This book made me pretty sad at one point. I didn't really consider everybody else that was affected by the attack and what they were feeling. The story focuses just on Marcus which kind of dehumanizes and takes away the magnitude of the tragedy. Up until now we haven't really heard from anybody else about who they lost in the attack or how they took it. A quote that struck me was this, "Mr Glover told his story next. He didn't have anything to say about what had happened, but he explained that he was a veteran and that his son was a good kid. He talked about what it felt like to believe that his son had died, about how his exwife had had a collapse when she found out and ended up in a hospital. He cried a little, unashamed, the tears streaming down his lined face and darkening the collar of his dressuniform".

Mr. Glover sounds like a pretty legit guy, a veteran of some war, and he just breaks down in tears as he's telling his story. I pictured this solidly built guy, probably 6 foot 3 inches, crew cut, with a stern face. And I just can't see him breaking down, thinking about everything that must have happened and how stressful this must have been makes me sad. I don't want something like this to ever happen to me or anybody that I know.

Like I said, this hasn't happened to me on such a large scale and I wouldn't wish that on anybody I know. That would completely break me down and I would probably be depressed for a really long time. My dog Buddy died when I was young and I had him for all of my life and I was so sad when he died. I remember denying that he was really gone and thinking that in the morning he would be there wagging his tail waiting for breakfast to come. I'm over it now but it was a pretty sad part of my life that I don't want to go through again.

One thing that I thought was shocking is that this one lady is telling Marcus and his classmates that it's ok to suspend the Bill of Rights... those are supposed to be our UNALIENABLE rights. We are always supposed to be protected by those no matter what, and this Charles kid that gives this lady ideas of when they should be taken away is really pissing me off. He should be supporting his rights not siding with the government on such a crazy idea as losing those rights.

I don't get why the government sent this lady to talk to them about it either. I guess they're trying to justify what they're going to do or have already done but kids can be very vulnerable when it comes to their rights and what they can and can't do. Like if you tell a little kid that he can't hit people he knows he shouldn't hit people, but if you tell that kid to not eat cereal, the kid might think that's wrong too even though there is nothing wrong with that. People might think that it's ok for the government to take those rights away, which it isn't.

This has never happened to me and I don't think that ever will, hopefully. I just can't imagine a situation where the government would ever have to do that. If that did happen I would be so angry, that is just not ok to do. The government has no right to do that to its people and it really shouldn't have to. There shouldn't be a time when the people are suspected so much as to where the government has to take away rights in order to find potential terrorists or whatever.

Little Brother is a good book but I can't tell where the plot is going, it seems like Doctorow is just going on and on about how Marcus and his friends are screwing with the system and that they're not going to take down the DHS. I can only read like 20 or 30 pages in a row now because I can't see it going anywhere anytime soon, I hope it does but I don't want to wait too long. I think it sucks that the DHS is stepping up security even more, that really isn't even going to help anything, it's just going to cause more chaos and prove that the DHS doesn't know what it's doing.

A quote that I thought was good was this, "Then one cop stood up and started shouting EVERYONE JUST GO HOME JESUS CHRIST WE'VE GOT BETTER THINGS TO DO THAN BOTHER YOU WITH MORE QUESTIONS IF YOU'VE DONE SOMETHING WRONG JUST DON'T DO IT AGAIN AND LET THIS BE A WARNING TO YOU ALL." I think it just goes to show that even the cops are getting stressed out about this situation, I mean who wouldn't? They're questioning just about everybody in San Francisco which is really going to piss some people off.

I would hate for this to ever happen in my lifetime, I would not be able to deal with the constant accusations of being a terrorist or whatever. I would just get sick of it, the government should not have to do that in order to keep control of its people. It's great that they're trying to catch the terrorists but they're putting way too much money and manpower into it, try to be more precise and not just send a billion cops to try and find one or two terrorists.

Little Brother is really starting to get confusing, there's a lot of computer mumbo jumbo that I can't really follow. They're talking about arphid cloners and Xnet stuff that I really don't understand, other than that it's a really good book. Lots of complex stuff going on like Marcus is going to try to bring down the Department of Homeland Security which is pretty crazy. I mean, kids my age are going to bring down the government by themselves without any help from adults, that's awesome.

A part that kind of freaked me out is the concept of police pulling over so many people for no real reason. I can't imagine something like that ever happening, it's just too outlandish to even consider. I would be so paranoid if something like that happened, I would be afraid to go outside for fear of being pulled over and taken to jail. Crazy things going on in that book, I hope that Marcus takes down the DHS.

This doesn't really relate to anything that has ever happened to me in my life, thank goodness. The closest thing that's happened is when police were driving around a Holiday Inn at a soccer tournament we were at and a friend of mine got taken in by them. It was actually really funny because it was the last person we would have thought would ever be in a cop car. Hilarious, everybody else got away but him, he was freaked out too, good times, good times.

This such a great book, just the way that it is formatted and how everything is explained makes me not want to put it down. It really makes me think too, I've been starting to wonder if this would ever actually happen where the government would get way out of hand and spy on everybody all the time. It kind of freaks me out thinking about it. A quote that I thought was pretty incredible is this, ""The security," he said, looking around his little shop with its
tubs of dried beans and seeds, its shelves of Turkish groceries. "The government. They monitor it all now, it was in the papers. PATRIOT Act II, the Congress passed it yesterday. Now they can
monitor every time you use your card. I say no. I say my shop will not help them spy on my customers."".

This really struck me as odd, I mean, a huge terrorist attack just happened just a few blocks away from this guy's store and he's mad at the government for tightening security and spying on people. I respect this guy for that, he seems like a legit guy that believes in freedom for everyone and will do his best to make sure everybody gets it. I'm just surprised at how quickly this guy made up his mind that he was going to help out the citizens after such a catastrophe.

Nothing like this has ever happened to me really but I hope it does. I want to know that I'm doing what's best for the people that I interact with and that I'm not just leaving them up to dry for the government to look at where they've been and such. I don't think it will ever get as extreme as that but you never know. Again, it's a terrific book and I'm looking forward to figuring out what Marcus is going to do about it.

I really really like this book! It has a really good plot and it makes me wonder what's going to happen next so I don't want to stop reading it. Not gonna lie, it's a little confusing with the computer techie stuff but I understand most of it. It kind of makes me mad how the DHS people suspect Marcus and his friends, they're just a bunch of kids, what are they gonna do? A quote that made me think was this, "Hell, maybe my room was wiretapped. Maybe there was a
camera spying on me now" I'm not sure what page this is because i got it off the online thing and it didn't have page numbers.

I thought this was pretty creepy, the thought that someone had been in my room and messed with my stuff would scare the crap out of me! I wouldn't feel safe in my own room, I would be so paranoid too, I mean, my whole room could be bugged and someone could be watching me all the time....that would not be cool.

This is like when i believed in the boogeyman, I know it's kinda lame but I was young so I didn't know any better. I thought that he was in my closet so it would take me forever to fall asleep cause I thought that if I did he would come out and get me. It was terrifying! But I'm over that now so it's cool, that quote just made me think about how terrible it must be to not know if you're safe in your room.

So far, I really like Little Brother, it's a really interesting book that is completely different than anything I've ever read before. The layout is like a narrative but it's like you're actually in Marcus's head and you can see what he's thinking and everything in his own words. I don't really understand the plot yet but I think I'll get it later in the book once they explain what's going on with the terrorist attack and why Marcus has to stay with the Department of Homeland Security people. A quote that I thought was interesting was this, "A flicker of annoyance passed over her face, then went away. "So melodramatic, Marcus. No one's attacked you. You've been detained by your country's government while we seek details on the worst terrorist
attack ever perpetrated on our nation's soil. You have it within your power
to help us fight this war on our nation's enemies. You want to preserve the
Bill of Rights? Help us stop bad people from blowing up your city" (62).

I thought this was really interesting because this lady is saying that nobody has attacked Marcus even though they are being forcefully detained by the Department of Homeland Security, I don't really know what else you could call it besides an attack. They didn't do anything wrong, I guess the DHS people don't know that but they were just some kids standing in the road after the attack, why did they pick them to bring in? Marcus flagged them down because Darryl got stabbed, I'm not positive but I'm pretty sure if they were the ones who had done the attack they wouldn't just be standing in the road waiting for someone to pick them up and arrest them.

This seems like a pretty extreme precaution to take by the DHS people, kidnapping some kids because they were just in a certain place at a certain time not doing anything wrong. That just strikes me as weird, I'm sure there were shadier people in the street at the time, like possibly the guy that stabbed Darryl? Who just walks around and stabs people? That's much more suspicious than just a few kids standing around, I just don't understand the reasoning behind the DHS people's thinking, I'm not too worried about Marcus and the gang though, they're smart, creative, not real people so there isn't a reason to worry at all, and the book would be boring if it ended with them just chilling in the prison the whole time. I'm excited to see what happens next!