Little Brother by Cory Doctorow
Little Brother by Cory Doctorow is without a shadow of a doubt the geekiest book I’ve read this year. Set in the very near future 17 year old Marcus and his friends are in the wrong place at the wrong time when terrorists attack the Bay Bridge in San Fransisco. The Department of Homeland institutes a form of marshal law and in the chaos Marcus and his friends are held for days without charge. He is beaten, threatened, and terrorized.
When Marcus is finally allowed to go home (without knowing what happened to one of his friends), he realizes that freedom is no longer what it used to be. Homeland security spends all of their time and manpower policing ordinary citizens. He’s had enough. Fortunately, Marcus is a complete computer geek. Through hacking, programming, and creating an alternate untraceable internet he uses the power of youth to fight back to regain his constitutional rights, personal freedoms, and liberties. He takes on the systems and proves that the government is no match for a kid with computer skills and a lot of heart.
Fortunately for me, the geeky talk was above my head but not so far above that I couldn’t follow what was going on. I could have done without the seemingly five pages of some of the technical “how I did it” talk. I kept asking myself, is this real? Can people really do this? I’m an almost thirty something SAHM who feels extremely smart when she changes some simple HTML code and it works! The technical talk was balanced with enough social change, romance, and teenage anxieties that the story was fun. Teenagers will love Little Brother, especially techno geeky teenage boys. It reminds me of books like Brave New World and 1984, but updated to appeal to kids today.
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Category: Book Reviews, Fiction, Young Adult
Tags: A-D Author, dystopian, Fiction, I-L Title, published 2008
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I read this through DailyLit, and I had much the same thought – the techno speak was way over my head. It didn’t detract from the story, though, and I thought it was pretty good.
on December 28th, 2008 at 6:15 pmI just finished this last week. I liked it way more than I expected to.
on December 28th, 2008 at 6:30 pmI read this after reading 1984, and I enjoyed Doctorow’s modern perspective, though I thought the book was too long. I like when authors explore freedom, and I find it depressing that in order to appear free, we are often asked – or even forced – to give up true freedom.
on December 28th, 2008 at 9:15 pmThis was an intriguing and honest review. I’ll definitely be looking out for this book.
on December 29th, 2008 at 12:57 amThanks for the review!
Becky
on December 30th, 2008 at 9:53 am