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!

I'm reading Little Brother by Cory Doctorow, it is about a group of teenagers that are whiz kids with computers and use their skills to fool their school's computer system, letting them leave school and mess around. It's in the perspective of a kid named Marcus Yallow, who also goes by w1n5t0n, is the main character and really really good with computers.

One day, him and his friends, Darryl, Vanessa (Van) and Jose Luis (Jolu), sneak past all of the security features of their school and go to try and find a clue for a game, Harajuku Fun Madness, and while they are out, some part of their city gets bombed and they are caught up in a flurry of chaos as people are running to get into shelters and the subway system. They decide to go into a shelter but then think that it would be better to stay above ground. As they are going up, Darryl gets stabbed and they flag down a military vehicle that turns out to not be military and it kidnaps them. They are taken to some sort of interrogation facility and that's how far I've gotten.

I really really like this book! It's cool how the style of writing is kind of informal, I'm not really sure how to explain it but it just seems like it's not really just telling a story but more like how some teenager would explain it. Which I'm guessing is what the author was trying to do. Also, I like how descriptive the author is with explaining all of the gadgets and computer stuff, it adds a little background that makes it easier to follow. I would definitely recommend this book and I've only read about 40 pages so far! It's very hard to put down and if I could, I would read it all day.

Steve is found not guilty! This made me happy that they let him go, I knew that he didn't deserve to go to jail but I was nervous that they would put him away just because of his skin color and situation. This must have been a terrifying ordeal for Steve, I can't imagine what it's like to be put on trial and to know that you could possibly go to jail for the rest of your life if you're found guilty. I noticed that Steve was questioning himself throughout the trial, I felt bad for him because he seemed to feel really bad about the whole situation.

I'm just glad that he got out of it, it must have taken some guts to not just collapse under the pressure of the whole trial and people calling him monster and such. If I was in his situation I would be a mess, I don't handle failure or knowing that I've disappointed someone well. I always feel like I'm a terrible person for doing something that someone thinks is wrong even if I know that I did the right thing. If I was ever put on trial I would be so nervous and I would feel so awful that someone accused me of a crime. I don't even want to think about that.

Steve overcoming the odds that he would be put in prison reminds me of when my soccer team beat the Minneapolis United Jedi which is another soccer team that my team hates. They are a pretty good team but we were just as good as them but we just couldn't beat them, which was really frustrating. But one game at Kuhlman field, we were playing really well and we held them to a tie at the end of the first half which was really good for us. Later in the second half we scored! It was such a good feeling to be beating them, but we knew that there was still plenty of game left to be played and that we would have to have some tenacious defense. At one point, they had a free that they placed into the lower right corner, but our goalie, Austin, made an amazing save that energized our whole team, we went the rest of the game without letting them get a decent shot. We ended up winning one to zero in one of the best games that we had played.