While I realize this is a classic of western theology, the book is too dripping in self-hatred and moments of misogyny for me. I was so hoping for something really rich in the visualization of an interior world inhabited by God, but Teresa is too much of her time and of the culture of medieval Christendom, where shame and self-denial is the central human response to God's holiness. I believe there is more and I think other mystics from all ages would agree.

There is something certainly beautiful here, but there is something truly broken as well.