The Gospel According to Larry

Janet Tashjian's coming-of-age young adult novel centers on Josh, a seventeen-year-old loner and would-be philosopher who wants to change the world. Seeing America as a powerhouse of consumerism and waste, he starts a website where he preaches his anti-consumerist ideas under the name Larry, picked as the least biblical name he could come up with. He limits himself to a small number of possessions under strict rules of his own. When a local newspaper story sends traffic to the site and the attention turns national, Josh struggles to keep his identity as Larry a secret. The novel opens a series, and its sequel, Vote for Larry, continues the story.

Aaron Watson, CEO of PiperCreative, said that as a teenager who was not especially conformist, the novel helped him learn to be comfortable being different.