And it's all Thanks to LITTLE BROTHER

Welcome to my amazing, unfiltered, completely original review of Little Brother by Cody Doctorow!!!

This Cricket is not impressed with me.

This book is the most gripping, intense experience that I didn't want to read, and now, was my opinion changed? Will this actually turn out to be a decent book? Will I ever stop talking in the first person? (The answer is no.) Find out next time on... This Blog post right now!!!

In all seriousness however, let's get down to this nitty gritty review of this book, where I will look at the Plot, Characters, Setting, and Theme, to find out who would win a...

Oh wait, never mind, wrong thing, to find out if this is actually worth the time it takes to read it!!!

 Just going off the back cover, Little Brother is a "A rousing tale of techno-geek rebellion." "A worthy younger sibling to Orwell's Nineteen Eighty-Four." and "The right book at the right time for the right author.". That's a great deal of praise for this book, but what about the plot? After all there was no "Greatest Plot Ever" quote. This would normally make me nervous, but at least these are all author's quotes. Not that I've heard of any of the people that are being Quoted, but hey, they must've been published by someone.
The plot of Little Brother goes somewhat like this... Marcus is a 17-year old hacker who lives in San Fransisco. However, when out of school with his friends, Darryl, Van, and Jolu, a bomb blows up the Bay Bridge, and as they are trying to get into the  bomb shelter, Darryl gets stabbed, the group then goes above ground to try and get him medical attention, and are promptly detained by the Department of Home Security, as the suspected terrorists. They are all taken towards a secret prison, and in the ride there Marcus refuses to unlock his phone for the boss of the people. After days of torture at Schitt's Creek the secret government prison, Marcus gives in, and is released, with a warning to not do anything that the DHS doesn't want him to. Marcus then seeks revenge, as although he, Van, and Jolu, were all released, Darryl wasn't. In order to get revenge against the DHS, Marcus uses his XBOX and makes a program called Xnet, and all of this business grows out of hand, until through this problem Marcus gets a Girlfriend, (in)fame, and a new social group. But does he get revenge??? That is truly the question.
Now my first critique of this is that the Title does not make sense, as nowhere in this book is ANY reference to a "Little Brother". That seems nitpicky, but still, false advertising to the max.

There are none of these.

After that, there is the slight problem that that book made me feel Paranoid as all Hell. I can't tell if that's a good or a bad thing, but hey, maybe that's what Doctorow set out to do, so if it is, good job, now I feel like Andrew!
After those two complaints(one?) the plot is excellent. The slow development of Marcus is represented, metaphorically, by his rebellion against the government, which slowly grows more and more serious, and he becomes more and more focused on his goals.

The slow addition of new central characters, and these characters are added only where they become a vehicle to lead Marcus closer to his ultimate goal.

This is The Vehicle where Marcus is.

All of the events are interesting, and normally are explained in-depth by the author, which is quite helpful for someone who doesn't at all understand how technology works. Like me, this really enhances one's enjoyment of the book, as without these points, it would be like reading the last book in the Inheritance Cycle, without ever reading the other three. You just wouldn't understand how this all works at all.
Lastly the actual Man vs Man storyline is really engaging, as you'll start reading at 9:00 before bed, and be up until 1:00 in the morning just to finish the book. The points that are covered are interesting.

As briefly brushed over in the Plot section, the characters are quite good in Little Brother. Especially the way that they were introduced gradually. In fact a two of the characters are so good that they deserve individual attention, so let's take a look at Marcus, and Ange.

First of is Marcus, our Protagonist. He's a 17 year old hacker who either goes by the online alias of W1n5t0n (early story, pre-story.) and M1k3y (After imprisonment, as leader of the Xnet.). His character has a strong sense of justice, but not, at the moment, , the American justice system. He has strong leadership capabilities, as shown by his unintentional status as the leader of Xnet. His character goes from a stubborn, selfishly fighting character, to one who eventually does the right thing and he stops fighting for just himself. The entire story is told from his perspective, and sometimes you will magically receive his Technomancer Skillz. You end up feeling not just for him, but for his fight, and your view of the world becomes tainted by his opinions, which is the sign of an engaging character.

Ange is Marcus' Girlfriend, who is introduced about mid-novel, and quickly becomes the Dueteragonist. She is Asian, with a horse like mouth. She is an Xnetter and as such completely understands all of the weird things going on with the technology. Her views are largely the same as Marcus', just slightly less extreme. She ends up becoming the second in command, even sometimes taking over the role of M1k3y. She is an engaging character, and when some bad things happen to her, you really feel bad for her.

Also important are several minor characters,  despite them being quite one-dimensional, the annoyed one, the cowardly one, the angry at the establishment one, the stereotypical bad guy. However, the development of these two characters makes the novel worthwhile, and you end up really hoping that everything turns out all right for them. In this Doctorow shows one of the great points of his writing strengths. After that comes...

In Little Brother, the setting is just how I personally like it, it leaves enough of it to the imagination to decide, telling you, for instance about how there are these high-tech underwater BART Trains, but not telling you how they work, or just kinda saying it's in San Francisco, and expecting you to fill in the blanks as to how it looks. Now, normally there are two sides that you can take to this. One is that less is more, and that's normally my camp, giving you snapshots of what it all looks like and letting you imagine the rest. Or there's the more is more idea, saying that they should describe everything. However, with a book like this, with such a big plot and characters, you kinda have to stop expecting to much. Roger Zelazny (The Author of Nine Princes in Amber, Creatures of Light and Darkness, etc) once said that there are plot writers, character writers, prose writers... and nobody's great at every thing. Overall the setting is very minamalist, and it really works for this novel.

And now, after the setting comes the Theme Song!!!

Oh, wait, I mean the Theme of the Book. (DANG IT EDITOR)

In this novel, the central theme is Technology, Rebellion, and Coming of Age. In terms of technology, there's mention of things like "Xbox Universal", or "Wifinder" or "ParanoidLinux". And it really does have a lot of security, and spyware all over the place. The Rebellion comes in Marcus' fight against the establishment, or the DHS. How he feels like he's been wronged, and everyone has been wronged. Then he strikes back.The coming of age shows up in how he matures as he fights in many... different ways. The end has him do a lot of things.which you couldn't have perceived him even thinking of doing at the start of the book. These themes are all looked at in interestin and unique ways. Which is yet another strong point of this novel.

Andrew Wiggins' Overall Rating.

In conclusion, this novel was definitely worth the time, as it had an excellent balance, of deep plot, good character development, strong and prominent themes, and a less complicated setting to compensate. It most certainly changed my opinion about non-Sci-Fi/Fantasy novels. I rate it better than ANY OTHER WHITE PINE I'VE EVER READ. It may not be from this year, but this is almost the Pinnacle of The Forest of Reading.