Days were planned with military precision - prayer, work, prayer and more work. The nuns were permitted no contact with families, no friendships, no eye contact with anybody, and silence that would sometimes go unbroken for eight days. There were public confessions for such punishable misdemeanors as breaking a glass or walking in too jolly a manner or humming when you thought nobody was looking.

With the sweeping changes of Vatican II in the sixties and with the new access to newspapers and books, some nuns questioned their religious life and hundreds left. Some stayed believing that a life of sacrifice, prayer and celibacy was worth it in an increasingly materialistic world. God's Girls is a thorough and often witty examination of religious life in the past, today and in the future.