Rating: 
Summary: An Unforgettable Story.
Review: I read this book when a teenager studying religions. The edition I had, had a beautiful young girl in a nun's veil and dress. I wish I kept it. The story was really incredible. Karen delved deeply into detailing the spiritual struggles she was going thru as well as struggling to be accepted into the Order and in the eyes of God. An excellent book for anyone interested in learning more about what it is like to be a Nun. Past and present. She really learned alot about herself and the knowledge can help the readers as well.
Rating: 
Summary: Honestly searching for the unknowable
Review: I resonate deeply with Karen Armstrong's spiritual journey as outlined in this, her autobiographical sketch of her seven years in a convent. While I was never in such a highly concentrated and ostracized community as her convent, my own spiritual journey was marked by eighteen years of a stridently sectarian and legalistic environment that masked any ability on my part to know God. Within this book one can see Karen's desire to know God - which originally motivated her to dedicate her life to Him by service in the convent - but also her struggles with the life of faith and the distance of God. She and I share a profound desire to know God, but an equally profound consternation and lack of understanding of what those people who talk of their close relationship with God mean. Her search for God has led her to a view of God that is one I can deeply appreciate, although am not educated enough to be able to critically evaluate in full.
Rating:
Summary: A Wonderful Read
Review: I spent many years thinking about joining the religious life myself, before I grew up and realized it was not for me.My father bought me this book for my highschool graduation, but it wasn't until many years later that I read it. This book has wonderful themes of what we put ourselves through to feel closer to God.
Rating:
Summary: An Outstanding Book!
Review: I wasn't quite sure what to make of this book at first. My exposure to nuns was quite limited as I was not raised Roman Catholic. I always saw them as these cold, austere, soulless beings in these odd outfits on the periphery of everything. Once I had completed reading, the role these women play in people's live became much more clear. Yes, there were some truly vile women who were charged with shaping Karen (Sr. Martha) but they were doing what they believed and had been taught was necessary to create strong, obedient "brides of christ" as was expected of them by the church. I agree with one other reviewer that there should have been more information included about what was happening in the church during those turbulent times which would have significantly aided in the readers understanding of what was happening to Ms. Armstrong. I'm very glad that Ms. Armstrong discovered that her call to understand God didn't require her to be part of that hellish order and her contributions to religeon have done more than anything those probably long forgotten superiors of hers have ever added to human understanding. There's also another book I'd recommend if you can find it "Behold The Women" which has many wonderful essays from women who were part of various religeous orders. It also has a large number of pictures of many orders some of which leave you wondering "...who in their right mind would want to wear something like this for the rest of their lives?".
Rating:
Summary: An Outstanding Book!
Review: I wasn't quite sure what to make of this book at first. My exposure to nuns was quite limited as I was not raised Roman Catholic. I always saw them as these cold, austere, soulless beings in these odd outfits on the periphery of everything. Once I had completed reading, the role these women play in people's live became much more clear. Yes, there were some truly vile women who were charged with shaping Karen (Sr. Martha) but they were doing what they believed and had been taught was necessary to create strong, obedient "brides of christ" as was expected of them by the church. I agree with one other reviewer that there should have been more information included about what was happening in the church during those turbulent times which would have significantly aided in the readers understanding of what was happening to Ms. Armstrong. I'm very glad that Ms. Armstrong discovered that her call to understand God didn't require her to be part of that hellish order and her contributions to religeon have done more than anything those probably long forgotten superiors of hers have ever added to human understanding. There's also another book I'd recommend if you can find it "Behold The Women" which has many wonderful essays from women who were part of various religeous orders. It also has a large number of pictures of many orders some of which leave you wondering "...who in their right mind would want to wear something like this for the rest of their lives?".
Rating:
Summary: A Must Read Book
Review: If you have read any of Karen Armstrong's writings, you must read this book. It reveals her personal history as a nun and how that experience has led to various spiritual leanings. I have heard her speak in person several times, and I strongly encourage both the devoutly religious and non-religious alike to read her books and look for opportunities to hear her speak.
Rating:
Summary: Through the Narrow Gate
Review: In "Through the Narrow Gate,"Karen Armstrong gives a poinant description of the 7 years that she spent in a convent. She entered an especially austere order with precepts based upon the military, predicated upon Victorianism, upon the misoginy inherent within the patriarical structure of the Catholic Church, upon a revered masochism, and upon a form of brain washing meant to destroy the ego of a novice, supposedly in order to fashion that novice's personage into a more humble, more devout entity. Ms. Armstrong herself is not harshly critical of the Church or of the particular order, but readers no doubt will come to these crucial judgments themselves. We can only rejoice that such contorted religious training has been abolished.
Rating:
Summary: A rare glimpse into the shuttered world of the cloister
Review: Karen Armstrong entered a convent as a teenager in the 60's. While all the tumult of the sexual revolution, the Cold War, the Vietnam War seethed in the outside world, Karen was struggling with her difficult and almost medieval novitiate, her classes at Oxford, where her training as a nun conflicted with the scholastic world, and with her health. While Karen sought to cool the passions and desires of the world and become the perfect nun, her body rebelled and she suffered anorexia, fainting fits which were attributed to her emotions (but were diagnosed as epilepsy much later on.) Meanwhile, she achieved scholastic triumphs at Oxford, but at heavy price. How Karen adjusts to live in the convent, and then to life at Oxford is an amazing story. Her autobiography is unsentimental and honest. This is a fascinating personal story as well as a rare look into a secret world that was forever altered by Vatican II and its reforms.
Rating:
Summary: A very good memoir...
Review: Karen Armstrong writes of the tribulations she encountered while a nun in England in the 1960's. This book is not a hatchet-job or a racy "true confessions" kind of screed. It is instead a frank, informative, and searing narrative of how the author felt she could no longer continue her vocation in the regimented atmosphere of the convent. I almost felt as if I was reading Thomas Merton's "Seven Storey Mountain" with a "Rewind" button pushed. I highly recommend it.
Rating:
Summary: Couldn't Put Down
Review: Karen Armstrong's Through A Narrow Gate takes you on a journey through her 7 years in a very strict order. It details her struggles and desires to "die before you live". You get to learn all about what nuns in her order actually did and the experiences they would have. A very good book.
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