Many people ask why a 14 year old child would enter a convent and even more ask why she would leave. In Seventeen Minus Two I answer these questions. This book relates not only life in this particular convent in the 50s and 60s but the difficulty of the author to reenter a world she was totally unprepared to meet. Short stories of several of her classmates are imbedded in the book. Two of them have died; one from natural causes, one was murdered. The book tells of a child who experienced abuse and her struggle to overcome her feelings of inferiority as well as a lifelong battle with depression. All her life her main desire was to work within and serve the Church. She continually came up against the authority figures in the Church who disregarded her as a person and devalued what she had to offer.