I spent Friday night and part of Saturday with this quiet, powerful memoir.

It starts off slowly, with author Colleen Carroll Campbell (a journalist and former Presidential speechwriter) sharing about how God called to her from the chaos of her collegiate party life.  The book hits its stride in the middle, though, pulling the reader into her father’s painful decline from Alzheimer’s, her career dreams and challenges (a bonus–this section is really interesting), and then her long battle with infertility.

The writing is so straightforward that the author creates an “artful” book without artifice.  The way she considers and interacts with the six Catholic saints she calls her sisters feels entirely genuine, rather than a structure she chose just to support a book project. Her interaction with these saints (Theresa of Avila, Therese of Lisieux, Faustina, Edith Stein, Mother Theresa, and Jesus’ Mother Mary) is thought provoking and personal. I understood why these saints mattered to her, and how her thoughts about them illuminated her choices. The book cohered in a way that allows you get caught up in the story rather than snagged on the structure.

I can’t tell you how many pages look like this, covered in notes:

This will go on my shelf of favorite spiritual memoirs. I’d love to read more from this author.

Disclosure: I received a copy of My Sisters The Saints from the publisher in exchange for an honest review.