Title: Little Brother
Author: Cory Doctorow
Summary: After a terrorist attack in his hometown of San Francisco, Marcus and his friends are detained in a Department of Homeland Security prison. After days of mistreatment and brutal questioning, he is released and finds his city, and his family, changed. Everyone is being watched and tracked in the city, on foot, on the subway, in their cars and in the classroom. Marcus decides he wants revenge, and decides to use his skills as a hacker, and his playful personality, to get the job done. Along the way he loses friends, meets a girl, and becomes a revolutionary hero.
Set in a not-so-distant future, this is a book that uses gadgets, tech-speak and a hefty dose of humor to disguise what is really a serious story about the grey area between freedom and privacy. As in the book that inspired it’s title, the government is out of control and not to be trusted, and it is up to everyday people to fight it and regain the freedoms most of us take for granted.
Who will like this book?: Fans of dystopian books (where the future is worse than today) like Uglies by Scott Westerfeld. Anyone who has ever freaked out thinking about how cool it would be to hack their XBox.
If you like this, try this: Feed by M.T. Anderson. Icecore by Matt Whyman. 1984 by George Orwell.
Recommended by: Nicole, Teen Librarian