Rating: 
Summary: Couldn't Put It Down!
Review: I loved this book, read it in one sitting. This book is honest and digs deep into some uncomfortable places without sacrificing heart or grace. This will go on my keeper shelf!
Rating:
Summary: insightful look at the modern day Catholic Church in the USA
Review: In the 1960s, three young women from diverse lifestyles enter St. Peter's Parrish in Minneapolis with the belief they are destined to become nuns. Angelina Marcello, Kathleen O'Shaunessy, and Joanna Baird had different reasons for becoming "Brides of Christ", but shared an idealism to serve God and help the community.In 1972 the three nuns struggle with crisis of faith. For Sister Angelina, it was the simple failure of the Church to deal with the problems of a pregnant teen Corrine that sent her back to her father's restaurant. Temporarily taking over the accounting journal led Sister Kathleen to Father Brian Doyle with both wrestling between their vows and a very human love for one another. For Sister Joanna, the return of Viet Nam vet Dr. Tim Murray reminds her that she joined for the wrong reasons as she begins to fall in love with the still recovering medical practitioner. Will the church lose three more dedicated people or will the vows prove strong enough to keep these Sisters within the fold? CHANGING HABITS is not the typical fare from Debbie Macomber, but is an insightful look at some of the problems the modern day Catholic Church is confronting in America. The story line is well written as the trio of nuns seems so genuine and human. The support cast enables the audience to understand their motives from entry into the Church until the individual crisis of faith occurs. Readers will feel strongly what each one of the Sisters contends with as Ms. Macomber powerfully focuses on the critical loss of nuns facing the Church today. Harriet Klausner
Rating:
Summary: insightful look at the modern day Catholic Church in the USA
Review: In the 1960s, three young women from diverse lifestyles enter St. Peter's Parrish in Minneapolis with the belief they are destined to become nuns. Angelina Marcello, Kathleen O'Shaunessy, and Joanna Baird had different reasons for becoming "Brides of Christ", but shared an idealism to serve God and help the community. In 1972 the three nuns struggle with crisis of faith. For Sister Angelina, it was the simple failure of the Church to deal with the problems of a pregnant teen Corrine that sent her back to her father's restaurant. Temporarily taking over the accounting journal led Sister Kathleen to Father Brian Doyle with both wrestling between their vows and a very human love for one another. For Sister Joanna, the return of Viet Nam vet Dr. Tim Murray reminds her that she joined for the wrong reasons as she begins to fall in love with the still recovering medical practitioner. Will the church lose three more dedicated people or will the vows prove strong enough to keep these Sisters within the fold? CHANGING HABITS is not the typical fare from Debbie Macomber, but is an insightful look at some of the problems the modern day Catholic Church is confronting in America. The story line is well written as the trio of nuns seems so genuine and human. The support cast enables the audience to understand their motives from entry into the Church until the individual crisis of faith occurs. Readers will feel strongly what each one of the Sisters contends with as Ms. Macomber powerfully focuses on the critical loss of nuns facing the Church today. Harriet Klausner
Rating:
Summary: Changing lifestyles, changing times makes for a great book
Review: In the early sixties, three young girls make a decision that will affect the rest of their lives. For one girl, it would divide her family; for another, it would devastate her father; for the other, it would be the family's shining moment. Each girl has her own reasons for making the life-changing decision. One seeks to heal a broken heart, one feels a calling from God, and one just did what she knows her family wants her to do. The girls leave behind their families and all their worldly possession, and join into a new family and a new way of life when they enter a convent to become nuns.
In her new book, "Changing Habits," best-selling author Debbie Macomber explores a world that fascinates many but has remained a mystery for ages; the world of the sisterhood of nuns.
Three young women join the sisterhood of St. Bridget's Sisters of the Assumption. Angelina had gone to Catholic schools all her life and had a special affinity for the nuns who taught her. She felt she had a calling from God, and despite her father's objections, entered the convent determined to return the gift of learning by becoming a parochial teacher. Kathleen had known she would become a nun since she was six years old because it was what her family expected of her. Joanne entered the convent broken-hearted and searching for peace after her fiancé returned from Vietnam married to another woman.
Each woman goes through the process from postulate to novice to sister, and each finds her vocation within the sisterhood. Angelina and Kathleen become teachers, and Joanne becomes a nurse. Although secluded from most of the "real" world in their early years, as they mature and become more involved in their community each sister finds that events of the world soon affect their own lives, and eventually causes each to reconsider their place among the religious order.
Angelina loves her position as a teacher, but when she feels that she has failed a young pregnant teenager she finds herself longing to return home to help her father in the family restaurant. Kathleen helps out the young and handsome parish priest with problems with an older priest, but when evidence turns up that she helped the priest cover up money problems she is forced to leave the sisterhood amidst betrayal and shame. Joanne finds that she is drawn to the Vietnam Veteran doctor she assists at the hospital, and leaves to become a devoted wife and helpmate to the man she loves.
The stories of their individual journeys back to the world are complex and enriching. Although they are no longer called "Sister," Angelina, Joanne, and Kathleen find that they are influenced throughout their lives by their time spent as nuns.
Normally considered a romance writer, author Debbie Macomber has entered the world of mainstream women's fiction with great success. In this novel, Macomber was inspired to write this intriguing story by a cousin who had been a nun, and had also left her order to pursue life in the "real" world. Her depictions of women who lived the cloistered life and who returned to live full and satisfying lives as wives, mothers, and successful business women is realistic, warm and enlightening.
Rating: 
Summary: 3 women deal with faith--and emerging back into the world
Review: In the late 1950s and early 1960s, three young women decide to become nuns. Angelina has a sudden calling while on a school retreat. Kathleen had always planned on being a nun. And Joanna had planned to marry but felt her calling when her fiance came home from Viet Nam with an Asian bride. As noviates and as nuns, the three learn a great deal about themselves and their faith. Yet, even behind their cloister walls, the events of the 1960s and 1970s cannot leave them unaltered. Each suffers a crisis in their faith--for one, the realization that the Church's views on birth control can be destructive; for another, desire for a man; for a third, the sisterhood's unwillingness to stand up and defend her when she needs it most. Somehow, the three women must learn to reenter the common world and make their place in a nation that has been transformed while they had turned inward. Author Debbie Macomber has a knack for developing fascinating characters and seeing them through traumatic life changes. CHANGING HABITS, with its emphasis on the three women and their shared journey to faith and beyond, lets Macomber run with this strength. Each of the three women is interesting and becomes more interesting as they leave their youth behind them and struggles to find their place in faith and back in the profane world. Macomber's deft touch lets her bring in the events of the 1960s and 1970s (the assassinations of Kennedy, King, and Kennedy, Watergate, and especially Viet Nam) and the transformations of the Catholic Church (Vatican II, the debate over birth control, and the Church's self-inflicted wounds as it tried to hide renegade Priests from their punishments) in a way that will resonate with those who remember them, yet without detracting from the fundamental issues of the novel itself (this is alway a challenge in dealing with issues that remain controversial today). CHANGING HABITS is sometimes episodic. Rather than a continuous story line, Macomber gives highlights of the lives these women experience, focussing on the key transitions and decisions that each must make. The language is occasionally simplistic and CHANGING HABITS sometimes reads like it was intended for young adults. The interesting characters and the decisions they face, though, will appeal to all ages. Macomber delivers an enjoyable Woman's Fiction story.
Rating:
Summary: Good reading!
Review: Nearly forty years ago, three young women feel that they are called to serve God, and their chosen way is to become nuns. Though they enter the same order, each is a very different person. Kathleen has always felt called to the convent, Angie enters despite her father's opposition, and Joanna goes in to help heal a heart broken by betrayal. As the years pass, each one is called upon to make sacrifices, to face humility, and to use her gifts to the maximum. Through the changes wrought by Vatican II, Vietnam, and life's own quirks, the girls are brought to the point where they must choose whether or not to remain as they are or to rejoin the world outside the convent doors...This timely, serious novel will face critsism as anti-religious by some, yet the opposite is true. It shows how you can serve God, even if it's not always the way you think you are meant to at first. Love and duty can sometimes be at war. Like Father Greeley, Ms. Macomber sheds new light on the lives of the secluded and tells a fine story in the process.
Rating:
Summary: It had me sobbing on the beach!
Review: What a great beach book! I loved the way the author took 3 young ladies from different areas and time periods and weaved their stories together into a perfect tapestry. What a step back to the 1960s; it evoked many memories. It was fascinating to see how the church changed over the years and the impact it had on the women. From the first page to the last Ms. Macomber has written a compelling novel with no loose ends. Sometimes it seems like authors rush to finish a book, resulting in a weak ending. That is not the case with this one--it's quality through the last tissue in the box! It was my first Macomber book, and it won't be the last.
| 
