Little Brother (Little Brother, 1)

The first in Cory Doctorow’s New York Times bestselling YA series about a youthful rebellion against the torture-and-surveillance state.

“A wonderful, important book ... I’d recommend Little Brother over pretty much any book I’ve read this year.” –Neil Gaiman

Marcus, a.k.a "w1n5t0n," is only seventeen years old, but he figures he already knows how the system works–and how to work the system. Smart, fast, and wise to the ways of the networked world, he has no trouble outwitting his high school's intrusive but clumsy surveillance systems.

But his whole world changes when he and his friends find themselves caught in the aftermath of a major terrorist attack on San Francisco. In the wrong place at the wrong time, Marcus and his crew are apprehended by the Department of Homeland Security and whisked away to a secret prison where they're mercilessly interrogated for days.

When the DHS finally releases them, Marcus discovers that his city has become a police state where every citizen is treated like a potential terrorist. He knows that no one will believe his story, which leaves him only one option: to take down the DHS himself.

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432 pages

Average rating: 7

16 RATINGS

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3 REVIEWS

Community Reviews

Anonymous
Aug 01, 2023
6/10 stars
Doctorow had all the right ideas in writing this book. Through his fictionalized account of a terrorist attack on San Francisco's Bay Bridge and BART system, and the resultant crackdown on the city by the Department of Homeland Security, Doctorow tries to paint a picture of what can happen when the zeal for security bests protection for civil liberties.

Unfortunately, his excellent point is drowned out by his heavy-handed sermonizing. Anyone reading this book will probably already understand the danger of protecting America by taking away civil liberties, so Doctorow is preaching to the choir to begin with. To hammer in his message so emphatically is somewhat insulting to his readers' intelligence. More subtlety would have made this both a better book as well as a more effective one.
LiziB
Feb 23, 2023
10/10 stars
I read this one online on my lunch hours at work. I love Cory Doctorow's writing (and I really love his commitment to freedom of information), and this one is just as fun as previous ones. And he's very right about the ubiquitous surveillance that we are more and more getting used to. Wonder if any of those potential hacker teens he's talking to are reading this?
Nadia grey
Sep 26, 2022
9/10 stars
AMAZING book. First got me interested in computer science, PGP encryption, and ARGs. My only complaint is the characters feel a bit flat as the book is considerably more plot driven than character driven and a couple of the relationships feel uncomfortable or a bit forced.

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