Sequel to Little Brother, an excellent book; this was not quite so good, but still very interesting if you want to read about an all-too-realistic and somewhat grim future of the USA where organizations like Homeland Security and ICE have far too much power, children can be detained for no reason, and mass surveillance is an ongoing problem. Yeah, despite being a YA book in audience target and writing style, it's pretty heavy (and technical) in detail.

The book continues the story of Marcus Yallow, former teen hacker, and now unemployed dropout as the economy crash and the repercussions from his teen hacker infamy have made him near unemployable and also impacted his parents' jobs too. Follow Marcus from Burning Man into the receipt of a darknet trove of wikileaks style information on government corruption and abuses, his agonizing over whether to release it, and ongoing cat and mouse games as the Bad Guys implicated in the documents start to realize it's out there and Marcus is probably involved.

Like I said, interesting subject material, a lot of relevant but technical information, and YA level writing. Did I really need quite all that detail? Probably not, particularly not a whole page-ful of instructions on how to make cold brew coffee and why it's the best thing ever; Doctorow slips a bit too easily into preaching about his favourite topics that may not really be relevant, or needed in quite as much detail, by the actual plot. A lot of the plot is either Marcus agonizing over what to do, while his friends/girlfriend telling him an idiot, generally correctly; or watching him react to things happening to him rather than being proactive. The plot depends on an awful lot of coincidences, too; so you just happened to stumble into a tent occupied by Wil Wheaton and other Important Internet Guys in the middle of burning man? (Also, am I the only one who already knew it was going to be Wil Wheaton before he was even named? Yeah, he's a cool nerd rebel these days, but Ready Player One already did that, 5+ years ago.) And then these cool guys you play D&D with just happen to give you a job with a independent politician who just happens to be the only good politician out there and you just happen to be in the right place and time to see your friends kidnapped by the Bad Guys and how lucky they just happen to have given you all the darknet docs just before that ... The ending is the biggest deus ex machina of all, completely out of Marcus's hands and control and seemed a bit of a cop out.

Still, interesting and very relevant subject matter and an enjoyable read, just squint a bit and don't look too hard at the list of coincidences or sturdiness of plot.