He narrates his many conflicts with his birth father and stepfather, and the bullying that he had to endure as a child, then reveals how he eventually learned to accept himself as he was, rather than try to conform to other people's expectations.

Not merely a tale of overcoming adversity, Learning to Sing also speaks of ways in which he was positively shaped as he recounts experiences with his mother, grandparents, siblings, teachers, friends, and religion.

In a Newsweek review (November 22, 2004), David Gates said: "If Aiken were an opera character, he'd be Wagner's Parsifal: the naïf 'made wise by compassion' and armored in his own innocence.

He and his co-writer, journalist Allison Glock, have effectively snark-proofed the book by making it totally unguarded...."[4] Entertainment Weekly reviewer Kristen Baldwin said (November 19, 2004), "Clay Aiken is far more interesting a person than a popstar and, God bless him, he's smart enough to know it.

...Behind the polite narration emerges a complex guy with a folksy sense of humor ('I was teased by other kids like it was their job') and an endearing ambivalence about his own insta-celebrity.