Rated of 5
by this book sucked Awful book
This book clearly made no difference. The kid is a sociopath who thinks 20,000 people will change the world by driving businesses into bankruptcy, he thought that faking his death would help his cause and he clearly didn't have a big enough cause or else it wouldn't be some unknown Asian lady writing this book. I can't believe so many people wrote good reviews. Josh is basically Hitler of the U.S. economics.
Rated of 5
by smiley Good book
Really, this is totally worth reading; great morals, sometimes it's a bit slow or annoying but then it pulls you back in.
Rated of 5
by Aloeverza This sucks.
The Gospel According to Larry is a trashy, poorly written novel. The author makes her first mistake by casting as her main character a maniacal seventeen-year-old who should have been tested for Down's Syndrome/ Asperger's/ Autism long ago. She makes him have an alter ego named Larry, who writes "sermons" on anti-consumerism and his "zen" (not) Thoreau-based way of life. In the book, where the impossible can happen, he attracts a following of sadsacks, which inludes Bono and his best friend/love interest, Beth. (These scenarios, which attempt to bring more life to "Larry's" character, are the worst part of the book.) The fatal flaws are as follows:
1) The main character is COMPLETELY UNLIKEABLE. He is annoying, bratty, and stupid while the author tries desperately to convince us he is intelligent, lovable, and oh so sensitive. He IS incredibly smart in school subjects, but not in living life. This may be a theme of the book, but it is an awful one. Who wants to read about a snot-nose who doesn't know how to take chances in anything but quadratic equations?
2) The main character does not practice what he preaches. His "sermons" (I use the term loosely) commit the literary sin of being deadly dull. What's more, he makes a point of telling us he has SEVENTY-FIVE POSSESSIONS and that ONLY, then completely disregards this at the end where he can buy/leave behind what he pleases. Also, he described his love of nature in such lascivious terms that I didn't want to go outside after reading this "book" (term also used loosely.) He commits an actual CRIME against his dad by stealing the pictures to make a point, revealing his selfish nature and stupidity in the matters of the heart. It is such a bad signal to send to the teens reading the book that the author (and whoever edited this piece of dung) should weep. Larry deserved to be ousted by the (more creepy than himself) betagold.
3) Last, the Gospel According to Larry was such a vomitously self-righteous novel that I sometimes had to put down the book and take Pepto-Bismol. The author's condescending pleasure oozes out of every pore of the book, saying." 'Larry' didn't write this! I did! Worship at my feet! My footnotes* are sooo witty and adorable, I should be given some sort of award for bringing culture to THE TEENS OF THE WORLD! You should buy this book so I can bask in my glory for eons!" Ugh. What a pusillanimous turd.
This loosely organized, run-on, ignorant monologue of a confused teen (presumably the author as a young girl) should be burnt en masse. Admittedly, the book did sometimes catch me up in its plot. But after those brief, exhilarating moments of reading a GOOD book, it dropped me flat with "Larry's" lame dialogues. Honestly, if I hadn't had been required to read this for English, I wouldn't have read it at all.
*This book made me even hate footnotes for a while.
Rated of 5
by matt Is it real?
I really liked the book, and read it a second time for school, but I really wonder if the whole thing about it being real is a hoax. If so, it was a well done one, i went on thegospelaccordingtolarry.com the other day for school research and found a blog of a guy "back in walden pond" So it makes me think the book could be real. NOTE that the site made no reference to the book whatsoever.
(Editor's Note: The Gospel According to Larry is fiction. The website is owned by the author Janet Tashjian. Don't you think that if it WAS true, and Larry had been as famous as that in real life, you'd be able to find at least a few articles about him in the mainstream press?)
Rated of 5
by cody the gospel according to larry
What I want to know is were these events true, I've been to the web site but I think it would be hard to pull this whole thing to be fake so I think it is based on a real story.
Rated of 5
by Justin Gregory The Gospel According to Larry
In the first of two brilliantly written novels by Janet Tashjian, The Gospel According to Larry, the story's center character, Josh Swensen breaks out of his quiet shell. A genius of a boy, Josh is a loner in his school, but still finds a way to get his words and feelings out. He decides to creates an alter ego for himself. Larry. He generates a web site for his creation, where he delivers sermons on issues like consumerism. But soon everyone wants to know the true identity of Larry. When finally exposed, Josh is shunned by friends and family and doesn't know what to do. He then decides to fake his own death, in order to get a fresh start on his life, leaving guessing for a while what might happen.
Tashjian follows up with the conclusion of Josh's story in Vote for Larry. She's a clever author with many ideas about the issues of cosumerism, and makes good points in both novels that address teens and their concerns about finding a place in the world and being able difference in it. Although it is directed at teens, this novel makes good points about things that also apply to the elder of our societies.
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