Nearly Orthodox: On Being a Modern Woman in an Ancient Tradition

Carlson’s meandering memoir—based on her blog, Mrs. Metaphor—takes readers on a long journey exploring what it means to convert to a new religion, and to try to adhere to a spiritual tradition in modern times. Within this text are many shorter essays about her multiyear process of converting to the Eastern Orthodox faith, what implications it has for her as someone raised Catholic, and the impact it has (or doesn’t have) on her family. Carlson touches on her youthful flirtation with the punk scene, while painting the portrait of a young woman very sensitive to the world around her and desperately afraid of doing the wrong thing. Thematic sections make it easy for readers to discern the path of her thoughts and are structurally appealing; her writing is deliberate, but some word choices come up so often that readers will get frustrated (e.g., calling her children “chaos-makers”). For all the ambivalence demonstrated about moving forward in this spiritual path, she doesn’t tell readers what drew her to Orthodoxy until the very end of the book, which definitely leads to some reader confusion. That said, she is skillful with her imagery and deliberate in her language. Readers looking for a quiet retrospective on faith in the modern world may find something useful here, but they will also be intensely frustrated by the author’s lack of forward momentum. (BookLife)