Seth Baumgartner's Love Manifesto

Seth Baumgartner's Love Manifesto by Eric Luper (NY: Balzer + Bray, 2010).

Talk about a bad day. Seth's girlfriend dumps him--at Applebee's--and he sees his dad out on what seems to be a date at the same time. Big surprise that he gets fired for being late when he finally makes it back to work at the mall french fry kiosk. Seth takes his wallowing public, albeit anonymously, in a podcast he calls his Love Manifesto. He wants to get to the bottom of this thing called love and he figures other people will want to come along for the ride. He likes the irony, too--his mom hosts a radio show that caters to romantics who call in for special dedications of favorite love songs. He also gets a job at the pro shop of his country club. Better--his best friend Dmitri gets hired, too, and Dmitri's sister Audrey is working food service for the summer as well.

In spite of the tired golf jokes, this is a funny novel, well worth reading. Seth plays the hapless male quite well, and Dmitri is hilarious. You can imagine how long the pod cast remains anonymous. Sex and language, of course. Recommended for teens, 13 & up.