Reviews for Joan of Naples

The average rating for Joan of Naples based on 2 reviews is 2 stars.

Review # 1 was written on 2012-12-24 00:00:00 John Combs This is the first book by Dumas that I have read, and I have to assume his better-known ones are also better written. My main problem is with the characters, particularly Queen Joan, his protagonist. It seemed that he had intended to cast her as an adulteress and the murderess of her husband, and he even says that her governess had "corrupted" her, but his portrayal constantly belies that intention. Her adulteries (two of them, I believe) are with men with whom she is in love, and her husband is shown as so despicable that it's hard to gin up too much outrage over his murder. We are told (not shown) that she repents of her part in it, but after having it drummed into our heads how beautiful and noble she is, it's hard to feel that she has much to repent for. All the other characters are fairly one-dimensional as well, and the last part of the book is mostly narrative - this happened, that happened. These flaws may also be a result of the book's length, which is only a little over 100 pages.

Review # 2 was written on 2017-05-17 00:00:00 Gary Garsha I first heard of Joan of Naples - under her "real" name, Giovanna - through Marjorie Bowen's historical novel, "The Sword Decides!" It captured my imagination, so - having also enjoyed two other volumes in Alexandre Dumas's Celebrated Crimes series - I expected great things from this. Well, a few parts here and there engaged me, but on the whole I found this a hard slog. Problems I had with it is having countless characters thrust upon me, extensive sections of dialogue that sound unnatural, and condensed third-person paragraphs that drag on far too long. I feel this would've worked better as full-blown historical fiction or as a "proper" biography. This is a biography written as though it was historical fiction. Although this worked fine with other episodes in the series, it fell flat with "Joan of Naples".