In 1957, Mary Agnes Gilligan entered a convent prep school for the training of future nuns. This book is recounts her experiences from the start of her 'nunly' education to her life after she left the order.

She entered the religious life just before the Vatican reforms, so the reader gets a good account of the customs and practices which are now quite different from the nuns of today for the most part and that's probably the most interesting aspect of the entire book. You would have thought that some of the mental and physical breakdowns suffered by the novices would have been a clue that what was being done to them wasn't healthy, but at that time, the onus was on the victims. They weren't strong enough to 'persevere'.

While the Vatican reforms did lighten the atmosphere, Eventually, even with the reforms, Sister Mary de Paul was unsatisfied with the restrictions. It was the sixties and like most of the young adults of that age, she longed to make more of a difference than she was being allowed to and so she left the Sisters of Blessing and the book runs through the following period of her life up to a twenty-year convent reunion of those that had stayed and those that had re-entered the world.

As a side note. The book was made into a TV movie in the 80's, called "Shattered Vows", starring Valerie Bertinelli (currently of Jenny Craig commercial fame...). Occasionally it pops up on channels like Lifetime Movie Network.





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