Accordingly

I’d read Janet Tashjian's Gospel According to Larry
weeks ago and needed a reminder about Larry, so I went to his blog .

The reminder came. I didn’t love Larry/Josh (I will later refer to him as just “Larry”). He didn’t feel real to me. His preachings sounded good on the surface, but I didn’t see any truths revealed further down. It seemed as if the author were piecing together a young adult novel out of Chinese fortune cookies or other snippets of wisdom, hoping that the audience was not discerning enough to see through her ploy.

Other “ploys” the author used that I actually liked were some of the hints Larry gave his readers, specifically the personal items he photographed and placed on the blog for identification. I also liked the idea in general, Larry’s having a secret persona in order to disseminate his ideas. It’s a little Shakespearean (Rosalind in As You Like It, for example). There was also the teen-age drama playing in the background, Larry hoping to get the girl. But I think the author would have had more success had she focused on her characters and their relationship more than the gimmicks.