LAS VEGAS - At a time when Gen X reports record levels of stress, burnout, and dissatisfaction, Finding God in Vegas offers a candid look at what happens when success fails to deliver meaning.
Written by former pharmaceutical marketing executive Donald Harold Young, the memoir explores a question many professionals quietly confront: What do you do when you achieve everything you were told to want and still feel empty?
One early reviewer described Finding God in Vegas as "less like a memoir and more like a quiet confession whispered at 2 a.m.—the kind you only make when you're finally done pretending." The assessment captures the book's distinctive approach: "This is not a book about converting to anything. It's about unlearning the lies that modern life teaches us about what makes a person valuable."
What sets the memoir apart is its refusal to use God as a shortcut. Young doesn't reach for doctrine, fear, or moral superiority. Instead, he defines God as love experienced rather than explained love. A love that confronts ego, demands accountability, and refuses to flatter.
Young's story follows his rise through the corporate world, his growing disconnection from faith, and his eventual spiritual reawakening after relocating to Las Vegas. The turning point did not come through religion or doctrine, but through an honest reckoning with the limits of material success.
"I had the career, money, the lifestyle," Young says. "But at 55, I realized none of it was sustaining me. The things I chased for happiness had become the weight I was carrying."
Structured as a series of reflective vignettes, the book moves from Young's Chicago childhood through decades of professional ambition and personal conflict, including his struggle to reconcile faith and sexuality. Rather than offering easy answers, the memoir examines how shame, fear, and achievement culture can hollow out a life that looks successful from the outside.
The setting is intentional. Las Vegas, often seen as a symbol of excess and illusion, becomes the backdrop for Young's awakening. "Vegas represents everything we're told will satisfy us," he says. "Finding meaning there forced me to rethink what fulfillment actually is."
Finding God in Vegas engages themes that remain deeply relevant: burnout, identity, LGB experience within faith, and the tension between institutional religion and personal spirituality. Young avoids sermons or prescriptions, writing instead with restraint and clarity.
As he notes in the book's introduction, "This isn't a conversion story. It's about realizing we only have two ways to live: centered around love or centered around whatever makes us loveless."
Young holds degrees in history, religion, philosophy, and theology. He lives in Las Vegas with his partner of seventeen years and serves as a Court Appointed Special Advocate in Nevada's Eighth Judicial District.
Finding God in Vegas is available in paperback, hardcover, eBook, and audiobook through Hugh House Press.
For media inquiries, interviews, or review copies:
Donald Harold Young
Email: young60660@msn.com
Media Contact
Company Name: Don Young
Contact Person: Don Young
Email:Send Email
Country: United States
Website: www.donaldharoldyoung.com
