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Little Brother | April 2, 2014

by Cory Doctorow (Tor Teen/Macmillan Children’s Publishing, April 2008)

When Marcus Yallow and his three best friends are caught cutting school on the day of a terrorist attack, they are all arrested as suspects. After a few days of brutal interrogations, Marcus is released with a threat that the Department of Homeland Security will be watching him. Upset that one of his friends still hasn’t been released and feeling betrayed by his own country, Marcus makes it his personal mission to take down the DHS. How does he plan to do it? Well, that’s simple—Marcus is tech savvy. He can outsmart his school’s security system and build a laptop from scratch. Using his tech smarts, Marcus gives other gamers and online users the tools they need to beat the DHS’s surveillance. But what starts out as a personal vendetta soon explodes into a full out revolution, where the citizens of San Francisco are openly questioning and fighting back against the DHS. And they’ve chosen Marcus—willingly or not—to be their leader.

I have never been good when it comes to using technology; all the coding and terminology has always escaped me. Yet, as I was reading Little Brother, I found the technology-driven plot to be fascinating and easy to follow. Cory Doctorow has Marcus’ character explain the different technology in everyday language so that any reader can understand; and he does it in a way that doesn’t slow down the pacing of the story. I also really liked Marcus’ character, specifically his sense of justice and passion. Despite his tech smarts, Marcus isn’t really geeky; he’s a normal teenage boy with family and friends. Yet, when his country and personal liberties are put in jeopardy, he doesn’t sit by idly and let himself be steamrolled. Lastly, I loved the overall message of the book.  Little Brother is a call to arms—a reminder that in a tech-run age, we still have basic liberties that should never be violated. And Marcus’ story demonstrates how technology, when wielded correctly, can be used to protect those liberties. I highly recommend Little Brother by Cory Doctorow because it is one of those rare books that empower as well as entertains readers.

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