Well, I already thought Catholics were wack before I started this book. But this is no place to list all the things about the catholic church that I, as a protestant, disagree with. This isn't what the book is about either, although she does take some issure with the church later on. Beryl, the author gives us an example of self-destructive fanaticism and how it steered her life. As a teen she absorbed extreme and archaic views from Catholic school and books about saints, and wanted to "suffer" for God. The bible talks about suffering if someone is persecuting you because of your faith. To defend your belief in God is the only reason to endure suffering. How could this girl think that starving and freezing herself was pleasing God? Pathological obsessive compulsion caused her to be so anorexic that she ruined her thyroid and almost died. Luckily, her fanaticism hurt only her herself and no-one else. It was interesting to see that even the vatican was doing away with those dangerously skewed midieval views. During Beryl's years at the monastery (one of the strict orders), the vatican passed changes that did away with the last of the extreme practices; they now allowed the nuns to leave the premises and talk at meal times. Thankfully Beryl started looking at life for answers instead of at dead saints and changed her outlook.
The writing was pretty solid; it was good, but nothing in the book surprized me.