Clearly written, informative, and mostly unbiased text. I did not, however, appreciate the "First Encounter" section of each chapter, which attempted to provide some sort of mystical, meditation on important aspects of each religion. The writing in these sections seemed overly wordy and cheesy to me; I felt as though the book was expecting me to be sitting on the floor and burning incense in order to start my own mystical, coming-of-age journey. ( )