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izzys_internet_bookshelf's review
1.0
1/5
Ok at first I was excited to read this book but it felt like it was taking me forever to read. I swear I have been reading this for weeks but in reality it hasn’t even been a full 24 hours.
Ok at first I was excited to read this book but it felt like it was taking me forever to read. I swear I have been reading this for weeks but in reality it hasn’t even been a full 24 hours.
mrswhite's review
4.0
Little Brother is the highly readable and frighteningly plausible story of Marcus, aka "w1n5t0n," a 17-year-old gamer and hacker living in 2015 San Francisco. Precocious, wickedly smart and a fierce lover of privacy, Marcus spends much of his time subverting his school's absurdly intrusive surveillance system, a system that treats its students like criminals under the guise of safety.
Things were certainly annoying for Marcus before terrorists attacked San Francisco's Bay Bridge, but afterward life becomes just plain hell. Finding himself in the wrong place at the wrong time, Marcus and his friends are arrested under suspicion of terrorism, falsely imprisoned in a secret location, and made to endure "enhanced interrogation" techniques. After his eventual release, Marcus finds that his city has become a police state, and its inhabitants treated more like potential terrorists than free citizens. Many seem willing to endure the new regime, accepting it as a necessary evil in the wake of the attacks, however Marcus knows better. The Department of Homeland Security is completely out of control, and if no one else is willing to step up and fight then Marcus will take it upon himself to take his city back.
As an avid skimmer of Boing Boing, I felt as if I'd been hearing about Doctorow's newest novel since it was a mere literary fetus. (Doctorow being both the author of Little Brother and the coeditor of the aforementioned blog, which is by far my favorite nerd blog.) However, despite my exposure to the title I'm not exactly in the habit of reading a novel simply because its author keeps insisting on its awesomeness, so I sort of ignored the brief period of incessant Little Brother posts on the site, never feeling a strong compulsion to read Doctorow's 1984-inspired young adult novel. Fast forward several months and I, while attending a conference on new YA releases, was once again reminded of the book that set the Internet nerd herd on fire. The presenter just GUSHED over Little Brother, so I finally broke down and started to read it.
And dear me, but I was hooked by page five. "Unputdownable" is a word that is greatly overused in the book industry, but even still I can't think of a better - although, admittedly, made-up - word to describe Little Brother. It's freaking unputdownable. I tore through it in a day despite it heft - abandoning hygiene, sustenance and sleep until I reached the end. Sure, there were things that bugged me. It oversimplified issues of homeland security and the author's politics (although mine own) were beyond transparent, however the story was so darn good that although I noticed these flaws I didn't really care about them.
I recently listed this title as my favorite YA release of '08, but the truth is that it was probably one of my favorite literary releases of '08, period. Little Brother is smart, cool, gripping, scary, and - dare I say - important. Really. I can't recommend it enough.
Things were certainly annoying for Marcus before terrorists attacked San Francisco's Bay Bridge, but afterward life becomes just plain hell. Finding himself in the wrong place at the wrong time, Marcus and his friends are arrested under suspicion of terrorism, falsely imprisoned in a secret location, and made to endure "enhanced interrogation" techniques. After his eventual release, Marcus finds that his city has become a police state, and its inhabitants treated more like potential terrorists than free citizens. Many seem willing to endure the new regime, accepting it as a necessary evil in the wake of the attacks, however Marcus knows better. The Department of Homeland Security is completely out of control, and if no one else is willing to step up and fight then Marcus will take it upon himself to take his city back.
As an avid skimmer of Boing Boing, I felt as if I'd been hearing about Doctorow's newest novel since it was a mere literary fetus. (Doctorow being both the author of Little Brother and the coeditor of the aforementioned blog, which is by far my favorite nerd blog.) However, despite my exposure to the title I'm not exactly in the habit of reading a novel simply because its author keeps insisting on its awesomeness, so I sort of ignored the brief period of incessant Little Brother posts on the site, never feeling a strong compulsion to read Doctorow's 1984-inspired young adult novel. Fast forward several months and I, while attending a conference on new YA releases, was once again reminded of the book that set the Internet nerd herd on fire. The presenter just GUSHED over Little Brother, so I finally broke down and started to read it.
And dear me, but I was hooked by page five. "Unputdownable" is a word that is greatly overused in the book industry, but even still I can't think of a better - although, admittedly, made-up - word to describe Little Brother. It's freaking unputdownable. I tore through it in a day despite it heft - abandoning hygiene, sustenance and sleep until I reached the end. Sure, there were things that bugged me. It oversimplified issues of homeland security and the author's politics (although mine own) were beyond transparent, however the story was so darn good that although I noticed these flaws I didn't really care about them.
I recently listed this title as my favorite YA release of '08, but the truth is that it was probably one of my favorite literary releases of '08, period. Little Brother is smart, cool, gripping, scary, and - dare I say - important. Really. I can't recommend it enough.
alex_watkins's review
5.0
Okay so I read this book awhile ago and totally procrastinated/forgot to put up a review. But it was awesome, just so great, I wanted to become a hacker. I couldn't put it down, I had heart palpitations. This book was fantastic, really, really. It's set in the not so distant future, or it seems perhaps a future where the 2008 election didn't happen. A terrorist attack in San Francisco turns the city into a police state, and only a group of young hackers can save us. Okay so the title is clever but doesn't actually make sense, yes Big Brother is watching and it's about younger kids, but they are the ones stopping the surveillance so... does not compute. I found the San Francisco setting great, but you don't need to know San Francisco to enjoy this book. Since it's been too long since I read this, I can't remember all the insightful and witty things I probably had to say about it.
badseedgirl's review against another edition
4.0
Little brother by Cory Doctorow is unlike any other novel I have ever read, so why did it feel so familiar to me? I'm not sure I have ever read a fictional novel that included not one, but two afterwards and a bibliography. I loved that.
My concern in starting this novel was that I would not be able to A) follow the techno-babble for lack of a better word. I don't tweet, I'm not on Instagram, I don't blog or snap chat, and I barely touched my facebook account in years. I lack the basic language to be able to follow a tech heavy novel using todays jargon. B) I'm too old to apreciate a novel about teenage hackers fighting "the man"( look I'm showing my age by using "The man"!) in today's society. Hell, i was almost too old to appreciate the movies "Hackers" when it came out in 1995. I'm still gun shy over that train wreck of a novel [b:Feed|7094569|Feed (Newsflesh Trilogy, #1)|Mira Grant|https://d.gr-assets.com/books/1408500437s/7094569.jpg|7351419] by Mira Grant. I just can't shake the feel ing that my age was part of the reason I could not finish that novel, and not just because it was a sucky novel.
To my complete and utter relief and pleasure Mr. Doctorow has written a novel that is entertaining for a computer novice like me. I am over 25 (by several years) so I am not to be trusted and am only basically computer literate. I can do basic computer operations and back in the early 90's I took several computer science courses which are no longer relevant. But thats ok. The Author gave just enough information about what his technoterms meant that I was able to follow the story but did not bog it down with too much. And the story was good.
I think the novel felt familer to me because it comes from a long history of dystopian novels, not of the [b:The Hunger Games|2767052|The Hunger Games (The Hunger Games, #1)|Suzanne Collins|https://d.gr-assets.com/books/1358275334s/2767052.jpg|2792775], or [b:Divergent|13335037|Divergent (Divergent, #1)|Veronica Roth|https://d.gr-assets.com/books/1328559506s/13335037.jpg|13155899] variety which are good and fill a slot. No this novel reminded me more of [b:1984|5470|1984|George Orwell|https://d.gr-assets.com/books/1348990566s/5470.jpg|153313] or [b:The Handmaid's Tale|38447|The Handmaid's Tale|Margaret Atwood|https://d.gr-assets.com/books/1294702760s/38447.jpg|1119185]. Good company to be in, in my opinion.
There is a strong Libertarian flavor to this novel, but it is not preachy. This is going to appeal to young and old alike. That is probably why Little Brother was nominated for a 2008 Nebula, 2009 Hugo and Locus YA awards and won a 2009 Campbell and Prometheus. Clearly I was not the only reader entranced by this novel.
And because of this novel my next non-fiction work is [b:Alan Turing: The Enigma|150731|Alan Turing The Enigma|Andrew Hodges|https://d.gr-assets.com/books/1312040148s/150731.jpg|145479].
4.5 of 5 stars
My concern in starting this novel was that I would not be able to A) follow the techno-babble for lack of a better word. I don't tweet, I'm not on Instagram, I don't blog or snap chat, and I barely touched my facebook account in years. I lack the basic language to be able to follow a tech heavy novel using todays jargon. B) I'm too old to apreciate a novel about teenage hackers fighting "the man"( look I'm showing my age by using "The man"!) in today's society. Hell, i was almost too old to appreciate the movies "Hackers" when it came out in 1995. I'm still gun shy over that train wreck of a novel [b:Feed|7094569|Feed (Newsflesh Trilogy, #1)|Mira Grant|https://d.gr-assets.com/books/1408500437s/7094569.jpg|7351419] by Mira Grant. I just can't shake the feel ing that my age was part of the reason I could not finish that novel, and not just because it was a sucky novel.
To my complete and utter relief and pleasure Mr. Doctorow has written a novel that is entertaining for a computer novice like me. I am over 25 (by several years) so I am not to be trusted and am only basically computer literate. I can do basic computer operations and back in the early 90's I took several computer science courses which are no longer relevant. But thats ok. The Author gave just enough information about what his technoterms meant that I was able to follow the story but did not bog it down with too much. And the story was good.
I think the novel felt familer to me because it comes from a long history of dystopian novels, not of the [b:The Hunger Games|2767052|The Hunger Games (The Hunger Games, #1)|Suzanne Collins|https://d.gr-assets.com/books/1358275334s/2767052.jpg|2792775], or [b:Divergent|13335037|Divergent (Divergent, #1)|Veronica Roth|https://d.gr-assets.com/books/1328559506s/13335037.jpg|13155899] variety which are good and fill a slot. No this novel reminded me more of [b:1984|5470|1984|George Orwell|https://d.gr-assets.com/books/1348990566s/5470.jpg|153313] or [b:The Handmaid's Tale|38447|The Handmaid's Tale|Margaret Atwood|https://d.gr-assets.com/books/1294702760s/38447.jpg|1119185]. Good company to be in, in my opinion.
There is a strong Libertarian flavor to this novel, but it is not preachy. This is going to appeal to young and old alike. That is probably why Little Brother was nominated for a 2008 Nebula, 2009 Hugo and Locus YA awards and won a 2009 Campbell and Prometheus. Clearly I was not the only reader entranced by this novel.
And because of this novel my next non-fiction work is [b:Alan Turing: The Enigma|150731|Alan Turing The Enigma|Andrew Hodges|https://d.gr-assets.com/books/1312040148s/150731.jpg|145479].
4.5 of 5 stars
wagesof's review
The story isn't the point. The characters aren't the point.
It's just an excuse to natter on about privacy issues and various tech junk.
That was obvious before starting, but I was expecting at least some effort in making something engaging.
It's just an excuse to natter on about privacy issues and various tech junk.
That was obvious before starting, but I was expecting at least some effort in making something engaging.
songwind's review
5.0
Little Brother starts with a nod to the book that inspired its name, and to an extent its content. Marcus' handle is "w1n5t0n". At that point I knew I was probably going to like this book.
Marcus and his friends live in a day-after-tomorrow world that has embraced the paranoia of post-9/11 Washington and "no tolerance" school administration with a vengeance. They are in the wrong place during a terrorist attack, and are thrown headlong into a world of surveillance and intimidation by government thugs. It's up to Marcus and some compatriots to try to retain their freedoms and show the world how crazy things have gotten.
Doctorow blends the uncertainty and discovery of the late teen years with the looming threat of totalitarianism deftly. You truly care what happens to Marcus and his friends. The scariest part about this book is that the villains are totally believable. There are people I know personally who would already embrace this behavior.
Marcus and his friends live in a day-after-tomorrow world that has embraced the paranoia of post-9/11 Washington and "no tolerance" school administration with a vengeance. They are in the wrong place during a terrorist attack, and are thrown headlong into a world of surveillance and intimidation by government thugs. It's up to Marcus and some compatriots to try to retain their freedoms and show the world how crazy things have gotten.
Doctorow blends the uncertainty and discovery of the late teen years with the looming threat of totalitarianism deftly. You truly care what happens to Marcus and his friends. The scariest part about this book is that the villains are totally believable. There are people I know personally who would already embrace this behavior.
evaphoenix's review
4.0
Extremely believable and therefore terrifying dystopian very-near-future. High-school hacker caught up in DHS takeover of San Francisco. When either could get you killed, and freedom is at stake, when do you hide, and when do you take a stand? And are you knowledgeable and smart enough to evade the surveillance state?
hmoffatt's review
adventurous
informative
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? No
4.25
adastrame's review against another edition
4.0
Very thrilling and very educative at the same time. Obviously a modern-day 1984 but much less depressing, since the main character fights his unjust government with passion. Great read, though I felt that the occasional "you" passages were a bit out of place.
kangokaren's review
4.0
Very hard book to get through solely because it felt soooo possible. Creepy. I listened to this one. I would rate it PG-13+ for sexual innuendo and language. I loved that I had just been to SF because I knew where they were when they talked specific streets, etc. This is a near future, post 9/11, terrorist attack on the Bay Bridge and underwater BART transit. The Dept of Homeland Security takes their job too far and these teenagers fight back hard using a secret internet they create.