A brutal, depressing perspective on humanity. Perhaps not wrong, though. I felt like I cringed through this novel, a dystopian Joan of Arc narrative but tying Joan not to God/faith but earth/dirt ("Joan of Dirt"). There is a lot of intense description of what humans have done to themselves in the future, and how they've devolved after destroying the earth. There's also a lot of violence against children and women depicted; hard to stomach at times. Not for everyone, though Yuknavitch does present a compelling novel (and there may be layers of it lost to me, not a scholar by any means on historic figures like Joan, Christine de Pizan, Jean de Meun who were included in the book).

Perhaps this book was more a 3-star than 4, but what probably brought it up (and kept me going, tbh), was the narrator of the audiobook - her voice so intimate and calming, and weirdly reassuring. She does good work with a bleak tale!