Little Brother
By: Cory Doctorow
YA Fiction
Marcus, or w1n5t0n as he's known on the internet, is only 17 years old, but a master hacker. He's infiltrated his school's surveillance system and knows how to manipulate it. When a terrorists attack the Bay Bridge, the Department of Homeland Security increases it's surveillance on the entire city, and takes Marcus captive. After he is released, he takes on destroying DHS as a personal mission.
I have to say that this book was one of the biggest disappointments I've had in a long time. I loved about half the story. The means Marcus uses to hack the system are absolutely genius and innovative. Also, the methods used by DHS and the police are eerily realistic. It's very apparent that this book was well-researched and thought out. Sometimes the technical descriptions were a little heavy, but I thought they were useful to explaining the story.
Here's what I didn't like. I felt like there was just too much sex and references to sex in this book. If that's something you're comfortable with, that's fine, but it seemed just to overwhelm the story at times. I felt like it was a little too mature for a YA audience. I don't mind romance in a book, but there were passages that were just too graphic.
I gave the book 3 out of 5 stars. Were the sex stuff left out, I would have given it 4 out of 5.
