Little Brother by Cory Doctorow
by Joan Marshall - Sunday May 25 2008 5:37 pm
Posted in: Reviews

You know him. Or maybe you are him: the teenager whose flying fingers and out-of-the-box thinking are pushing today's technology into the future so fast, the rest of us can hardly keep up.

He is also Marcus, the 17-year-old computer genius hero of Little Brother, a new YA novel by Cory Doctorow.

Caught at the wrong place at the wrong time, Marcus is taken into custody by the authorities and tortured. Upon his release, he is threatened with death if he tells anyone about his experience, so of course he immediately begins to organize a covert operation with his online friends to bring down the government of his paranoid city. In between he falls in love, rescues his best friend, and changes his parents' ideas about the role of the police.

This book is a tour de force that plays on the glittering techno-knowledge of the young and challenges the anti-terrorist suspicion and paranoia that have become such a familiar part of our own world.

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