the historical truth behind the figure of Joan. It's only in thinking about it afterwards and in mulling the plot over that I question the accuracy of many historical facts within the story as told by Cross; however, the book is wonderful, an entertaining read with good strong characters that I would strongly recommend and plan on keeping on my shelf for re-reading.
Rating:
Summary: LOVED IT
Review: Read it a number of years ago and have never gotten the book back because it just keeps being passed around. What a wonderful read of feminine strength and intelligence.
Rating:
Summary: Pope Joan by Donna Cross
Review: I thought that this book was very well written. I enjoyed it thoroughly. I also found this inspiring. I would recommend the reading of this book. Fact or fiction? You will have to decide yourself-as for me-I say fact. We may never know. If it isn't it sure should be.
Rating:
Summary: Good overall story. Underdeveloped characters, conclusion.
Review: As a child, Joan was inquisitive and quick-witted. Her small triumphs and displays of courage as she grows leave the reader hungry for her rise to success. Her father's desire for her older brothers to become priests along with a series of convenient life changing events lead to Joan's education. She is allowed to go to school. There she meets Gerold, the love of her life. But they are tragically separated after a Viking raid in which her brother John is killed. Joan assumes her dead brother's identity in order to enter the protection of a monastery, and her life disguised as a man begins. After many years at the monastery Joan fears that her gender will be exposed, so she flees and travels to Rome. In Rome, her medical skills become reknowned and she is called upon to cure the ailing Pope. Her success brings her into the circle of the most influential religious leaders of the time. Gerold also reenters her life and he is the only person in Rome who shares her secret. I expected more from the romantic and political storylines in the later chapters in terms of insight into Joan's internal conflicts, her pride in her accomplishments and the power of her office. I thought there was a decent ending even though it was somewhat abrupt. However, I would have liked the author to cover the uproar the discovery of her gender must have caused. Joan's quick wit, her strength, the fairs, the weddings, and a general feeling for the era all contributed to a good overall story. The addition of a further layer of character depth and a more developed conclusion would have added substantially to a satisfying reading experience. However, I was definitely engaged by the intriguing life of the legendary Joan, a woman who may have reigned as Pope in the 9th century.
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