Little Brother by Cory Doctorow

Banned Books Week takes place the last week of September every year. It's a time to bring awareness of the banning and challenging of books that is still prevalent in our society. To support the freedom to read, I choose a banned/challenged book that I've never read before. Because of this, my review is slightly different, as I tend to focus on the reason it was banned or challenged for most of the review. For more information on Banned Books Week, visit ala.org.

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Publication date: 2008
Publisher: Tor Teen
Pages: 365
My rating: 3.5 stars
Ages: 16+

When San Francisco is attacked, Marcus and his friends are taken to an undisclosed location to be questioned as terrorists. When they are let go, Marcus is determined to get back at them anyway he can. Setting up a secret web and gathering other protestors, Marcus tries to find ways to bring back the freedom that was taken from them the moment the Department of Homeland Security decided everyone was guilty until proven innocent. With the threat of prison hanging over his head, Marcus needs to find a way to evade the DHS and to win back his city.

Doctorow's novel was challenged and pulled from the curriculum at a Florida high school in 2014. The reason cited? It promoted questioning authority. Which was the entire point of the book. Authority should be questioned, especially if they seem to be doing something wrong. Our kids should be taught that it's okay to ask questions, to wonder if something is the right way to do something. That is how democracy works, what this entire country was built on.

Other reasons cited include hacking culture. Yes, hacking shouldn't really be the past time for the average teenager. And Marcus did some pretty illegal stuff. But hacking is so prevalent in movies and TVs, that I think kids are so used to hearing about it that it won't be anything new or revelatory to them. And I liked the way Doctorow explained the different parts of hacking and using computers in the way that his characters do. It was simple enough that even I understood what was happening, instead of it being a mysterious amount of typing.

There was some sex and sexual circumstances, but nothing graphic. Surprisingly, there was hardly any language. A brief mention of the "f-word" without the entire word spelled out.

I think that this book could act like a cautionary tale--what if the government did react the way it did in the book to terrorist attacks? What if we were suddenly part of a police state? What would that mean for us and how should we react?

*I do not receive compensation from Amazon. 

The Telling by Alexandra Sirowy

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Publication date: 2016
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
Pages: 387
My rating: 3 stars
Ages: 17+

Lana's life is split between before and after. After is her trying to become brave after seeing her stepbrother's murder. But things start getting scary once other kids start dying--kids that had done Lana wrong in some way. Could it be some random killer? The homeless man? Or has Ben's ghost returned to enact vengeance?

This is one of those books that I was kind of "meh" about during most of it. My brain did keep coming up with different theories on who the murderer was, and there was one that I really liked--and would have preferred for it to have been that theory when it came to the end.

The book seemed long. I kept thinking that I was getting to the end of it, then I'd look to see how many pages were left and there were still a lot. That doesn't necessarily mean that the entire book was difficult to read or get into. There were a lot of moments in the book that kept me reading, but they were broken up by a lot of internal and psychological stuff with Lana. Some of those stopped the narrative a little too much for me. The characters were interested and complex, though it didn't seem so at the beginning.

It brought up a lot of questions and confusion about what is right and wrong to do and feel and act on.

There was some hard language and sexual contexts.

*I do not receive compensation from Amazon.

Damage Done by Amanda Panitch

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Publication date: 2015
Publisher: Random House
Pages: 292
My rating: 3 stars
Ages: 18+

Julia Vann watched her best friend, boyfriend, and brother die. Now nearly a year later, she's Lucy Black. With a new name, new life, and new best friend, Lucy hopes that those events are all behind her. But someone from her past keeps appearing where he isn't supposed to be and Lucy is scared of what that means. She has to decide how far she will go to keep the past from ruining her present.

This is one of those books that is supposed to have very shocking twist at the end. Unfortunately, I had it basically figured out almost before I started reading it. There was an author quote on the back cover copy that I kind of felt like gave it away by comparing Panitch to another author. There was another, smaller twist within the shocking twist that I didn't figure out until I was 3/4 of the way through the book, so there's that.

The writing was intriguing though. Even though I had kind of figured out the twist, the way that the narrator was written was interesting as I started to pick up on all the clues throughout the book. The way Julia reacted to things and referred to other things; the journal entries by the psychologist--they all added up to an inside look of a terrifying kind of person.

This is also one of those books that left me feeling sort of heavy, melancholy, and disgusted after reading it. That's not usually the type of feeling I want to have after reading a book.

There was some swearing and sexual themes that caused me to put the age higher than I would have had they not been in the book.

*I do not receive compensation from Amazon.