Little Brother -- Cory Doctorow

Due to Marcus' tech knowledge, he has no problems whatsoever circumventing the security at school, so he and three of his friends happen to be skipping school when there is a terrorist bombing in San Francisco.  They're in the wrong place at the wrong time and are picked up by the Department of Homeland Security.  After days of interrogation, three of them are released into a different city.  It's still San Francisco, but it's run by the DHS. 

Suddenly, asking for a lawyer, demanding your right to privacy and just simple disagreement have become near proof of terrorist sympathies.  Marcus knows that it would be safer in the short term for him to keep his head down, do what he is told and avoid trouble.  But what about in the long run? 

DO NOT MISS THIS BOOK.

This is the one.  If you're going to read one teen novel this year, it should be Little Brother.  (I realize that it is only May, and I guess it's possible that something else will come along, but as of right now, this is the one.)  Yes, it's about hacking, rebellion, terrorism, super-smart kids and super-cool technology, but it's also about loving your country, your city, your home, and being angry about how it is being run.  Little Brother understands that dissent does not equal a lack of patriotism.  More than any of that, I loved how Cory Doctorow's love of knowledge, of learning and of just finding out about Neat Stuff comes through on every page.  Marcus is interested in EVERYTHING.

I loved Marcus' voice, my non-techie brain found his explanations of techie stuff readable and interesting, I found the book completely impossible to put down and just fun fun fun fun fun.  Highly, highly recommended, especially to fans of Scott Westerfeld's So Yesterday.

I've seen a few complaints over at (where else?) Amazon: that the villains in this book are two-dimensional and that Marcus doesn't talk like a seventeen-year-old.  I'll deal with these in reverse order.  Marcus doesn't talk like an average seventeen-year-old, no.  But he isn't an average seventeen-year-old.  He's super-bright, super-passionate and super-invested in what he's doing.  If you've ever talked to a super-bright, super-passionate seventeen-year-old, I don't think that Marcus will seem so impossible.  While I do think it's probably true that he serves to some extent as a mouthpiece for the author, I gave him a pass because from the first page, Marcus was real to me. 

As for the villains...  The Big Bad -- Severe Haircut Lady -- yes, was two-dimensional.  But you have to remember that this book is from Marcus' perspective.  Of COURSE she's two-dimensional.  Marcus' father disagrees with the teen rebellion, and he provides a regular-guy-who-gets-all-of-his-information-from-the-nightly-news perspective on the events -- he isn't evil, but he doesn't see the loss of some of his freedoms as a frightening thing the way that Marcus does.  I think people are very sensitive about it because it hits so close to home.  If it were set in a different country, I don't think we'd be seeing the same complaints.

That's my take on the complaints, anyway.  Make up your own mind -- the book is available for free online.