As a teenager in the closing years of the 16th century, Catalina De Erauso fled her convent and sewed her habit into men's clothing. After serving as a page for a few years, she headed to the New World and served as a soldier in Peru and Chile, including a time spent under her brother's command. She brawls, steals, duels, escapes being excecuted for murder, is tortured, and manages not to get married more than once. Eventually she returns to Europe to straighten out a few matters, like whether she was actually a nun when she left the convent, and composes this memoir.

My goodness, what an interesting life! I suppose my only frustration is that De Erauso was writing a confession, not a memoir, and so I was left very hungry for more. Just how she was able to get through situations such as being stripped and nearly racked without being revealed as a woman is something I'd really like to know. This is very much a "Perils of Pauline" story, and quite an interesting look at 16th-century Latin America and the Spaniards who settled there.