[2][5] Satter states that "Gill acknowledges Eddy's human frailties but places them in context of religious struggle, not female irrationality.

[11][12] In 2002, a short time after Gill's book was published, the archive was fully opened to scholars and the public as part of the Mary Baker Eddy Library.

Historians interested in Eddy, Christian Science, the broader context of New Thought, and nineteenth-century women will find much to use in both the text and the notes.

"[5] Rennie B. Schoepflin calls the book "an insightful feminist defense,"[16] and L. Ashley Squires calls it "an eminently necessary addition to a long list of biographical treatments written since the founder's death in 1910... [Gill's] use of primary sources is like that of a forensic investigator trying to get to the bottom of some of the thorniest controversies that surround Eddy’s life and work.

"[18] Jana Riess wrote that while the book is "not perfect", she expects it to "stand the test of time as the first major study to mine the considerable scholarly possibilities that exist between church-sanctioned hagiography and muckraking exposé.