1) It does a great job building some complex information about technology, privacy issues, and real vs. presumed security into a compelling story.
2) It doesn't duck the hard questions about those topics.
3) It's a great example of leveraging new technology - Cory Doctorow, the author, makes all of his books available for free online. We own a print copy, but you can check out the ebook version, in lots of formats, on his website.
So, what's the book about? Basically, Marcus is a high school student who gets caught up in the midst of a terrorist attack in San Francisco. As he's trying to figure out what actually happened - and what happened to his best friend - he gets caught up in a much larger story, and a much larger set of questions about how we share information, what we do with it, and what can go wrong when we don't question some assumptions. And in between, he builds some great friendships, and other connections, and you get a glimpse into lots of different technology areas and issues.
If you like this, I also recommend Doctorow's For The Win (that link will take you to the download info for that...) which does the same sort of story+lots of great info to think about, only this time using a combination of Massive Multiplayer Online Games, global economics, and union organising.
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