Sobering study of the faith lives of American adolescents -- who, it turns out, long for spiritual connection and guidance from trusted adults. Most of the time, we are failing to help them articulate their beliefs or adopt the language of the religious tradition. If you care for young people in your family or your congregation, you owe it to them to read this enlightening book. It will definitely inform my work with young children and pre-adolescents.

Excellent text. Best book ever written on the subject.

Soul Searching contains a lot of relevant information, but the presentation is hopelessly dry. The teens' survey replies and life stories break up the monotony somewhat, but data-heavy chapters and repetitive conclusions make it difficult to wade through.

I also didn't care for the way the author inserted himself into the book, especially when it was for the purpose of pointing out how "unattractive" one of the teenage girls he interviewed was and how much he pitied her for that. If this had been a book/study about how attractiveness plays a role in success in life, comments like that would have served a purpose. Since it wasn't, they just came off as condescending and dickish.

The general finding was that the majority of teens are religious and usually follow in the footsteps of their parents, but unless they are raised LDS or Conservative Christian, they usually have very casual, confused, and doctrinally unsound views of their own religions. There you go - I just saved you several hours of brain-numbing reading. You're welcome.