Marcus is 17 and he is just the right combination between reckless courage and grown-up fear. I liked him and I rooted for him throughout the book :) In terms of girls I have to say I have liked Van a bit more (too bad her character was less developed than others’) than Ange — I’ve no idea why I didn’t actually like Ange but I didn’t, we never actually clicked so to speak. Oh well, Marcus was in love with her not Van so who am I to interfere :P

I am a geek and this is sort of a geeky book — all the more reasons to enjoy it. Which I did :) Especially as it was very realistic, I can just see everything written there happening (in a near future?). The slight exception to that is the ending, which I have found a tad to optimistic (but hey maybe it’s a cultural thing; maybe I can’t see such thing happening in my culture but it just might work in others’).

I was amused to notice a lot of current sites mentioned (Marcus buys his spare parts on Craigslist, uploads his pictures on Flickr, checks out Livejournal-ers sites and so on). I loved this but I have to say they sort of date this book — who knows whether these sites will still be around in ten years’ time or more :)

The reviews of this book that I have read so far do not quite agree: they range from calling the book brilliant to criticize “leftist Doctorow” for promoting cyberterrorism. They make me realize that one of the reasons the book appealed to me is that I too am one of those afraid of what too much surveillance can do to personal freedom — from that point of view the book might very well have been written by me. It’s interesting to see how many people think differently (and fun to see how much they are similar to some characters in the book, where there also were a bunch of people considering losing freedom in the name of fighting terrorism was okay and fighting that was also a form of terrorism in itself — looks like Doctorow has predicted some of the reactions to his book to a T :) )

What I liked most: “1984″ is one of my favorite books so I enjoyed the reference in the title (in “1984″ Big Brother = the watcher, here Little Brother = the watched — I find that kinda cool :P). As a second smaller reference Marcus’ first “handle” has been “W1n5t0n” = the name of the main character in “1984″.
I have also found very nice the fact that the author has dedicated each chapter to a bookstore — while a bit distracting at times I liked the idea nevertheless.

What I liked least: We are not told how Marcus was caught in the end! It looks to me like someone had betrayed him but who and why? (I suspected Zeb but the two remain friends afterwards so I was wrong.). How did the DHS find Marcus anyway?

Recommend it? Yes :)

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