There's a double meaning to the word "confession" in this work: confessing to himself concerning his conversion to a new life and new religion, and confessing to God about his sinful past. It starts being grounded in his personal affairs and life experiences, with each subsequent chapter getting more introspective and abstract until the last three chapters, which are entirely a meditation on the nature of God and His world.

I really appreciated the first half of the book, especially when he's reminiscing on memories of his friends, his relationships, his tutors, and especially his mother. However, when he starts getting introspective or goes on a lengthy monologue to God, it can either be enlightening or REALLY boring. And with the last three chapters it felt more like the latter as it can be hard to grasp what he's getting at. It helps to be scripturally literate, which I'm not as a nonbeliever.

Whether you are of his faith or not, I think you will get something out of the Confessions because of how immediately personable he is on the page, which makes this book a real oddity in Latin literature as a "modern" island from an otherwise antiquated world.