Reviewed by Christina Tsichlis for TeensReadToo.com

BABYLONNE, by Catherine Jinks, is the story of a sixteen-year-old girl in early thirteenth-century Languedoc.

It is a time of war, persecution, and religious controversy. Jinks' knowledge of the era as a scholar lends a truth and vividness to the coming-of-age tale of a young, feisty girl in the middle of a war. She is able to paint everything from the sights, sounds, and smells of monasteries to the sights, sounds, and smells of wars and infirmaries inside besieged fortresses. Her writing is not for the weak of heart, or the weak of stomach in some places.

Babylonne is a young woman who has spent her life surrounded by bloodshed and abuse and has remained an independent thinker despite it all. She never knew her mother, a Good Christian, and never knew her father, an Arab-born Roman priest. She lives with her aunt and other women in a convent of sorts. As she is considered to be a child with no father, because her father was a Roman priest, she is mistreated and abused in many ways.

Finally, when she is going to be married off to a man who is so old that he sees everything as giant bouncing olives, she makes a run for it.

While Babylonne runs through her city, stolen goods in tow, she runs into a Roman priest, Isidore, whom she despises at first. Gradually, Isidore teaches her to trust and the differences between her faith and his faith come into question and are open for debate. Her original wish, to fight for the exiled lords against the French, comes into question as she learns what war really means. Babylonne's honest voice is dramatic, humorous, and sometimes heartbreaking.

The one thing that I truly wish was different with this book is the cover art. Babylonne is supposed to be as dark as a Moor but the cover shows her as pale, brown-eyed, and red-haired. While the cover is dramatic and beautiful, I wish that it showed the main character as she is written, because everything else is so carefully researched and laid out.

Overall, Jinks' writing style is easy to get into and the historical knowledge makes Babylonne's world leap off the page. ( )

This is a must read for history buffs that enjoy a little bit of action as well. I would recommend this book if you enjoyed either the song of the Lioness by Tamora Pierce or the Pagan Series. It is amazing fast paced story that leads the reader into a new world. It was really an enjoyable book and hope you find it enjoyable too! ( )

This book will appeal mostly to fans of the Pagan series. History buffs (especially medieval or religious history) will also get into it. Not knowing much about the Cathars, I got a little lost at times. But Babylonne is just as mouthy, tough, and smart as her father and that's why I enjoyed it. ( )

Babylonne by Catherine Jinks is a historical novel set in the medieval ages. Babylonne, the main character, is a Cathar living secretly in Toulouse. This is taking place during which Cathars are seen as heretics, and many have been massacred. When the relatives she lives with tire of her disrespect and lose all hope that she could ever be a perfect (the priestly class of the Cathars), they decide to marry her off to a senile old man. Horrified, Babylonne runs away. New obstacles arise as she reluctantly ends up traveling with a Roman Catholic priest.

I liked this book a lot, though I had a few problems. The first, no fault of the author, was that I have not yet read any of the past Pagan books. It was fine as a standalone, however I wonder if certain things might have been spoiled for me. I found it very historical, which was interesting, but also a little confusing. I had to pull out my notes on the Albigensian Crusade to give myself some context. Someone who is not very interested in detailed and subtle history might not enjoy it so much.

Babylonne was certainly a tough heroine; I liked her ways of self-defense, and her inner monologue. She had a sort of street sense in a way, for knowing not to reveal her faith.
For all that Babylonne was an intrepid girl, she was also a realistic character. The blood and death that came with the battles was not easy for her to deal with, and she didn’t suddenly decide to pick up a sword and make a last, useless stand. The situations she was put in were also realistic. Men didn’t treat her as a comrade-in-arms, they were rough with her, and unwelcoming on the battlefield.

There was no beauty, no glossing over. Babylonne manages to be an excellent hero, who could have actually existed. ( )

I haven't read Jinks series on Pagan, but I will after reading this book. If you've read the Pagan series by this author, this book focuses on his daughter, growing up in England in with a group of female family members that believe in the old ways and loathe Roman priests and their religion. She is the bastard child of a Roman priest and a woman of old beliefs. Because she is constantly mistreated and about to be sent to marry a man old enough that he won't defile her, she runs away, ends up meeting with a friend of her father's and starts a journey that will change her forever. ( )