Two young women enter the convent in the 1960s for very different reasons and both later leave the convent as well, around the same time, also for different reasons. 

Angelina Marcello goes on a school field trip and suddenly gets the very strong feeling that God is calling her to become a bride of Christ and become a nun. Her father is furious and does not want her to go, preferring she stay with him and help run the family restaurant that she'll own some day.

Joanna Baird is supposed to get married when her fiancé has to go to Nam. She continues to plan the wedding, and they expect to be married when her returns from the war. When he comes home with a pregnant Vietnamese bride, Joanna is heartbroken and six months later joins the convent, believing she has a calling to the vocation.

Both girls find contentment and even happiness behind the walls of the convent. Angelina is a high school teacher and Joanna a nurse at the local hospital. Then Joanna falls in love with a doctor at the hospital, a Vietnam vet. Angelina grows very attached to a young girl she teaches, but then that girl dies from complications due to an illegal back alley abortion. Now both women are Changing Habits and must resolve their respective crises of faith outside of the religious order.

Wow, even in abridged format that completely erases the story of a third young woman at the convent, Changing Habits is a very powerful story. These young women join the church at a very tumultuous time for the Catholic Church and for the country. While the focus is on the girls' lives as nuns, we get quite a glimpse at current events happening all around them, from the scandals of the Nixon presidency to church politics.

I was pulled right into the story, engrossed in the lives of these young women. Macomber is brilliant when it comes to portraying the hearts of her characters, which in turn makes the readers emotionally invested in the story. I cried with Angelina as she lost a student so very dear to her and I felt empathy for Joanna as she struggles to resist passions denied to nuns.

I'm very disappointed Kathleen's story was completely eliminated in the abridged book though. From the book descriptions I found, hers sounds like it was quite a story. But due to the nature of her story, I wonder if it was eliminated due to this book being published right around the time so much scandal in the Catholic Church was being uncovered.

I also was thrown a little at the end of the story when the women reunite after many years apart and they suddenly appear to be best friends. Since the bulk of the story was divided out as each nun’s story was told, we never saw the development of the bond these women appear to share at the conclusion of the novel. Whether this was because the book was abridged for audio or because it was never really portrayed in the novel I am unable to save.

What I do know however is I am so very glad I recently “discovered” Debbie Macomber. With the sheer numbers of books she has written over the years, I’m amazed I never tried anything by her until recently. She has fast become a beloved author of mine however and Changing Habits is a perfect example of why I love her writing.

© Kelley A. Hartsell, April 2008. All rights reserved.