A review by kizzia
Cloistered: My Years as a Nun by Catherine Coldstream

challenging dark emotional informative reflective sad medium-paced

3.75

This book is beautifully written and an utterly fascinating glimpse inside a "modern" monastery but I was left unsure how I felt about it overall and what it was really trying to do as a memoir, other than having been cathartic for the author to have written. 

Part of the uncertainty absolutely stemmed from the fact that there were things discussed early in the narrative (which is non-linear) that I thought were going to be addressed again later or form a part of something bigger and they were just never mentioned again. But that wasn't all of it. I know that some of the stories were altered or only half told to protect the privacy of the other nuns but there were times where I got a sense that the "version" being told was so far from what actually happened that it unfairly distorted reality. 

All in all I'm not sure I can whole heartedly recommend this book but I can say that I'm glad that I experienced it.

I listened to the audiobook of this via audible, narrated very effectively by Catherine herself.