This weekend I read a tough little cookie of a YA novel, Cory Doctorow’s Little Brother. Published earlier this year, the book is already nominated for next year’s Prometheus Award, and could indeed be a strong contender. I’m working on a review of the novel for Prometheus (unless any other brave souls out there would like to contribute a review…), but I’m already jokingly calling this the book that sent me to the ER.
The Young Adult fiction market these days is smokin’ hot. As a grown up reading some these books I can’t help but be irritated and impatient with the tendency toward a very simplistic style. I struggled to get going with Little Brother, and the ended certainly fizzled into a “Rock the Vote” solution that does nothing to advance individual liberty (a recent conversation with L. Neil Smith comes to mind, where he said that it’s easy to write dystopias, as we all can agree upon what we are against. But it’s damn tough to come up with better solutions. ) Still, the middle part of Doctorow’s novel is worth every penny, and is the part that most readers probably will remember.
