Little Brother - Cory Doctorow

the. best. book. of. the. year. hands down, no kidding. i could literally not stop reading this until i finished it. cory doctorow, co-editor of "boing boing" writes the "little brother" to orwell's "1984". marcus, aka w1n5t0n, is a teenaged hacker whose group of friends are involved in an online/real world game called "harajuku fun madness". one day, while skipping school to find the latest "harajuku fun madness" clue, they find themselves caught up in a terrorist attack and taken in by the department of homeland security. when marcus is finally released from jail a week later he can't believe how much his world has changed. in the wake of the largest terrorist attack since 9/11, san francisco finds itself a mini police state. everything is controlled by a paranoid government, and san francisco is fast becoming very scary. marcus, a natural rule breaker, finds that these restrictions to his inalienable rights and freedoms are a little too much to bear, gets to work hacking, and gathers a group of young people (don't trust anyone over 25) who set out to bring down the system. set in the united states of the near future, doctorow makes use of real and existing technology in "little brother" and succeeds in even geeting a n008 like myself thinking about security and technology issues. there is an awesome bibliography in the back. i would recommend this book to anyone, teens and grown-ups, who are feeling up to a revolutionary and exciting read this summer.