So I’ve wanted to read this book for a while – I was curious about Kidd’s journey from being a “traditional” Christian inspirational writer to that one who has “embraced” the Sacred Femine.
There is so much in the book that I can embrace and there is much that I cannot. It is her journey and her way of coping with her perceived injustice of patriarchy in the world of traditional Christianity. At times, she carries through with a feminist rant and at times, she transmits clear, resilient eternal truths regarding the human spirit. She applied this to the feminine spirit, but much can apply to any spirituality regardless of gender. There are many ideas she has about female creativity that are resoundingly true.
As I read along, I liked this book, and then I didn’t – vacillating with almost every section. In the end, while I do not embrace the Sacred Feminine as she does, the book is worth keeping because I translate much of what she says to my own spiritual journey regardless of whether I see God as male or female or both. And there are too many notes and arguments scribbled in the margin to send it along to anyone else!
In four sections she discusses her awakening, initiation, grounding and empowerment in the Sacred Feminine. Throughout she writes of her journey including designing rituals, taking pilgrimages and undergoing Jungian analysis to find “Herself” as she calls her Sacred Feminine Goddess. Some of the antics are almost laughable, yet I had to respect her passion and her wisdom because they overpowered her unusual symbols and rituals. One of my main disappointments with the book is that she would make broad statements for her ideals but not provide much “meat” as evidence. Thus she has constructed most of her own journey drawing from different spiritual traditions and amalgamating them into her own customized spiritual path.
I plan to go back through it, extract many quotes, and construct a detailed review of this book. If you are an open-minded Christian, you will find this book interesting. If you are looking for a tough minded and edgy feminist diatribe, this is not it.

Sue Monk Kidd's account of her spiritual journey from a traditional women in the Southern Baptist Church to a feminist looking for the "divine feminine." While interesting on one level, she seems to have substituted Jungian analysis for religion making many of her "revelations" and pronouncements truly cringe worthy.

Thank you Lord for helping me FINISH this book.

I, of course, wanted to read this because I've been such a fan of Sue Monk Kidd's earlier nonfiction. This was the last I hadn't read and her story of religious transformation from Christianity to what she calls a worship of "the Divine Feminine."

I can say that she is very expressive, well-researched author. She was extremely through, pulling in many different sources and, as her previous non-fiction books, she did a good job of weaving informative and memoir. This book gave me a lot to think about. I enjoyed learning about some of the feminine characteristics of God- something I believe to be Biblical and often ignored by most Christian churches. There was also a good bit of fascinating history (especially about Gnostics and early Christian femininity.)This was also my first taste of any sort of feminist writing, which I enjoyed just as an overview. That's why I give it three stars.

Why do I not give it more? This is basically her story of becoming a feminist. Very few things in this book I agreed with. I believe in women's empowerment, but I've never had a desire to become a feminist. Like many other oppressed groups, she seems to feel a lifelong victimization because of her gender. She constantly reacts out of a feeling of perceived societal inferiority and anger.

In this book, she was so expressive and metaphorical that the symbols almost lacked power for the sheer number of them. I mean, really, does literally every object you pick up or dream about need to represent the Goddess within?


Spiritually, there were also a lot of disagreements I had with her. My pastor has often said that he's glad he worships a God who is too big to fit into his image. That's exactly what the Goddess of this book is- shaped in Kidd's image to be exactly what she wants.

Also, I spiritually struggled with the book because I believe that when God calls us to something in an authentic spiritual journey, (s)he (and I will acknowledge God's lack of gender) collaborates with us, moving us WITH and BY him/her in our life. There are going to be some things that we find difficult or uncomfortable. This wasn't WITH God, but about Kidd's own desire of what she wanted God to be, with no struggle other than a "rah rah" feminine empowerment.

I may never recover. I hope I don't.

Rarely do I not finish a book, but after reading (okay, reading may not be the exact word for what I did - "plowing through" would be more accurate) over three quarters of it, I finally put the book down for good.

I really wanted to add this one to my shelf of feminist essays, memoirs and non-fiction that I love because the subject is important, but this one just didn’t speak to me and here is why:

This is Monk Kidd’s telling of her feminist spiritual awakening (so far so good) and how she had to reconcile that with the strict and conventional Christian childhood and adult married life she’d been living. Her dad was a minister, as is her husband, and she herself was a Christian writer. This story follows her through the years that she became aware of her feminist self while steeped in the religious culture and tradition she had always lived. Her story is valid and I respect it, I just couldn't relate to her struggles between Christianity and Feminism, which is her main conflict throughout.

In the opening, she says she writes this book in an attempt to help other women on their own journeys. I think it probably is a helpful and interesting story for women from similar backgrounds as Monk Kidd’s, so I am not criticizing the book – this is HER unique story. It just didn’t speak to me because I don’t have those particular issues of religion to resolve as related to feminism …………… I’m proud to say I have my own very different issues altogether :-) (UNrelated to feminism, I might add)…….

I think this book must have been written for me, who would find it 28 years later but who needed every word.

I bought this book many years ago, but only just read it, at the urging of a few people and because the time is finally right. I have always been uncomfortable with God as male, but not much happier with the term Goddess which felt too woo-woo to contemplate.
Sue Monk Kidd does her usual magnificent job of universalizing her struggle so that it relates to my own, and of giving me lots to think about. I do agree with one reviewer who complained that every object turned into a metaphor, and if half stars were allowed, that would have reduced this book to a 4.5 for me.But that small criticism aside, I’ve had a miserable and sad weekend learning about patriarchy in the church, and a simultaneously uplifting and motivating one anticipating what I might do going forward, and both of those states are down to Sue Monk Kidd’s courage, research, and beautiful writing.

I’m having trouble knowing how to talk about this book. I appreciated reading the journey of a woman who is farther down the road than I. I identified with a lot of the early stages of her story. She tells her story of waking up to the sacred feminine and how the process affected her life, marriage, relationships, career, and parenting. She talks about the anger that came with waking up and the transformation of that anger into creative resistance. She shares mystical experiences and dreams that spoke to her along the way. Her exploration of the sacred feminine is certainly from a place of privilege, and I found myself rolling my eyes a bit at how often she was able to just get away for a weekend at a monastery, a retreat, or trip overseas with a girl friend. It did have me pondering what this journey looks like for the rest of us as we go about our daily lives and how it plays out in the mundane. A lot of this resonated and some of it didn’t, but it’s one that I will be thinking about for a long time.

I think if I was older I may have gotten more out of this book (I'm 25). I started reading this book about 6 months ago as part of a Lenten journey. I have drifted away from the Church and wanted to help grow closer in my faith, whatever form it ends up taking. Since I haven't gone through a lot of experiences similar to Monk, I couldn't relate as well. I also have to say I rarely read non-fiction and that is probably why I put it down for four months before I picked it back up to finish. Overall, I think it's a good story about personal-growth that some women will be better able to relate than others.

My oh my, I didn't really think this book had much to offer me. As I finished last night, I had the thought that all women should buy 3 copies - one for themselves, one for their mothers, and one for their daughters (where applicable). This story is beautiful and moving, and I'll be considering its message for a long time.

I knew Sue Monk Kidd from her wonderful book "The Secret Life of Bees" and that's about it. I had no idea she had a prior career in Christian publishing and reading about her spiritual journey towards embracing feminism and disavowing patriarchy was fascinating. Her trips to Crete and the desert were fascinating and beautiful; it made me long to go on a goddess trip myself. I think this book really honors and cherishes the feminine nature of the divine, though it is definitely from a cisgender perspective. Still, it's an incredibly brave story and made me look at my dreams and the myths that I loved with a new respect and helped me reflect on why they sing to me.

Life changing - I underlined almost the entire thing