Positive:
Little Brother is a story about four technology minded teens in the wake of a terrorist attack on San Francisco. They are captured by the Department of Homeland Security and find themselves fighting for their rights. Marcus Yallow, a 17-year-old misfit, finds himself in a situation of being in the wrong place at the wrong time. Carrying a suspicious collection of electronics, he finds himself being interrogated and tortured. Once released, he and his friends decides to challenging authority by attempting to take down the agency and regain his freedom.
This is a really great book with a lot of great Ideas! (psst, you can also find the pdf online for free, under a creative commons license.) Explaining some of the technical aspects of the real-world software broke up some of the flow of the narrative, but I can see why he did it. I also think that the means to which he uses to express the content of this book comes off as a little bit odd. Without any previous illusion of a corrupt government or reasonable action of detaining the teens for terrorism, the plot ends up feeling very cartoonish. It's almost paint by numbers about how evil they made the villein out to be. You also constantly find yourself hating the main characters decisions, but it keeps you wondering what'll happen to him next.
This is a quick, fun, action packed read that brings to light a lot of eye opening ideas about government surveillance and how technology effects our daily lives.
A good book for parents to suggest to their kids. but found it limiting by the Young Adult fiction realm.
Negative:
I am appalled by that this book is even being recognized as young adult literature! This book is basically teaching our kids how to become terrorist! The author even goes out of his way to mention the fact that a lot of the tech is real. It's maddening to think that a group of kids could be out running around my town, right at this moment, creating such crimes! I can't believe Cory Doctorow is even selling this book. I'd original bought the book only to find that you could get a digital copy, FOR FREE! It's so infuriating knowing that some people are out their only to make a quick buck.
I'm not even going to read the rest of this book. Keep your kids in school! Teach them that they need to follow authority! Don't let dangerous books like these, get to our children. Give them real books to read like the Twilight series!
I like the begining how you depict the book. However I would like a little bit more of an introduction :).. Also good sumary of the book "quick action packed read" yay for adult fiction.
ReplyDeleteYes Morgan that was a very nice description on the book and on your opinion. I would most def. like to see what your creative review would be like. That would be very interesting. yes, yes indeedeeee it would
ReplyDeleteA few points:
ReplyDelete- Maybe find another way to say "find themselves," "finds himself," etc. It's a little repetitive in the first paragraph.
- Definitely elaborate more on certain subjects. You said there are "a lot of great ideas in the book" and I would love to know what they are! Also a little bit more about why we'll hate the main character's decisions. Just tailor it more for someone who hasn't read the book :)
- I'm excited to see how the review will change from the perspective of one of the characters in the book. I think it could make the review really dynamic and funny.
I like aspects of both of the reviews! I agree that a multi-faceted review would probably work better than a solely positive or negative review.
ReplyDeleteHi Morgan.
ReplyDeleteKnowing that you'd like to target this review towards an audience of people who have already read the text, I would suggest paring down the opening section that gives a summary of the text. The summary section is also the least compelling section and is rather dry and doesn't contain so much of your personal voice.
When you get into the second section, however, I enjoy the colorful way you describe the text -- items such as "almost paint by numbers" are your unique way of characterizing the text and I enjoy these. Will you maintain some of these sorts of phrases as you revise this to be from the perspective of a character?
Finally, I find the following sentence confusing:
I also think that the means to which he uses to express the content of this book comes off as a little bit odd.
What do you mean "the means to which he uses"?
Amanda
Review is solid. Here is a list of things that I would like to see more of/refined:
ReplyDeleteIntroduction, maybe get at the core of what the book is about right away.
A little bit more about how the plot feels "cartoonish".
How is it limited by the young adult genre?
And that's about it!