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Rating: 
Summary: A time to leave a time to join
Review: After reading through all these stories I was then amazed to find a book where ten women describe why they are joining Convents today. So if you feel a little sad after reading all this try 'New Habits' and available here. It is a joyful breath of fresh air with ten warm and intimate first person testimonies.
Rating:
Summary: A little of the good, the bad and the sad in this book.
Review: I was not sure if I would enjoy this book or not since I knew that it was about women who had left convent life. I found some of the stories to be very moving, but some of them made me feel rather sad. And some of the stories really made me wonder about where the individual writers were coming from because those stories seemed a bit off the wall. The book did show me that there certainly is a wide variety of personalities both in and out of the convent!
Rating:
Summary: It's not about *why* they left
Review: When I read this book, I was really interested in why these women entered religious life and, even more, why they left. Afterall, the subtitle is "Reflections on Leaving Convent Life". Having talked with a number of women who have left religious communities, I know it is never easy, and the reasons are often quite complex. A more accurate name for the book should more likely be "What we've done since we left". That is what most of the stories centered on. However, on the positive side, they mostly centered on how they continued to live out their Benedictine charism outside of the convent. That part of the stories was beautiful, to see how these women took their many years of religious life, and somehow maintained their religious identity even though they were, technically, no longer religious. So, I give it 3 stars. What they gave us, they gave well. They just didn't give us what the title implied. A nice, simple read, but if you are looking for insight into why women leave religious life, you won't find it here.
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