Seth Baumgartner's Love Manifesto by Eric Luper (audio)
Unabridged audiobook on 6 compact discs, 6 hours, 33 minutes. Read by Nick Podehl. Brilliance Audio, 2010.
I happily reread this one with my ears. Nick Podehl is one of my favorite narrators. He just nails the teen guy, humorous novel, oh heck, anything he does is brilliant. I read an arc of the book for an online review journal, but they never published my review. This is what I wrote for them:
Seth Baumgartner didn’t think that his day could get much worse after his girlfriend dumped him at Applebee’s during their lunch breaks. It got worse and just plain weird when his now ex-girlfriend pointed out that Seth’s father was in another booth cozily dining with a woman who was not his mother. Of course, Seth returned late to Belgian Fries Express and got fired from his fourth job of the summer. Later, he has to face his father across the dinner table and defend his inability to keep a summer job, while trying not to smash his cheating face in. Can Seth’s life get any worse? Yes, his mother, a DJ at a local radio station, host of a show called Gayle’s Romantic Rendezvous, decides to send out a special dedication to her “baby boy” with love trouble. Seth starts a podcast called The Love Manifesto, in which he explores, “what love is, why love is, and why we’re stupid enough to keep going back for more.”
At turns snarky, endearing, hilarious and true with a capital T, Luper’s Seth is an “EveryTeen” with a dash of Larry David. His best friend, Dimitri is hysterically memorable and poignantly loyal. When Seth lands a job in the Pro Shop at the country club, he comes into regular contact with Dimitri’s sister, Audrey, no longer an obnoxious pest, but someone interesting and intriguing. Seth’s a decent golfer. He understands the game; he has respect for the game and he’s trying to avoid playing in the father/ son tournament for obvious reasons. Each of Seth’s podcasts have song titles listed as “Intro” and “Outre” music, which aptly reflect the tone of each podcast, so read with access to a music library. Where else in YA literature can you find golf, love and music?
I guess there were copyright issues with the songs since snippets of the playlist were not included in the audio. There was just generic GarageBand music punctuating Seth's podcasts. Rereading this was a treat.