David Archuleta didn’t expect to spend the past year talking so openly about his life. 

Not the polished version that made him a teenage favorite on “American Idol,” but the version he kept hidden — the confusion, the pressure, the faith he tried to hold onto, and the identity he could no longer suppress. 

His memoir, “Devout: Losing My Faith to Find Myself,” became an instant New York Times bestseller. He will promote it at 7 p.m. Thursday, Sept. 10, at Changing Hands Bookstore, 6428 S. McClintock Dr., Tempe. 

“It was a very difficult book to write,” he said. “It was cathartic and difficult — I needed to take breaks, go back to therapy, learn how to cope with things… memories and experiences, helping to talk through them.”

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He pauses when he talks about those memories. Some were painful enough that he had to step away from the manuscript for weeks at a time. “You haven’t fully processed things, and you react in a way like, wait a sec — ‘I don’t need to feel this way. How do I make sense of the way I’m feeling?’”

The book traces his life from closeted Mormon teen to global pop star to openly queer man. It’s a story shaped by expectation — from the church, fame and family — and by the slow, painful process of stepping out of those expectations, layer by layer. The publisher describes the memoir as revealing “the hidden pressures of fame, the weight of religious expectations, and the courage it takes to live authentically.”

Archuleta doesn’t soften the edges. He writes about emotional abuse, a domineering father, heartbreak, estrangement, engagements and thoughts of suicide. He also writes about the quiet unraveling of a belief system he once thought defined him. 

“I had to recondition almost everything I learned or was taught to believe,” he said in the book’s announcement, “and that process can be challenging.”

But Archuleta said he hopes the book connects with people, as he did. Archuleta called his siblings and friends, trying to understand old moments with new clarity.

“Helping to talk through them, call siblings and friends and talk through it.”  Therapy became a grounding force. “Therapy is helpful,” he said. “It doesn’t hurt anybody to go and clear blocks so I can keep moving forward.”

What’s surprised him most is the community forming around the book. At signings, he meets people still in the church, people who have left, and queer readers who see themselves in his story. 

“A lot of queer people come who connect so much to the loss of something that means everything to them,” he says. “Leaving the world, they know to be authentically themselves… it’s nice to provide that support to others.”

He talks about Arizona often — how many fans relate to the tension between faith and identity; how meaningful it is to sit with them and talk through their own transitions. “I’ve been wanting to get to Arizona,” he said. “A lot of people in Arizona who relate to the journey I’ve been on. It’ll be nice to open up the discussion I’ve been having also in Arizona.”

For Archuleta, these conversations also help him heal. 

“For me it’s also a way of finding community,” he said. “To provide a space where people feel seen, ask advice or support, get through their journey a little easier.”

He’s honest about how much he needed that sense of belonging himself. “We’re communal creatures,” he said. “It’s about building community… I know it gives you a sense of belonging and staying here in this life.”

He will lighten the mood this holiday season with an album, “Warm Me Up” the “David Archuleta Warm Me Up Holiday Tour” (which comes to the Chandler Center for the Arts at 7:30 p.m. Friday, Dec. 18). The album, which will be released Friday, Oct. 30, features remastered versions of “Christmas Every Day” and “Winter in the Air” from Archuleta’s 2018 holiday release. 

“I feel like I got the heavy stuff out with the book; now Christmas is a wonderful way to balance all of that out.”

He loves the whimsy of the season, the way music can briefly lift people out of their worries. 

“Christmas music helps you enter into this whimsical state, dream and hope for something more,” he said. 

“I think it’s important to enter that for a little bit.”

He’s releasing new songs, preparing a full Christmas album.

 “I’m really excited about the new songs written this year,” he said. “A lot of the songs came out last year, but I felt like it was incomplete. On the full Christmas album, the songs are happy, a nice little reset.”

He needs that, he said. The holiday and book tours will do just that 

“Times get crazy,” he said. “I think I just have to pace myself, take a step back and take some breathing time.”

He’s learned to recognize when he’s pushing too hard. “Every day is such a gift,” he says. “I want to make the most of it.”