The Gospel According to Larry

Seventeen-year-old Joshua Swenson espouses an anti-consumerism, anti-materialism message through the mouthpiece of "Larry" on the Internet. His sermons include researched statistics and influences from Thoreau. When his ideas spawn a national movement and Josh is subsequently discovered, his carefully constructed world falls apart as friends and family try to reconcile the Josh they know with his new personality as Larry. Josh too must confront the difference between his neat philosophies and his tendency to bottle up the most important things he has to say. Jesse Eisenberg gives an excellent performance as a sincere, reflective teenager. His fast reading pace and clipped sentence endings detract only slightly from the narration. J.M.S. (c) AudioFile 2004, Portland, Maine

Starred review from June 2, 2003

A highly intelligent 17-year-old takes on a pseudonym and starts a Web site that rants against consumer culture. As his popularity grows and his identity becomes impossible to hide, he is forced to reevaluate his medium for instigating change. "A funny, thoughtful novel that takes on some sophisticated issues," wrote PW. Ages 12-up.

May 1, 2005
Gr 7-11 -In this novel by Janet Tashjian (Holt, 2001), high school senior Josh Swenson is afraid to tell Beth, his best friend since sixth grade, that he's in love with her. Josh creates an anonymous Web site and an Internet persona named Larry to air his personal philosophy and dispense advice to the girl he loves. Larry is fast becoming a media sensation contrary to all the things Josh personifies. Framed by an artful disclaimer read by the author concerning how and why Josh's tale is being told for the first time, the story itself is read by Jesse Eisenberg who captures Josh's frenetic and sometimes manic style. A very nice pacing allows the Biblical quotes at section intervals to be set off clearly. The aural cues of a manual typewriter as Josh writes as Larry or the camera whir as he takes photos of his (and Larry's) limited possessions also help keep the story's different sections as clear in a listener's mind as they are on the printed page. Even the footnotes Josh inserts wryly come through well as Eisenberg uses a sotto voce delivery. As an auditory adaptation of a very visual book, this succeeds extremely well. The story's Internet-based plot combined with a fair amount of thought-provoking issues such as consumerism, tolerance, friendship, and love, will appeal to middle and high school students.-Jane P. Fenn, Corning-Painted Post West High School, NY

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