Kirkus
Copyright © Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.

Worldly lessons from the sisterhood. Scholars of Hispanic studies, creators of the podcastLas hijas de Felipe, and friends and colleagues at Brown University, Garriga and Urbita look to 16th- and 17th-century nuns for lessons about living in the modern world. “This is a book about cloisters, candlelight, mortifications, and hushed prayers,” they write, “but it is also a book about friendship, money, FOMO, love, lesbianism, procrastination, imposter syndrome, work, fame, and pop culture.” As graduate students, the authors bonded over their esoteric scholarship, finding that the nuns, originally “an object of research,” soon “became our most valuable survival tool, imparting a wealth of therapeutic teachings on how to endure isolation by navigating the stormy waters of friendship.” Considering friendship, the authors compare the nuns’ relationships with those of celebrities such as Lindsay Lohan, Paris Hilton, and Britney Spears; throughout the book, other well-known personalities—Kendall Jenner, Bella Hadid, and Taylor Swift, to name a few—also make appearances. Personal anecdotes abound: about dating as lesbians, for example, or their predilection for people-pleasing. Mexican nun Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz, they discovered, “knew better than anyone how to confuse her audience with a veil of submission, humility, and feigned ignorance, only to suddenly tear through it with a whiplash of audacity.” To better assert themselves, the wily Sor Juana taught them “to cloak our emails in rhetorical finesse and to at least flirt with abandoning the conciliatory route when the situation calls more for a shout than for a scheme.” A nun who took her vows at the age of 75 offered insights about aging; other nuns gave the authors perspective about gaining social recognition. These colorful portraits of assorted holy women make them seem palpably contemporary. A charming and quirky dual memoir. Copyright © Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.

Publishers Weekly
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In this cheeky pop history, Garriga and Urbita, Hispanic studies scholars and cohosts of the podcast Las hijas de Felipe, share modern life advice from an unexpected source: 16th- and 17th-century nuns in Spain and Latin America. “Anything you may be going through right now already happened to a nun” is the book’s guiding motto, and each chapter explores a different life challenge like friendship, love, work, or body image. In the section on friendship, the high-profile falling-out of Lindsay Lohan and Paris Hilton is compared to the sudden estrangement between Saint Teresa and her “BFF” Maria de San José. For dealing with work burnout, the authors find guidance in a 1691 letter from poet Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz to her mother superior that embodies the “exquisite rhetorical juggling act you perform when you need to put your boss in their place.” Modern diet culture and body image issues are compared to extreme fasting and ecstatic fitness regimes in convents (“Nothing tastes as good as holiness feels,” the authors quip, tweaking the famous Kate Moss line). The book even points to how trends like Taylor Swift–inspired friendship bracelets have a precursor in the 16th-century demand for Saint Juana’s blessed beads. With no shortage of such comical but also keenly observed comparisons between past and future, this charms. (Nov.)