Changing Habits

Changing Habits is the 70th stand-alone novel by popular American author, Debbie Macomber. It follows the lives of three women of different ages from their first awareness of a vocation to serve God in the order of St Bridget’s Sisters of the Assumption, through their profession as nuns and their lives in the religious order to their eventual rejection of vows and return to secular life. The period from 1958 to 1972 was a time of great upheaval in the Catholic Church and also saw major changes in the secular world: Macomber uses these changes to anchor her story’s era and to show some of the effect these changes had on the lives of women in the convent. Angelina Marcello joined the order against the wishes of her widowed father, an Italian restaurant owner who always saw her as inheriting the business; Kathleen O’Shaughnessy knew from a very young age that she would be a nun, something that was simply accepted in her family; Joanna Baird turned to God when her fiancé came home from the Vietnam war with a pregnant Vietnamese wife by his side. Eventually, these three very different women meet at a convent in Minneapolis. Soon enough they are facing issues that lead them into disillusionment and dissatisfaction with their lives, and a crisis of faith. This novel is quite a departure from Macomber’s romances, and is more reminiscent of her Cedar Cove and Blossom Street series: her main characters are strong women dealing with life-changing issues. Alcoholism, rape, teen pregnancy and abortion feature, and the Catholic Church’s paternalistic mindset, in particular with birth control, plays a significant part. Macomber has certainly done her research on the Catholic religion: those educated or raised in the Catholic faith will recognise many of the practices described. While the endings for each character are fairly predictable, this is still an interesting read.