Letters to a Young Mormon Review

I have always been fascinated with books that are a series of letters written as it were to pass on wisdom to a younger generation.  Letters to My Daughter by Maya Angelou and The Last Lecture by Randy Pausch are some of my favorites. So I was intrigued when a chance to review Letters to a Young Mormon by Adam S. Miller came up.

Presented as letters from a parent to a child, the book gives advice on how one should go about living Gospel principles.  The author takes as a given that the reader believes the doctrine being presented and therefore, doesn’t delve into actual doctrine.  He covers a number of topics and while most would be applicable for anyone who is simply green in their testimony, there were some that were written specifically with a teen audience in mind.

He does touch on what some might consider sensitive topics, such as sex, but I thought that one particularly was very well done.  It was one of the topics that I felt was geared primarily toward a teen audience, whereas the other topics were more widely adapted to a broader age range, therefore also encompassing older converts.

Despite the fact that the book is comprised of a series of letters, you do need to read it in order because there are analogies that carry over from one topic to the next.  For the most part, I did enjoy this book.  I wouldn’t place it on the same level as Angelou or Pausch, but it is a good book.

As someone who is not new to the Gospel, I found the letters gave me ideas for how to explain things to my own children or to a recent convert.  So don’t necessarily write it off because you don’t fall within the target audience.

*I received a complementary copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.