*** Cloistered by Catherine Coldstream

After a difficult childhood, the author of Cloistered: My Years as a Nun converted to Catholicism and entered a Carmelite monastery, which turned out to be a place of intrigue and intense politics, where mental illness and mistreatments had become tolerated and even turned into a weird religious masochism. Who knew that monastic life could be so eventful? The story is delivered through beautiful writing and the author makes clear distinctions between the ideals of monastic life, which she respects and admires, and the bad actors in her specific circumstances, which makes for a remarkably tranquil tone.