Nun Too Soon

Ehhh... So, I was really interested in this title. Religiously celibate adults exploring relationships! Complex relationships to the meaning of sexuality and identity! The potential for really interesting, deep character development! Smartypants is usually a good bet!

Alas.

I wanted something nuanced and really revealing of what would be in the mind of someone who had chosen to join then leave a religious order, remained religious after leaving, and was making decisions post-institutional life about sexuality and independence, etc. Instead, this book is just a rom com, where “just” means “fairly flat characters that don't demand that much of you” (“...except a suspension of disbelief just a scritch too far for me.”)

While there were a few points of world building that showed the author had done some research (a dispensation from the Vatican to leave the order, the difference between novitiates and sisters and nuns, etc.), by and large I DNF at 40% convinced she hadn't read any biographies of people leaving the religious life, or really knew any Christians who were at any point in their lives committed to celibacy as a spiritual practice. (Such as I, for instance.) And it would have been SO INTERESTING if so, and I would have read the whole book in that case. Instead, the club of former nuns all seem to have opinions about sexuality that feels formed by a culture not in contact with the Church, and this seemed unlikely and uninteresting. I mean, of course “not all former celibate religious” and all that, and yet...

The scene that made me put down the book was someone who had previously been introduced as super observant of all the details around him as a habit of mind and a requirement of his job wandered into a mall store (while tailing someone!!) without realizing what kind of store it was and then clumsily knocking down displays. Blah. I don't want a bumbling comedy, I want a smart comedy! Poor me.

Maybe I should go back to reading non-fiction theology of sexuality (I see you there, Debra Hirsch!) and stick to romance books that don't engage religiousity at all because I just can't with this. Sexuality is SO interesting and so is spirituality!! Come on, Romancelandia, I want more nuanced characters who are actually religious, or who have a relationship to celibacy that is shaped partly or largely by religious convictions. I'd like to read those! (And, queue my usual rant about being unable to find any romance books published in the “Christian” genre with good character development and smart authors, blah blah blah, feel free to correct my misapprehensions.)