Little Brother

Little Brother, by Cory Doctorow, is his first novel for young adults. First and foremost, I must congratulate him on his stupendously seamless advocation of open source software, such as Firefox, homebrew stuff, etc., and the book seemed sort of like he beamed it as a warning from a not too distant, possible future.

While it was well written, however, some things just seemed in poor taste, just 'thrown in there', so to speak. For example, certain scenes that could be deemed risque (not a good way to earn the respect for all the book stands for)just seemed tossed in at the last minute, and even if they were better executed, was it really necessary? I don't think so.
I do appreciate the way Doctorow did a "PG-13-Fade-Out-To-Black", since nothing graphic belonged in a book like that, but I honestly think that it wasn't on the whole necessary, again.
Also, he used more expletives than I have the misfortune to hear daily (ouch!) and again, I didn't like that, 'twas unnecessary.
But back to what I liked. I absolutely loved the very idea of Xnet, being an Xbox 360 owner (mine just gave me the RRoD) and although changing the OS on my 360 isn't quite what I'm looking for (*COUGH* voided warranty*COUGH*Sony PS3 comes with Linux*COUGH*) I think that something along those lines is quite smart!
I also appreciate how he licensed the book itself, it's available to download for free. You also retain the right to 'remix' it, so I intend on changing a couple chapter, and I'll let you be the judge on what you prefer.
Also, here's a good Bibliography if you would like to do some of the things from the book.