As a Gen X’er myself, who was born and raised in San Francisco, later moving to Vegas for over a decade, I was immediately drawn to Donald Young’s Finding God in Vegas: A Gen X Spiritual Awakening. It turns out, the memoir is so much bigger and so much better than that. Young’s openness delivers a truly uplifting account that radiates the beauty, hope, and fulfillment that come from change. Las Vegas is a transient city with McMansions, the fastest cars, and incomprehensible wealth, so Young’s reflections on materialism, societal pressures, and human limitations feel especially honest. His journey toward acceptance of who he loves is important, but more so is how he chooses to live. He is someone who pursued God academically, which I find totally fascinating. Tightly written, beautifully candid, and with tales of cats, this is a memoir worth reading. Recommended.

Donald’s story was absolutely motivational and inspiring. I felt so many emotions as I read, proving Donald to be a skillful and talented writer. I derived many positive lessons from this book, particularly on the need to stay humble no matter the success I achieve at any point in my life. Also, genuine happiness comes from embracing God’s love. This story will remain a constant reminder to me that there is more to life than worldly success. The writing is detailed, well-paced, straightforward, and easy to comprehend. It also features themes of love, self-discovery, hope, humility, and more. I recommend Finding God in Vegas by Donald Young to anyone who has doubts about their worth and is struggling to accept God’s love.

Donald Harold Young writes with honesty and doesn’t present a tidy roadmap to spirituality; instead, he shares real missteps, struggles with identity (including his sexuality), and the slow work of learning what matters most. His voice is warm, often wry, and he balances introspection with moments of laughter. Finding God in Vegas: A Gen X Spiritual Awakening invites the reader to reconsider what they value; to question whether success is sufficient; to consider what love might look like when it’s not earned or conditional. It suggests that fulfillment might be simpler, quieter, and more honest than many of us assume. If you’re wondering whether chasing more can ever be enough, this book gives you space to pause and consider something different and more essential.

A candid, gracefully written memoir of faith, identity, and hard-won peace.

Young’s debut is an intimate and deeply affecting memoir that follows one man’s fall into spiritual emptiness and his slow, hard-won rediscovery of love and faith. Young begins his story at the height of success. A wealthy pharmaceutical executive in Chicago, he enjoys every privilege. And still, he feels profoundly empty. He writes candidly about the illusion of success and how ambition can hide the loneliness beneath. Beneath the surface confidence is a man worn down by privilege and hungry for meaning. That disconnection, Young reveals, began long before his success. Adopted into a loving Christian family, he grew up grounded in belief, yet the moment he understood he was gay, secrecy and shame quietly entered his life. His reflections on this period are tender and unsparing, capturing the pain of hiding one’s truth in a world unready to accept it.

When his career collapses decades later, so does the façade. Moving with his husband to Las Vegas—a city built on illusion—he begins, ironically, to find clarity. There, he reawakens to a God defined not by dogma but by Love: unconditional, healing, and human. The writing throughout is accessible and sincere, alternating between humor and reflection, confession and revelation. Pop-culture nods and musical chapter titles give the narrative an unmistakable Gen X texture. By its end, Young’s story resolves not in triumph but in peace. Having stripped away ego, he rediscovers the quiet truth that sustained his earliest faith: that every person is worthy of love, and that returning to this awareness is the real miracle. Lovers of finely crafted spiritual journeys grounded in real-world experience won’t want to miss this one.

In Finding God in Vegas, Donald Harold Young offers a candid, reflective spiritual memoir that traces his path from corporate success and material pursuits to personal brokenness and, ultimately, reconciliation with faith.

Young structures the book as a series of vignettes that move between his childhood in Chicago, professional years in advertising, experiences as a gay man navigating love and shame, and eventual move to Las Vegas. Through these snapshots, he explores universal struggles—fear, self-worth, intimacy, and the search for meaning—while grounding them in his own story of running from and returning to God, whom he rediscovered at age 55, at a time when the “world felt meaningless and empty.” Listening to Johnny Cash’s song Help Me, “I began to sob uncontrollably…My ego was humbled; my heart was opened. I came to know, believe, and trust in the love of God for the first time in my adult life.”

The prose blends confession and meditation, offering personal narrative and broader commentary on cultural indifference to spirituality. Young doesn’t shy away from painful moments: strained family ties, empty sexual encounters, professional burnout, and even suicidal despair. Yet he frames these struggles as part of a redemptive arc. Readers will find echoes of The Wizard of Oz throughout-—an imaginative narrative device that underscores the author’s search for “brains, heart, and courage” on his way back to faith.

The book’s strengths lie in its honesty and accessibility. While theological reflections surface often, Young avoids heavy jargon, speaking instead in plain, sometimes humorous language.

At times, the narrative meanders with tangential detail, and readers seeking a tightly linear memoir may find its episodic style frustrating. Still, the vulnerability on display gives the work emotional power.

Ultimately, Finding God in Vegas is less about its titular city than about rediscovering light in unexpected places. It should appeal to readers of spiritual memoirs, LGBTQ+ faith journeys,and anyone wrestling with questions of purpose and belonging.

.Also available in hardcover, paperback and ebook.