The Gospel According to Larry
After creating a controversial and hugely popular website, teenager Josh Swensen becomes trapped inside his brilliant creation and must find a way to remain anonymous.I am lying on my bed doing my homework in Greek and Latin roots for Advanced English. 'Ped' for foot, 'homo' for man, 'nym' for...
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After creating a controversial and hugely popular website, teenager Josh Swensen becomes trapped inside his brilliant creation and must find a way to remain anonymous.I am lying on my bed doing my homework in Greek and Latin roots for Advanced English. 'Ped' for foot, 'homo' for man, 'nym' for name. I sit with the dictionary in front of me, coming up with as many words as I can to complete the assignment. Pedestrian, homicide, pseudonym . . . I have more than thirty of them. By accident -- that's always how these life-changing things happen -- I connect two halves that don't seem like a word until I look it up. 'Pseudo', false; and 'cide,' to kill = pseudocide. To pretend to kill (yourself).I stare at the word for a good long time. Homicide, suicide, genocide: these are words you can find in the newspaper every day. But pseudocide . . . now here was something different. My mind wanders from my homework to the blue cotton threads of my bedspread. Pseudocide. A way to start again as someone completely new, a way to burn the old self and try on a new one.Josh Swensen isn't your average teenager - when he observes America, he sees a powerhouse of consumerism and waste. He's even tried to do something about it, with his start-up controversial website. But when Josh rises to messiah status of the internet world, he discovers that greed and superficiality are not easily escaped. Trapped inside his own creation, Josh feels his only way out is to stage his death and be free of his internet alter-ego, "Larry." But this plan comes with danger, and soon Josh finds himself cut off from the world, with no one to turn to for help. In this suspenseful young adult novel, Janet Tashjian has written a probing tour-de-force.
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Format: hardcover
ISBN:
9780805063783 (0805063781)
Publish date: October 1st 2001
Publisher: Henry Holt and Co. (BYR)
Pages no: 240
Edition language: English
Category:
Young Adult,
Childrens,
Teen,
Humor,
Academic,
School,
Realistic Fiction,
Adult,
Middle Grade,
Coming Of Age,
Contemporary,
High School
Series: Gospel According to Larry (#1)
was hooked by this little book I found at the library, The Gospel According to Larry by Janet Tashjian. The ending was good for a stand-alone novel, but open enough for a sequel. A quick Google search confirmed it is the first novel in a three book series. I need to go back to the library and get Vo...
I read this a long time ago and what I remember of it, I liked. Larry had this rule that never at one time would he own more than ten items and while I don't think I could do the same thing, his rigid application of this rule made me realize the consumptive nature of the world I live in. It was an i...