The campus library holds a collection of “Lemon or Lemonade” books. These books have never been checked out, and after reading, students can vote on whether they’re more like a lemon or as sweet as lemonade. Voices: The Final Hours of Joan of Arc by David Elliott is one of them. 

As a historical verse novel, it contains quotes from Joan’s two trials and narratives from different people (her parents, for instance) and the inanimate objects she encounters. The text is formatted to resemble these objects. For example, in the pages where her sword spoke of how Joan found and used it, the sentences were formed to create a sword out of words. 

Throughout the book, Joan of Arc’s story is told from when she first left home, following the voices of her saints, right to her death. It weaves in a theme of overcoming societal boundaries, especially when gender is concerned, and the inspirational tone is easy to read. 

Even with the format and point-of-views, the historical accuracy and ease of reading (a few pages required turning the book upside down as the text stretched into a circle) were less of an issue when compared to other things. While the author is able to tell Joan’s story using factual details, her religious background is neglected at times, and some parts of the book contain inappropriate innuendos, as well as a few questionable poems. These poems were mainly questionable because they pertained to topics such as lust or her virginity, which were not very comfortable to read. 

However, because of the exciting nature of the story and the overall positive themes of fortitude, Voices: The Final Hours of Joan of Arc turned out to be more ‘lemonade’ than ‘lemon.’ It was a relatively quick read, with the last of the 189 pages containing a single word, but out of all the resources about Joan of Arc, nothing besides the format made it stand out above all the rest.