What do you think?
Rate this book
Cloistered: My Years as a Nun
After the shock of her father’s death, and with her family scattered, twenty-four-year old Catherine was left grieving and alone. A search for meaning led her to Roman Catholicism and the nuns of Akenside Priory.
Cloistered takes us beyond the grille of an enclosed monastic world with its tight-knit community of dedicated women. We see Catherine, praying in the spareness of her simple cell, tilling the land or singing at Lauds, a novice who has found peace in an ancient way of life. But as she surrenders to her final vows, all is not as it seems behind the Priory’s closed doors. Power struggles erupt, and the hothouse atmosphere turns to conflict – with far-reaching consequences for those within.
Catherine comes to realise that divine authority is mediated through flawed and all-too-human channels. She is faced with a should she protect the serenity she has found, or speak out?
A love song to a lost community and an honest account of her twelve years in the Order, Cloistered explores what is most nourishing, and yet most potentially destructive, when human beings, even with the best intentions, cut themselves off from the wider world.
Cloistered takes us beyond the grille of an enclosed monastic world with its tight-knit community of dedicated women. We see Catherine, praying in the spareness of her simple cell, tilling the land or singing at Lauds, a novice who has found peace in an ancient way of life. But as she surrenders to her final vows, all is not as it seems behind the Priory’s closed doors. Power struggles erupt, and the hothouse atmosphere turns to conflict – with far-reaching consequences for those within.
Catherine comes to realise that divine authority is mediated through flawed and all-too-human channels. She is faced with a should she protect the serenity she has found, or speak out?
A love song to a lost community and an honest account of her twelve years in the Order, Cloistered explores what is most nourishing, and yet most potentially destructive, when human beings, even with the best intentions, cut themselves off from the wider world.
352 pages, Paperback
First published March 7, 2024
520 people are currently reading
12071 people want to read
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 30 of 458 reviews
February 7, 2024
I love reading about the secret culture of nuns, and since this was an actual memoir I was even further intrigued. A young woman in her twenties found refuge in the Catholic Church after the death of her father. She joined the Carmelite order, embracing the silence. Her "cell" which was her assigned bedroom in Akenside Priory was a safe haven, with its large, spare black cross, its white walls, rolling hills of greenery out the window, and most of all- its solitary quiet. However, during her twelve years within its confines, Catherine experienced cliques, politics, unfairness, and power plays.
I felt a bit detached reading the many passages that went into the weeds about the deep religious concepts. It was all "over my head" and I didn't feel like delving into those tenets. There was also a lot of talk about nature because of the locale of the monastery and the necessity of the nuns working the property, tending the gardens. I'm not a fan of extensive conversation and description about nature either. I did feel a kinship with Catherine feeling the peace and quiet of her room, as she gazed out her window at the gentle, rolling fields.
I enjoyed learning about the intake process and inner workings of living the Carmelite order, including the schedules for each day. The person who was the most gifted at cooking quite possibly would not be the one assigned to cook. I loved hearing about the bread baking, mixing up dried milk (because it was cheaper), having a "Little Jug" (a quick, small breakfast eaten standing up before chores), and the half hour set aside for conversation each day. It was very disturbing hearing about some of the diabolical maneuverings.
This book clocked in at just over 350 pages, which felt pretty long. If some of the religious philosophical meanderings and nature talk could have been excised out, I would have enjoyed this memoir even more, as it was a pretty interesting story.
Thank you to the publisher St. Martin's Press who provided an advance reader copy via NetGalley.
I felt a bit detached reading the many passages that went into the weeds about the deep religious concepts. It was all "over my head" and I didn't feel like delving into those tenets. There was also a lot of talk about nature because of the locale of the monastery and the necessity of the nuns working the property, tending the gardens. I'm not a fan of extensive conversation and description about nature either. I did feel a kinship with Catherine feeling the peace and quiet of her room, as she gazed out her window at the gentle, rolling fields.
I enjoyed learning about the intake process and inner workings of living the Carmelite order, including the schedules for each day. The person who was the most gifted at cooking quite possibly would not be the one assigned to cook. I loved hearing about the bread baking, mixing up dried milk (because it was cheaper), having a "Little Jug" (a quick, small breakfast eaten standing up before chores), and the half hour set aside for conversation each day. It was very disturbing hearing about some of the diabolical maneuverings.
This book clocked in at just over 350 pages, which felt pretty long. If some of the religious philosophical meanderings and nature talk could have been excised out, I would have enjoyed this memoir even more, as it was a pretty interesting story.
Thank you to the publisher St. Martin's Press who provided an advance reader copy via NetGalley.
February 26, 2024
The writing feels very overwritten, particularly in the first and last chapters detailing the author's “escape” from her monastery.
The author's personality and attitude really irritated me. She is someone who desperately wants to be an extra-special-holy-snowflake. So she joins a monastery - the most extreme kind, of course. Then she discovers that life in a monastery isn't the same as life in heaven and that nuns have flaws. (All nuns except herself…) She judges her fellow nuns harshly throughout this whole book, especially their spirituality, assuming that she just cares more about spiritual things, and they're all shallow and “lukewarm” in their faith because they're not like her. She assumes they don't like her because they're afraid of being “shown up” by her awesome, strong spiritual and mental life. She never points out her own flaws.
Eventually, she leaves the monastery (which, yes, does sound as if it were operating as a cult, not even bothering to follow Standard Catholic Operating Procedures, if you will), and writes this book 20 years later…
Will it surprise anyone that she says she kept her faith, and yet when she talks about God, she follows with phrases like, “or whatever guardian spirit,” and “you might call this power a different name,” etc.?
Sadly, I got the strong impression that the author never actually surrendered her life to Jesus and trusted Him to forgive her sins. She talked a lot about surrendering to the cloister, and about how hard she tried to be good and spiritual, but in the end, it's the breathless, emotional spiritual “high” she seemed to want, rather than a relationship with Jesus, which requires humbling ourselves before Him.
Additionally, I found the book boring and too long. Not much happened, the other “characters” were not fleshed out super well, and I didn't connect with anyone, or feel like I really got to know the people talked about.
Note: There was some brief profanity.
I received access to this ebook from the publisher via NetGalley.
The author's personality and attitude really irritated me. She is someone who desperately wants to be an extra-special-holy-snowflake. So she joins a monastery - the most extreme kind, of course. Then she discovers that life in a monastery isn't the same as life in heaven and that nuns have flaws. (All nuns except herself…) She judges her fellow nuns harshly throughout this whole book, especially their spirituality, assuming that she just cares more about spiritual things, and they're all shallow and “lukewarm” in their faith because they're not like her. She assumes they don't like her because they're afraid of being “shown up” by her awesome, strong spiritual and mental life. She never points out her own flaws.
Eventually, she leaves the monastery (which, yes, does sound as if it were operating as a cult, not even bothering to follow Standard Catholic Operating Procedures, if you will), and writes this book 20 years later…
Will it surprise anyone that she says she kept her faith, and yet when she talks about God, she follows with phrases like, “or whatever guardian spirit,” and “you might call this power a different name,” etc.?
Sadly, I got the strong impression that the author never actually surrendered her life to Jesus and trusted Him to forgive her sins. She talked a lot about surrendering to the cloister, and about how hard she tried to be good and spiritual, but in the end, it's the breathless, emotional spiritual “high” she seemed to want, rather than a relationship with Jesus, which requires humbling ourselves before Him.
Additionally, I found the book boring and too long. Not much happened, the other “characters” were not fleshed out super well, and I didn't connect with anyone, or feel like I really got to know the people talked about.
Note: There was some brief profanity.
I received access to this ebook from the publisher via NetGalley.
April 15, 2024
3.5 stars
A hard book to review, because it’s an unusual one. I picked it up because I am fascinated by memoirs of lives in extreme religious communities, and deconstructing from them (my favorite such book is Unfollow). Catherine Coldstream joined a cloistered Carmelite monastery—yes, monastery is apparently the appropriate word for a female institution if the inmates don’t interact with the outside world—in 1989, in her late 20s. She had grown up in a secular, artistic, troubled family in London, and had a religious experience upon her father’s death that led to her finding Catholicism, and ultimately seeking an extreme version of the religious life.
The key thing about this book, I think, is that Coldstream is a mystic at heart. She joined the pseudonymous Akenside (probably Thicket Priory in Yorkshire) eager to engage in extremes of renunciation in service of union with God. And she apparently found some of that: in this article, she describes her years of monasticism as the great love affair of her life. She writes a lot about the natural world and about her emotional experience of spirituality; although interested in theology, she doesn’t care about dogma at all. In a lot of ways she reminded me of the author of A History of God, also a former nun inclined toward both mysticism and scholarship. To her bafflement and sorrow, Coldstream’s fellow monastics seem to share neither of these interests, instead focused on “just getting on with” the daily work of the monastery, and her spiritual journey winds up derailed by some brutal office politics. I have to say, I was baffled too: who would join a cloistered monastery in the mid to late 20th century if they weren’t intense about it? Why are these women there? Sadly, we never learn that about anyone other than the author, in part probably because of the taboos the community puts on human connection and meaningful conversation—the author may never have learned herself. On the other hand, maybe she did and didn’t tell us, especially as she mentions getting to know several of the nuns post-monastery too.
Because overall, the book is selective in ways that made me wonder. Its basic portrayal of the monastery’s politics is believable; I’ve seen bosses like that, who play favorites for all they’re worth, move the goalposts depending on whether they’re dealing with a favorite or unfavorite, and can’t brook criticism of themselves. It seems natural that the hothouse environment of a monastery, where everyone has made vows of obedience, suffering is part of the point, and giving up your own will part of the ideology (the nuns occasionally refer to themselves as living human sacrifices!) would breed a toxic environment when you have a bad boss at the helm. And I believe that someone who’s idealistic, earnest, sensitive and intellectually curious, as Coldstream presents herself, might rub an insecure leader the wrong way.
But Coldstream has a tendency to stick to generalities, to relaying her emotions or experiences without trying to provide the whole picture (at one point she shows herself and several other nuns being punished but is vague as to what for), and to throwing shade without fully owning her feelings. I don’t doubt that the women presented as the villains of the piece behaved badly, but Coldstream presents this as if it were objective fact rather than her own viewpoint, rooted in her personal experiences with them. It can feel as if she’s seeking validation, rather than having arrived at a place where she can thoughtfully analyze her own feelings and actions as well as those of others. And she doesn’t explain most of her decisions: the problems with toxic leadership and lack of communal support were fully evident within the first year or two, so why did she stay another decade? Why did she ultimately leave? Why didn’t she provide more support to challengers when the opportunity arose for a new leader? Why didn’t she consider moving to the other monastery people kept defecting to, if it was just a personality conflict problem? What’s up with never mentioning in the book the visits from her sister, discussed in the article I linked above, and how did these visits play into her emotional journey? I think this is ultimately back to the mystic thing, and that Coldstream isn’t trying to tell a straightforward, factually complete, easily accessible tale. But that combination of mysticism and devoting a lot of chapters to why her fellow nuns were the worst isn’t quite satisfying to me.
That said, I don’t want to criticize this too harshly. Coldstream is a strong writer, and brings her emotional experiences home to the reader well, alongside vivid descriptions of her surroundings. I appreciate that this as a well-written book about an unusual experience, and it made for different and interesting reading.
A hard book to review, because it’s an unusual one. I picked it up because I am fascinated by memoirs of lives in extreme religious communities, and deconstructing from them (my favorite such book is Unfollow). Catherine Coldstream joined a cloistered Carmelite monastery—yes, monastery is apparently the appropriate word for a female institution if the inmates don’t interact with the outside world—in 1989, in her late 20s. She had grown up in a secular, artistic, troubled family in London, and had a religious experience upon her father’s death that led to her finding Catholicism, and ultimately seeking an extreme version of the religious life.
The key thing about this book, I think, is that Coldstream is a mystic at heart. She joined the pseudonymous Akenside (probably Thicket Priory in Yorkshire) eager to engage in extremes of renunciation in service of union with God. And she apparently found some of that: in this article, she describes her years of monasticism as the great love affair of her life. She writes a lot about the natural world and about her emotional experience of spirituality; although interested in theology, she doesn’t care about dogma at all. In a lot of ways she reminded me of the author of A History of God, also a former nun inclined toward both mysticism and scholarship. To her bafflement and sorrow, Coldstream’s fellow monastics seem to share neither of these interests, instead focused on “just getting on with” the daily work of the monastery, and her spiritual journey winds up derailed by some brutal office politics. I have to say, I was baffled too: who would join a cloistered monastery in the mid to late 20th century if they weren’t intense about it? Why are these women there? Sadly, we never learn that about anyone other than the author, in part probably because of the taboos the community puts on human connection and meaningful conversation—the author may never have learned herself. On the other hand, maybe she did and didn’t tell us, especially as she mentions getting to know several of the nuns post-monastery too.
Because overall, the book is selective in ways that made me wonder. Its basic portrayal of the monastery’s politics is believable; I’ve seen bosses like that, who play favorites for all they’re worth, move the goalposts depending on whether they’re dealing with a favorite or unfavorite, and can’t brook criticism of themselves. It seems natural that the hothouse environment of a monastery, where everyone has made vows of obedience, suffering is part of the point, and giving up your own will part of the ideology (the nuns occasionally refer to themselves as living human sacrifices!) would breed a toxic environment when you have a bad boss at the helm. And I believe that someone who’s idealistic, earnest, sensitive and intellectually curious, as Coldstream presents herself, might rub an insecure leader the wrong way.
But Coldstream has a tendency to stick to generalities, to relaying her emotions or experiences without trying to provide the whole picture (at one point she shows herself and several other nuns being punished but is vague as to what for), and to throwing shade without fully owning her feelings. I don’t doubt that the women presented as the villains of the piece behaved badly, but Coldstream presents this as if it were objective fact rather than her own viewpoint, rooted in her personal experiences with them. It can feel as if she’s seeking validation, rather than having arrived at a place where she can thoughtfully analyze her own feelings and actions as well as those of others. And she doesn’t explain most of her decisions: the problems with toxic leadership and lack of communal support were fully evident within the first year or two, so why did she stay another decade? Why did she ultimately leave? Why didn’t she provide more support to challengers when the opportunity arose for a new leader? Why didn’t she consider moving to the other monastery people kept defecting to, if it was just a personality conflict problem? What’s up with never mentioning in the book the visits from her sister, discussed in the article I linked above, and how did these visits play into her emotional journey? I think this is ultimately back to the mystic thing, and that Coldstream isn’t trying to tell a straightforward, factually complete, easily accessible tale. But that combination of mysticism and devoting a lot of chapters to why her fellow nuns were the worst isn’t quite satisfying to me.
That said, I don’t want to criticize this too harshly. Coldstream is a strong writer, and brings her emotional experiences home to the reader well, alongside vivid descriptions of her surroundings. I appreciate that this as a well-written book about an unusual experience, and it made for different and interesting reading.
March 5, 2024
On my second afternoon, writes Coldstream of a visit to the priory where she would later take vows, there was a thunderstorm, and the women I saw from my window, flitting across courtyards in their long brown robes, were like ghosts. They barely spoke and their pale faces were as inscrutable as distant moons. I saw them as brave, extraordinary, martyr figures. They belonged to the same forgotten world as the moss growing out of the ancient enclosure wall, and as the ferns that grew, unchecked, at its base, and the dandelions and smaller flowers peeping from its crevices. They belonged to the fields and forests. Above all, they belonged to the silence, and to God. I opened the window. The smell of damp earth rose, reeking of something half forgotten, mixed with spring. (loc. 885*)
Coldstream was perhaps an unusual choice to be a nun: raised in an artistic and academic, non-Catholic household, she took to Catholicism only after her father died and her world upended itself. But when she went in, it was all or nothing: not just Catholicism but a nun, not just a nun but one in a cloistered, largely silent community. And she loved it—loved the silence, loved the isolation, loved the intense focus on religion, loved the honeymoon phase and weathered the loss of that same phase.
Time passes in the monastery like ghosts that move through walls; it seeps through cell doors and stony archways, through bone and marrow, imprinting patience and endurance at every touch. With the shifting of the seasons, and by our second dusky-coloured autumn, we'd turned from eager novices, excited by the novelty of monasticism, to heavy labourers, hands chapped from toil, lips cracked with cold, and faces raw. (loc. 1298)
But nuns, too, are only human, and eventually those cracks spread outward, and outward still, and gradually things changed.
Coldstream is at her best when writing about those early years, and the beauty she found in the bareness and silence of the monastery. She mentions few of the early red flags that many ex-nuns who lived in particularly restrictive (or just pre–Vatican II) describe, and a sense of longing and what if remains: what if this had happened within the community, or that, or if this sister had been given more leeway or that sister less, or if she had begun her journey in a different convent or chosen a less closed order to begin with—would she still be there? Without going into too much detail, I think it's fair to say that it was the bare humanity of isolated religious life that made questions start to grow, and then to proliferate.
Coldstream took a series of vows en route to becoming a fully professed nun, and it left me thinking about the strange way that the Catholic church (or at least some streams of it) makes convent life into a marriage, with each nun in her marital cell and Jesus as the ultimate bigamist...Coldstream didn't go down the aisle in a white gown, as used to be more common, but even if she had that would not have been anywhere near the most final of her vows—which is not the way the church treats a more conventional marriage, leaving me puzzled about why they would put the marriage-to-Jesus bit relatively early in the process. Not for the first time, I find myself thinking that the Catholic church might do better to encourage temporary vows (much the way there are so many short-term Buddhist monks) rather than, as Coldstream describes, making the process a long one but one that nearly always has a goal of permanence. Because—how might Coldstream's journey, or those of any of the women she lived in community with, have been different with the doors still open?
Not always a happy story, but a beautifully written one.
*Quotes are from an ARC and may not be final.
Thanks to the author and publisher for providing a review copy through NetGalley.
Coldstream was perhaps an unusual choice to be a nun: raised in an artistic and academic, non-Catholic household, she took to Catholicism only after her father died and her world upended itself. But when she went in, it was all or nothing: not just Catholicism but a nun, not just a nun but one in a cloistered, largely silent community. And she loved it—loved the silence, loved the isolation, loved the intense focus on religion, loved the honeymoon phase and weathered the loss of that same phase.
Time passes in the monastery like ghosts that move through walls; it seeps through cell doors and stony archways, through bone and marrow, imprinting patience and endurance at every touch. With the shifting of the seasons, and by our second dusky-coloured autumn, we'd turned from eager novices, excited by the novelty of monasticism, to heavy labourers, hands chapped from toil, lips cracked with cold, and faces raw. (loc. 1298)
But nuns, too, are only human, and eventually those cracks spread outward, and outward still, and gradually things changed.
Coldstream is at her best when writing about those early years, and the beauty she found in the bareness and silence of the monastery. She mentions few of the early red flags that many ex-nuns who lived in particularly restrictive (or just pre–Vatican II) describe, and a sense of longing and what if remains: what if this had happened within the community, or that, or if this sister had been given more leeway or that sister less, or if she had begun her journey in a different convent or chosen a less closed order to begin with—would she still be there? Without going into too much detail, I think it's fair to say that it was the bare humanity of isolated religious life that made questions start to grow, and then to proliferate.
Coldstream took a series of vows en route to becoming a fully professed nun, and it left me thinking about the strange way that the Catholic church (or at least some streams of it) makes convent life into a marriage, with each nun in her marital cell and Jesus as the ultimate bigamist...Coldstream didn't go down the aisle in a white gown, as used to be more common, but even if she had that would not have been anywhere near the most final of her vows—which is not the way the church treats a more conventional marriage, leaving me puzzled about why they would put the marriage-to-Jesus bit relatively early in the process. Not for the first time, I find myself thinking that the Catholic church might do better to encourage temporary vows (much the way there are so many short-term Buddhist monks) rather than, as Coldstream describes, making the process a long one but one that nearly always has a goal of permanence. Because—how might Coldstream's journey, or those of any of the women she lived in community with, have been different with the doors still open?
Not always a happy story, but a beautifully written one.
*Quotes are from an ARC and may not be final.
Thanks to the author and publisher for providing a review copy through NetGalley.
March 15, 2024
Informative & Eye-Opening!
This is the story of Catherine Coldstream who converted to Catholicism after her father's death and was a Carmelite nun for twelve years.
During her time at the silent monastery she describes her intense personal journey of poverty, chastity and obedience in her enclosed life.
A profoundly moving memoir detailing her quest for God's love while enduring struggles, pain and the imperfections of humanity.
Thank you to NetGalley and St. Martin's Press for an arc of this novel in exchange for my honest review.
This is the story of Catherine Coldstream who converted to Catholicism after her father's death and was a Carmelite nun for twelve years.
During her time at the silent monastery she describes her intense personal journey of poverty, chastity and obedience in her enclosed life.
A profoundly moving memoir detailing her quest for God's love while enduring struggles, pain and the imperfections of humanity.
Thank you to NetGalley and St. Martin's Press for an arc of this novel in exchange for my honest review.
September 24, 2023
Cloistered: My Years as a Nun by Catherine Coldstream is an interesting memoir about one woman’s journey into the faith and then out.
I picked up this book initially as I was hoping to read something inspiring and even at the attempt to get a peak inside a Carmelite monastery. This really wasn’t that kind of a book.
This was a memoir of one woman’s journey into joining a specific monastery and her bad experiences with the Sisters inside of it, and her decision to leave to go back to secular life.
While I sympathize with her to a certain extent, I also felt that this was just one side to the story and that there were probably faults present within multiple people. The Sisters are all imperfect, as we all are, and to expect more from humans is not something that will be achieved. I am sorry for her rough experience, but I have a feeling it isn’t “like this” everywhere.
2.5/5 stars
I picked up this book initially as I was hoping to read something inspiring and even at the attempt to get a peak inside a Carmelite monastery. This really wasn’t that kind of a book.
This was a memoir of one woman’s journey into joining a specific monastery and her bad experiences with the Sisters inside of it, and her decision to leave to go back to secular life.
While I sympathize with her to a certain extent, I also felt that this was just one side to the story and that there were probably faults present within multiple people. The Sisters are all imperfect, as we all are, and to expect more from humans is not something that will be achieved. I am sorry for her rough experience, but I have a feeling it isn’t “like this” everywhere.
2.5/5 stars
April 20, 2024
3.5 🌟 thank you Netgalley for the Audiobook!
April 28, 2024
This is a very loud quiet book. Religious and psychological thriller. Lots of insights into a scarcely known world. I'm grateful to the author for sharing her story.
March 27, 2024
Maybe more like a 3.5: both fascinating and flawed. Unmoored in the wake of her father's death, Catherine Coldstream converts to Catholicism, and decides to become a nun. She chooses one of the coldest, strictest orders she can find, and she is decidedly "all in." She arrives, having already immersed herself in the words and histories of St. Theresa and St. John of the Cross, eager to plunge herself entirely into "the Life" and her new "spouse" (Jesus). She cannot wait to take her vows. She loves the priory, the silence, the cold, the work, the singing, the prayers; she wants to love her sisters. Ah, but... When Alec Guinness converted to Catholicism, a monk asked him "What do you think is the greatest difficulty in the life of a monk?" Alec promptly replied: "Other monks." And the monk confirmed he was absolutely correct.
Alas, poor Catherine. She discovers that in this house, the prioress is not interested in anyone's spiritual investigations, emotional struggles, or thirst to learn and explore theology or ideas. You shut up, keep your eyes lowered, do the tasks set you, attend services, and above all: obey. Period. You are not to have friends - in fact, the prioress has imposed a "rule of three": no private conversations between individual sisters unless a third is present, and familiar relationships are not allowed. Of course, you're only allowed to speak at certain hours of the day and for specific reasons anyway. And yet, the prioress plays favorites: one seriously troubled young novice, who entered the order the same time as Catherine, is accorded all kinds of special privileges and exemptions no others get. But the prioress has been in charge for decades, and, well, "we've always done it this way," "this is how we do things here." Her autocracy runs to not bothering to inform Catherine that her long-yearned-for vows have been put off for a year because she is deemed "not ready." It runs to having successfully evaded having any regular visits from their presiding bishop for years. It runs to her having consolidated all positions of authority and responsibility to herself, in violation of conventions of the order. Some sisters leave in disgrace, to find fulfillment in a more liberally run house. Then another house closes, and its remaining sisters are sent in. The balance of power is disturbed. The bishops start to stop by now and then, and even dare to have private conversations with Catherine and others. The bishop casually mentions to the group a recent papal encyclical which he hopes they have all had time to study and discuss, outlining steps to be taken by monastic houses to move forward in the modern world - to the befuddlement of the sisters, as the prioress has made sure they never knew of its existence. Factions split off. Sisters are forced into humiliating prostrations of apology in regular gatherings; a new prioress is elected, ultimately to be wrecked by the ousted one, and who erupts into physical violence. Catherine flees in a dramatic middle-of-the-night flit.
And yet she goes back before giving up and leaving. Twelve years she puts in. It is excruciating, partly because she is so in love with the Life, and because she sometimes simply doesn't understand what is going on. She blames her own weakness. She is an educated, artistic, emotional personality seduced, abused, and abandoned by the love of her life. It's fascinating, bizarre, sad, and pitiable.
Catherine is painfully earnest. She shares her joys, her aspirations, her loves, her suffering. But she does not share things that perhaps she either didn't really see or recognize. She repeatedly talks about how devastated she was by her father's death, and yet we see virtually nothing of him as a person or a father or what her relationship to him was actually like. (I lost my own father days before I started reading this book by sheer chance, so this mystified me.) With the exception of the two prioresses, the characters of the other sisters (as well as her siblings) are barely in evidence - though perhaps the emphatic prohibition on personal relationships made that impossible for her to explore or describe. There's probably too much "nature writing," and the focus on her woes can become repetitive and a bit wearisome. Presumably she made some choices of what not to include for reasons of privacy or charity, but that leaves blanks that make some of her emotional responses feel excessive.
I ended up curious about how she could possibly go back after her flight, and what changes occurred after that. Curious about how she readjusted to the secular world - to marriage, to an academic life, to re-assimilation into her family. Maybe a restructuring would have tightened the book, shining more light into some murky places, while reducing the glare into others. Still, an affecting and engaging examination of one young woman's experience in a mysterious and powerful place.
Alas, poor Catherine. She discovers that in this house, the prioress is not interested in anyone's spiritual investigations, emotional struggles, or thirst to learn and explore theology or ideas. You shut up, keep your eyes lowered, do the tasks set you, attend services, and above all: obey. Period. You are not to have friends - in fact, the prioress has imposed a "rule of three": no private conversations between individual sisters unless a third is present, and familiar relationships are not allowed. Of course, you're only allowed to speak at certain hours of the day and for specific reasons anyway. And yet, the prioress plays favorites: one seriously troubled young novice, who entered the order the same time as Catherine, is accorded all kinds of special privileges and exemptions no others get. But the prioress has been in charge for decades, and, well, "we've always done it this way," "this is how we do things here." Her autocracy runs to not bothering to inform Catherine that her long-yearned-for vows have been put off for a year because she is deemed "not ready." It runs to having successfully evaded having any regular visits from their presiding bishop for years. It runs to her having consolidated all positions of authority and responsibility to herself, in violation of conventions of the order. Some sisters leave in disgrace, to find fulfillment in a more liberally run house. Then another house closes, and its remaining sisters are sent in. The balance of power is disturbed. The bishops start to stop by now and then, and even dare to have private conversations with Catherine and others. The bishop casually mentions to the group a recent papal encyclical which he hopes they have all had time to study and discuss, outlining steps to be taken by monastic houses to move forward in the modern world - to the befuddlement of the sisters, as the prioress has made sure they never knew of its existence. Factions split off. Sisters are forced into humiliating prostrations of apology in regular gatherings; a new prioress is elected, ultimately to be wrecked by the ousted one, and who erupts into physical violence. Catherine flees in a dramatic middle-of-the-night flit.
And yet she goes back before giving up and leaving. Twelve years she puts in. It is excruciating, partly because she is so in love with the Life, and because she sometimes simply doesn't understand what is going on. She blames her own weakness. She is an educated, artistic, emotional personality seduced, abused, and abandoned by the love of her life. It's fascinating, bizarre, sad, and pitiable.
Catherine is painfully earnest. She shares her joys, her aspirations, her loves, her suffering. But she does not share things that perhaps she either didn't really see or recognize. She repeatedly talks about how devastated she was by her father's death, and yet we see virtually nothing of him as a person or a father or what her relationship to him was actually like. (I lost my own father days before I started reading this book by sheer chance, so this mystified me.) With the exception of the two prioresses, the characters of the other sisters (as well as her siblings) are barely in evidence - though perhaps the emphatic prohibition on personal relationships made that impossible for her to explore or describe. There's probably too much "nature writing," and the focus on her woes can become repetitive and a bit wearisome. Presumably she made some choices of what not to include for reasons of privacy or charity, but that leaves blanks that make some of her emotional responses feel excessive.
I ended up curious about how she could possibly go back after her flight, and what changes occurred after that. Curious about how she readjusted to the secular world - to marriage, to an academic life, to re-assimilation into her family. Maybe a restructuring would have tightened the book, shining more light into some murky places, while reducing the glare into others. Still, an affecting and engaging examination of one young woman's experience in a mysterious and powerful place.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
March 12, 2024
Overall Grade: B-
Narration and Writing: B-
Content and Depth of Story: B
Best Aspect: Some interseting stories and emotions from the author.
Worst Aspect: Too long and often I lost interest while listening too.
Narration and Writing: B-
Content and Depth of Story: B
Best Aspect: Some interseting stories and emotions from the author.
Worst Aspect: Too long and often I lost interest while listening too.
May 17, 2024
If you are wondering about life as a cloistered nun, you will find in this book that it is just as boring as you would imagine.
April 3, 2024
I'm not a Christian, much less a Catholic, but the life in a monastic community has always fascinated me. This memoir is both fascinating and shocking. People are people whatever the setting.
March 30, 2024
A memoir of a life calling I've always wondered about, and so was engrossed in the author's telling of her experience. I was surprised at some of her later choices, but am pleased that she has written about her mixed bag of joys, sorrows and challenges while enjoying a life in the world, free from allowed domination imposed by a few who clearly had their own issues.
Another example of the wonder of books, and the opportunity to see and understand a point of view that would otherwise not known by this reader.
*A sincere thank you to Catherine Coldstream, Macmillan Audio, and NetGalley for an ARC to read and independently review.*
Another example of the wonder of books, and the opportunity to see and understand a point of view that would otherwise not known by this reader.
*A sincere thank you to Catherine Coldstream, Macmillan Audio, and NetGalley for an ARC to read and independently review.*
March 14, 2025
Catherine Coldstream's “Cloistered: My Years as a Nun” invites us into the quiet, introspective world of a Carmelite monastery in Northumberland. The author recounts her twelve-year cloistered journey, offering an intimate insight into her spiritual quest, but above all into monastic life.
When I started reading, I was immediately captivated by the confessional and intimate tone Coldstream employs. Her voice, especially in the audiobook version, takes us through the memories of a decade dedicated to the contemplative life. However, as the narrative progresses, I felt that the author dwells too much on details of daily monastic life, without necessarily delving into reflections or events that hold genuine interest. This ends up resulting in a feeling of narrative stagnation, with the expectation of conflict remaining latent, but not fully realized.
It is only in the final chapters that Coldstream addresses the circumstances that led her to question and eventually leave the convent. This segment brings a strong reconnection with the reader, elevating the discourse and summoning the spiritual in a more palpable way. The narrative tension here contrasts with the previous monotony, providing a more engaging and reflective conclusion.
In short, “Cloistered” offers a window into the cloistered world of the Carmelites, but it could benefit from a more balanced narrative structure that keeps the reader engaged throughout. Still, the sincerity and depth of the experiences shared by Coldstream are worth appreciating, especially for those interested in the nuances of religious life and personal journeys of faith.
3.5/5
When I started reading, I was immediately captivated by the confessional and intimate tone Coldstream employs. Her voice, especially in the audiobook version, takes us through the memories of a decade dedicated to the contemplative life. However, as the narrative progresses, I felt that the author dwells too much on details of daily monastic life, without necessarily delving into reflections or events that hold genuine interest. This ends up resulting in a feeling of narrative stagnation, with the expectation of conflict remaining latent, but not fully realized.
It is only in the final chapters that Coldstream addresses the circumstances that led her to question and eventually leave the convent. This segment brings a strong reconnection with the reader, elevating the discourse and summoning the spiritual in a more palpable way. The narrative tension here contrasts with the previous monotony, providing a more engaging and reflective conclusion.
In short, “Cloistered” offers a window into the cloistered world of the Carmelites, but it could benefit from a more balanced narrative structure that keeps the reader engaged throughout. Still, the sincerity and depth of the experiences shared by Coldstream are worth appreciating, especially for those interested in the nuances of religious life and personal journeys of faith.
3.5/5
September 19, 2023
An interesting book about a life most of us no nothing about. The authors journey was intriguing but I did find myself skipping some sections as it became a little dull. Perhaps that is a result of the life of a cloistered nun. I will say this, the author was able to find her true self that the majority of us never succeed in achieving. Thanks to Netgalley, the author and publishers for an advanced copy in exchange for my honest opinion.
March 9, 2024
A compelling memoir about life in a cloistered Carmelite monastery in Northumberland, England.
The author suffers a tremendous loss that completely throws her life into chaos and in seeking peace from that turmoil, she finds both God and what she believes to be her calling - joining the Akenside Priory and taking vows [though its not really as simple as that - it takes her almost a decade to finally get to take her final vows] and living a life of poverty, chastity, obedience, and silence. And I believe, that for some time, she was happy there. She found the peace from her father's death, learned to quiet her mind and immerses herself so deeply in the monastic world that she soon forgets what the outside world is really like [this comes into play later, when she decides to leave] and is convinced that she will live forever here at Akenside.
How she lives and all that happens that changes her mind, you will have to read for yourself as this is a story that best unfolds with no preconceived notions and notes. I will say that this is full of Catholicism, so if you are unfamiliar with that religion and all that it entails, this might be harder for you to read, but should absolutely not deter you - just be prepared to maybe have to look some things up, OR find a friend who IS familiar or has grown up in the church that could help you with some of the religious aspects of this book [I find that it is always amazing to learn about other cultures, because being a Nun with a vow of silence IS another culture IMO, and this one really steeps you in it].
Unflinchingly honest and richly detailed, this was one of the better "religious" books I have read in some time. If you have ever been curious about monastic life [whether personally or from a straight-learning POV], this book is for you.
I was also granted an audiobook ARC for this book and I highly recommend going into this book that way. The author narrates and she should look into the world of narration because she was simply amazing. With a straightforward way of telling a story, she has a soft, yet strong [not whispery, just soft, probably a product of her time in the monastery] voice that was just pure joy to listen to. If she ever decides to join the narration world and narrate other books, I will be first in line to read what she has narrated. Very well done.
Thank you to NetGalley, Catherine Coldstream, Macmillan Audio, and St. Martin's Press for providing this ARC in exchange for an honest review.
The author suffers a tremendous loss that completely throws her life into chaos and in seeking peace from that turmoil, she finds both God and what she believes to be her calling - joining the Akenside Priory and taking vows [though its not really as simple as that - it takes her almost a decade to finally get to take her final vows] and living a life of poverty, chastity, obedience, and silence. And I believe, that for some time, she was happy there. She found the peace from her father's death, learned to quiet her mind and immerses herself so deeply in the monastic world that she soon forgets what the outside world is really like [this comes into play later, when she decides to leave] and is convinced that she will live forever here at Akenside.
How she lives and all that happens that changes her mind, you will have to read for yourself as this is a story that best unfolds with no preconceived notions and notes. I will say that this is full of Catholicism, so if you are unfamiliar with that religion and all that it entails, this might be harder for you to read, but should absolutely not deter you - just be prepared to maybe have to look some things up, OR find a friend who IS familiar or has grown up in the church that could help you with some of the religious aspects of this book [I find that it is always amazing to learn about other cultures, because being a Nun with a vow of silence IS another culture IMO, and this one really steeps you in it].
Unflinchingly honest and richly detailed, this was one of the better "religious" books I have read in some time. If you have ever been curious about monastic life [whether personally or from a straight-learning POV], this book is for you.
I was also granted an audiobook ARC for this book and I highly recommend going into this book that way. The author narrates and she should look into the world of narration because she was simply amazing. With a straightforward way of telling a story, she has a soft, yet strong [not whispery, just soft, probably a product of her time in the monastery] voice that was just pure joy to listen to. If she ever decides to join the narration world and narrate other books, I will be first in line to read what she has narrated. Very well done.
Thank you to NetGalley, Catherine Coldstream, Macmillan Audio, and St. Martin's Press for providing this ARC in exchange for an honest review.
February 19, 2025
"Cloister" by Coldstream is a beautifully written exploration of isolation and human connection. The atmospheric prose and richly developed characters create a poignant narrative about finding meaning within solitude. It's a thought-provoking and emotionally resonant read.
April 24, 2024
Catherine Coldstream has written a deeply personal memoir. I’ll take a risk and suggest that the majority of readers will “be on her side” by the end of her remarkable story. A safer prediction is that whichever “side” readers take, they will undoubtedly feast on Coldstream’s beautiful, hypnotizing, addictive prose. Structured in three segments—The Life, The Way, The Truth—Coldstream reveals fascinating insights, warts and all, regarding the journey from lay person to nun. This sort of memoir demands an exquisite blend of objective reportage and subjective soul-searching: Coldstream delivers both with flair.
Coldstream was utterly devastated when her father died. She was in her mid-twenties and up until that point, he had been a dependable beacon and a rock of stability in her life. Without him, she was a boat adrift without any anchor. Her need to grieve was intense and consuming, but the noise and distractions of life impeded that need. Chance encounters—first with a kind, sympathetic, patient family friend, and then a Dominican nun on a train—provided Coldstream with directional guidance towards a contemplative life. Perhaps this was a way to be closer to her father, now in heaven.
What better place for a contemplative life than a monastery? “It was the silence of Carmel that had attracted me, the liturgy, the sense of God’s presence pervading everything, and the faith that, in a life of absolute focus, seclusion and prayerful service of others, I would find my role,” says Coldstream when she entered Akenside Priory in 1989, in the northern English county of Northumberland. She would spend the next dozen years of her life there. The Carmelite order professed vows of poverty, chastity, and obedience, and though it would take at least five years to transition from novice to nun, Coldstream wholeheartedly surrendered herself to the journey.
The monastic existence was efficacious in providing Coldstream with an homogenous community of twenty other nuns, an environment stripped of all material things, and an isolation utterly devoid of outside influence. Everything resonated comfortingly with her, physically and emotionally, convincing her that she was on a vocational path to spiritual fulfillment. The four bare walls of her tiny “cell” were in stark contrast to the extraordinary natural beauty of the outdoors, and yet both environments were spiritual nourishment for Coldstream. The very pace of life brought placidity and calm to monastery occupants. Coldstream notes that, “Time passes in the monastery like ghosts that move through walls; it seeps through cell doors and archways, through bone and marrow, imprinting patience and endurance at every touch.”
But a twofold realization caused Coldstream to reflect deeply on what she was doing. Reflection inevitably led to self-questioning. First, she herself admits that she came from “a bohemian family”; she was exposed to art, literature, music, and other cultures. Could she give all that up…forever? And second, the vow of obedience was extremely demanding. It meant that, “Independent judgment was among the worst of monastic faults…and you knew instinctively to suppress it. Perhaps I should have known better, but it came as a shock to learn that idealists were seen as undesirable.” She is further reminded by a fellow novice, “The main thing is, you are giving up your own way of thinking about everything, Catherine. Everything. You are not just giving up your life, you are offering up your will.” Was that even humanly possible for her?
In a chapter titled Only Human, she cannot help but reflect on the inevitable question: was her vocation “nothing but a way of coping with grief? Was I merely making a virtue of the fact of the recent loss and loneliness? Was I looking to an eternal horizon, or was I just running away from life? If the latter, was it too late to turn the clock back, to have another go at being fully human?” How she addresses this question makes for dramatic storytelling.
One thing took me by surprise: even in an establishment with a flat two-level hierarchy (Mother Superior and all other nuns), power struggles, jockeying for position, and partisan cliques were a strong cultural element of Akenside Priory, especially every three years when it came time to elect a Mother Superior! Perhaps it’s cynical of me, but it would appear that religious garb and chanting prayers are a poor camouflage for the primitive human qualities of ego and envy.
Coldstream was utterly devastated when her father died. She was in her mid-twenties and up until that point, he had been a dependable beacon and a rock of stability in her life. Without him, she was a boat adrift without any anchor. Her need to grieve was intense and consuming, but the noise and distractions of life impeded that need. Chance encounters—first with a kind, sympathetic, patient family friend, and then a Dominican nun on a train—provided Coldstream with directional guidance towards a contemplative life. Perhaps this was a way to be closer to her father, now in heaven.
What better place for a contemplative life than a monastery? “It was the silence of Carmel that had attracted me, the liturgy, the sense of God’s presence pervading everything, and the faith that, in a life of absolute focus, seclusion and prayerful service of others, I would find my role,” says Coldstream when she entered Akenside Priory in 1989, in the northern English county of Northumberland. She would spend the next dozen years of her life there. The Carmelite order professed vows of poverty, chastity, and obedience, and though it would take at least five years to transition from novice to nun, Coldstream wholeheartedly surrendered herself to the journey.
The monastic existence was efficacious in providing Coldstream with an homogenous community of twenty other nuns, an environment stripped of all material things, and an isolation utterly devoid of outside influence. Everything resonated comfortingly with her, physically and emotionally, convincing her that she was on a vocational path to spiritual fulfillment. The four bare walls of her tiny “cell” were in stark contrast to the extraordinary natural beauty of the outdoors, and yet both environments were spiritual nourishment for Coldstream. The very pace of life brought placidity and calm to monastery occupants. Coldstream notes that, “Time passes in the monastery like ghosts that move through walls; it seeps through cell doors and archways, through bone and marrow, imprinting patience and endurance at every touch.”
But a twofold realization caused Coldstream to reflect deeply on what she was doing. Reflection inevitably led to self-questioning. First, she herself admits that she came from “a bohemian family”; she was exposed to art, literature, music, and other cultures. Could she give all that up…forever? And second, the vow of obedience was extremely demanding. It meant that, “Independent judgment was among the worst of monastic faults…and you knew instinctively to suppress it. Perhaps I should have known better, but it came as a shock to learn that idealists were seen as undesirable.” She is further reminded by a fellow novice, “The main thing is, you are giving up your own way of thinking about everything, Catherine. Everything. You are not just giving up your life, you are offering up your will.” Was that even humanly possible for her?
In a chapter titled Only Human, she cannot help but reflect on the inevitable question: was her vocation “nothing but a way of coping with grief? Was I merely making a virtue of the fact of the recent loss and loneliness? Was I looking to an eternal horizon, or was I just running away from life? If the latter, was it too late to turn the clock back, to have another go at being fully human?” How she addresses this question makes for dramatic storytelling.
One thing took me by surprise: even in an establishment with a flat two-level hierarchy (Mother Superior and all other nuns), power struggles, jockeying for position, and partisan cliques were a strong cultural element of Akenside Priory, especially every three years when it came time to elect a Mother Superior! Perhaps it’s cynical of me, but it would appear that religious garb and chanting prayers are a poor camouflage for the primitive human qualities of ego and envy.
February 29, 2024
2⭐️
This memoir chronicles the author's quest for a meaningful life in the aftermath of her father's passing. It leads her to embrace life at Akinside Priory, a Roman Catholic order of nuns who take vows of poverty, chastity, and obedience (Carmelites). What she initially anticipated as a path to peace and purpose, however, leads her into a life of suffering.
The narrative delves into her initiation as a novice, followed by twelve tumultuous years marked by mental and physical abuse within the order, ultimately leading to her decision to reintegrate into secular life.
As someone who was raised (unwillingly) in the Catholic Church, I found this read intriguing. Initially I expected a scandalous exposé on the harsh realities of life within an extreme Roman Catholic monastery (because let's face it, it must be grim), the author does touch upon such grim realities: from being informed that the fleas in her cell were a form of penance, to the restriction on physical contact with fellow sisters except on Christmas and Easter, and even encountering physical altercations with nuns (yes, you read that right, wild stuff), all while enduring a life of near-complete silence and seclusion.
Unfortunately, I did not enjoy the writing style. I struggled to maintain focus as the narrative felt overly dry and dragged on for about 150 pages too long. The tone of the book also felt somewhat off, with the author seemingly positioning herself as a martyr. This left me feeling that parts of the story were being omitted. (Sister Catherine, the vibes are way off!) However, the depiction of convent life is exactly as I expected, aside from nuns jumping one another (again, wild).
Thank you to NetGalley and St. Martins Press who provided an advance reader copy in exchange for an honest review.
This memoir chronicles the author's quest for a meaningful life in the aftermath of her father's passing. It leads her to embrace life at Akinside Priory, a Roman Catholic order of nuns who take vows of poverty, chastity, and obedience (Carmelites). What she initially anticipated as a path to peace and purpose, however, leads her into a life of suffering.
The narrative delves into her initiation as a novice, followed by twelve tumultuous years marked by mental and physical abuse within the order, ultimately leading to her decision to reintegrate into secular life.
As someone who was raised (unwillingly) in the Catholic Church, I found this read intriguing. Initially I expected a scandalous exposé on the harsh realities of life within an extreme Roman Catholic monastery (because let's face it, it must be grim), the author does touch upon such grim realities: from being informed that the fleas in her cell were a form of penance, to the restriction on physical contact with fellow sisters except on Christmas and Easter, and even encountering physical altercations with nuns (yes, you read that right, wild stuff), all while enduring a life of near-complete silence and seclusion.
Unfortunately, I did not enjoy the writing style. I struggled to maintain focus as the narrative felt overly dry and dragged on for about 150 pages too long. The tone of the book also felt somewhat off, with the author seemingly positioning herself as a martyr. This left me feeling that parts of the story were being omitted. (Sister Catherine, the vibes are way off!) However, the depiction of convent life is exactly as I expected, aside from nuns jumping one another (again, wild).
Thank you to NetGalley and St. Martins Press who provided an advance reader copy in exchange for an honest review.
May 13, 2024
I love memoirs of faith and doubt, and I’m particularly fascinated by closed communities like convents. There are a few reasons why Coldstream’s account of her years at ‘Akenside Priory,’ a fictional name for a real place in Northumberland, failed to engage me. First of all, the time she’s writing about is 25-30 years in the past. That means it’s impossible for her to recreate scenes with much authenticity; her dialogue, in particular, doesn’t ring true. Instead she gives a fairly generic picture of the religious life for people who might know little or nothing about Catholicism.
Second, she mostly seems interested in psychologizing about her younger self’s motivations: she theorizes that she was driven by her grief over her father’s death and the wish for a replacement male figurehead. (Jesus would also be, in Christian language, her bridegroom. Coldstream indeed depicts herself as a blithe young woman with little experience of the world such that she didn’t even much awareness of her gender or sexuality.) Third, the book’s marketing plays up ordinary interpersonal issues such as can be found in any human group. True, she did end up running away after , but before that what she experienced was pretty run-of-the-mill snubbing and bullying. The leadership seemed to see her as an outsider, from a liberal London family of intellectuals, and her advancement was held back for no good reason.
However, I was relieved that this did not end up being a wholly negative picture. It could have been all about revealing gaslighting and toxic religion. But Coldstream is able to see that a situation that went sour for her could be beneficial for others, and she does still have faith of a sort.
Second, she mostly seems interested in psychologizing about her younger self’s motivations: she theorizes that she was driven by her grief over her father’s death and the wish for a replacement male figurehead. (Jesus would also be, in Christian language, her bridegroom. Coldstream indeed depicts herself as a blithe young woman with little experience of the world such that she didn’t even much awareness of her gender or sexuality.) Third, the book’s marketing plays up ordinary interpersonal issues such as can be found in any human group. True, she did end up running away after , but before that what she experienced was pretty run-of-the-mill snubbing and bullying. The leadership seemed to see her as an outsider, from a liberal London family of intellectuals, and her advancement was held back for no good reason.
However, I was relieved that this did not end up being a wholly negative picture. It could have been all about revealing gaslighting and toxic religion. But Coldstream is able to see that a situation that went sour for her could be beneficial for others, and she does still have faith of a sort.
March 29, 2024
I was intrigued by the topic of this memoir, but it didn’t live up to my expectations. In her mid 20’s, Catherine enters a silent monastery , a lost soul grieving after the death of her father, the one anchor throughout her tumultuous early years. I was anticipating she would be writing about daily life as a nun and a spiritual evolution that gradually ended with her leaving the cloister. The book did discuss everyday life, but it seemed to drag and get bogged down. I understood her disillusionment with life at the priory as Mother Elizabeth’s control and favoritism spun out of control, but I never felt like Catherine shared the heart of her discontent in a way I could truly connect with. Her departure from the monastery seemed to happen abruptly, and the book ended without giving me enough details about adjusting to life outside afterwards. Catherine is clearly a deep and thoughtful person, and I wonder if perhaps she is a private person as well, leading her to hold back expressing the emotions that could have made this book a more compelling read.
October 22, 2024
I read this for writing research, because I'm writing a character who is a (very different sort of) nun, and I wanted to get a better grounding in the day-to-day of monastic life and to get a sense of what it feels like to experience a religious calling. I got that, as well as a fascinating look into the drama of a convent descending into toxicity and abuse. I really enjoyed Coldstream's lyrical writing--even when her experience sounded undeniably awful, I still wanted to wander around the convent grounds--and her narration on the audiobook.
June 20, 2024
Writing is overly performative and the story line is lost and dull. The use of the word cult is overly dramatic. Difficult to read. Not that interesting
September 4, 2025
wow, this answered so many questions I never knew I had about nuns who live in intense enclosed orders. Super fascinating. Would have enjoyed a more fleshed-out discussion at the end of the book about why she left, how she feels about the choice now etc.
May 22, 2024
3.25 stars. A great story, but not a great delivery. The end and epilogue felt rushed. It's stunning what isolation can do to mental health and how it can turn religion into a cult.
Content warnings: violence, suicidal thoughts, death of a parent.
Content warnings: violence, suicidal thoughts, death of a parent.
August 5, 2024
An excellent memoir of the cloistered life. Read by the author. Very revealing and in many ways poetic.
April 26, 2025
Kind of slow going so I recommend it if you’re really into nuns and monasticism but if not might be a little boring lol
November 2, 2024
#NonFictionNovember24 - Book 1
I really enjoyed this. As a Cradle Catholic, there were several things that I took to be gospel (no pun intended) as far as nuns go. This beautifully written book challenged me as it did Coldstream. I wish I had read this as a book club selection, so many great discussions could've been had. Especially, if it would have included a non-Catholic, a non-Christian and a convert.
I really enjoyed this. As a Cradle Catholic, there were several things that I took to be gospel (no pun intended) as far as nuns go. This beautifully written book challenged me as it did Coldstream. I wish I had read this as a book club selection, so many great discussions could've been had. Especially, if it would have included a non-Catholic, a non-Christian and a convert.
March 6, 2024
I received an advance reading copy (arc) of this book from NetGalley.com in return for a fair review. Author Catherine Coldstream delves into her years spent as a cloistered nun in England. I have often been curious as to what goes on in a cloistered convent. How do women maintain this lifestyle of prayer and isolation? While I believe Coldstream was honest about her experiences, I also felt she whined a lot starting with the pivotal point in her life when her father died. She was 24 years old at the time and for some reason couldn't get over his passing and this seems to be what prompted her to join the Cloisters. She was not raised a Catholic, but converted to the faith as a young woman. After she joined the convent with her idealized picture of what she thought it should be, she spent ten years there. Even though I was raised in the Catholic faith, I don't think I would have lasted ten minutes! According to Coldstream, your individuality is stripped away and you are required to obey the Mother Superior without question--and sometimes the Mother Superior is a bully. Take for instance, the time Coldstream was beaten by the Mother Superior. Sometime after that, Coldstream literally ran out of the convent and made her way to her sister's house. For some reason that I will never understand, she returned to the cloistered life for another two years. After that, she went through formal proceedings to dissolve her vows with a papal blessing. I am not sure whether Coldstream's experience was common to all cloistered nuns, but it was an interesting read.
April 17, 2024
For inhabitants of the secular sphere, reading Rumor Godden’s In This House of Brede is the closest we come to experiencing life in a cloistered religious community. But whilst Godden was assisted in writing her novel by actual members of the English Benedictine community, she was herself very much on the other side of the grille, not at all a ‘participant observer’. But when I saw Catherine Coldstream’s Cloistered: My Years as a Nun reviewed in the TLS, I was a much attracted to the name of the author as to the subject. And indeed she is the daughter of the English painter William Coldstream, whose most famous model was Sonia Brownell, also perhaps the model for Julia in George Orwell’s 1984, who married Orwell on his deathbed after serving as editorial assistant on Cyril Connolly’s Horizon. Catherine Coldstream’s conversion to Roman Catholicism and entrance into the religious life was greatly impelled by grief on the death of her father.
There is a literature going back to the Middle Ages displaying that monastic life is no safe refuge from the sins of the flesh and the devil, especially when we recall that Saint Paul classified slander, pride and envy amongst that category. From Coldstream’s account, though community life never quite descended to the level of Browning’s ‘Soliloquy in a Spanish Cloister’, cliques and favouritism became rampant. ‘We’ve always done it this way’ remains a shibboleth. More surprising to me was the rampant anti-intellectualism of the community. Many of Godden’s Benedictine nuns were engaged in cultural, artistic, and scholarly projects (the real-life prioress of Godden’s Benedictines wrote a marvellous biography of Helen Waddell, author of The Wandering Scholars, that treasured book on the Goliards). Coldstream’s order was thee discalced Carmelites of St John of the Cross and St Teresa of Avila, many of them found The Dark Night of the Soul and The Interior Castle too demanding. More surprising was the lack of spiritual direction—if you can’t find spiritual direction in a monastery, just where can you go? Coldstream found it regarded as poor form to share one’s difficulties and doubts with one’s superiors or other sisters. The incongruous phrase ‘macho spirituality’ seems appropriate to the attitude she encountered, something like the ‘suck it up and get with the programme!’ spirit one finds in the armed forces or a hospital emergency department.
Cloistered is a great suspense story as well. We know that Catherine Coldstream is now married and living in the world (Cambridge, happily) as a scholar and musician. But we are breathless to find out how her years in the monastery will unfold and how they will end. If you want to imagine a spiritual equivalent of The Colditz Story, her escape from this exterior and interior castle is riveting.
There is a literature going back to the Middle Ages displaying that monastic life is no safe refuge from the sins of the flesh and the devil, especially when we recall that Saint Paul classified slander, pride and envy amongst that category. From Coldstream’s account, though community life never quite descended to the level of Browning’s ‘Soliloquy in a Spanish Cloister’, cliques and favouritism became rampant. ‘We’ve always done it this way’ remains a shibboleth. More surprising to me was the rampant anti-intellectualism of the community. Many of Godden’s Benedictine nuns were engaged in cultural, artistic, and scholarly projects (the real-life prioress of Godden’s Benedictines wrote a marvellous biography of Helen Waddell, author of The Wandering Scholars, that treasured book on the Goliards). Coldstream’s order was thee discalced Carmelites of St John of the Cross and St Teresa of Avila, many of them found The Dark Night of the Soul and The Interior Castle too demanding. More surprising was the lack of spiritual direction—if you can’t find spiritual direction in a monastery, just where can you go? Coldstream found it regarded as poor form to share one’s difficulties and doubts with one’s superiors or other sisters. The incongruous phrase ‘macho spirituality’ seems appropriate to the attitude she encountered, something like the ‘suck it up and get with the programme!’ spirit one finds in the armed forces or a hospital emergency department.
Cloistered is a great suspense story as well. We know that Catherine Coldstream is now married and living in the world (Cambridge, happily) as a scholar and musician. But we are breathless to find out how her years in the monastery will unfold and how they will end. If you want to imagine a spiritual equivalent of The Colditz Story, her escape from this exterior and interior castle is riveting.
Displaying 1 - 30 of 458 reviews