My summary of this not-too- far-in-the-future dystopia in four haiku stanzas:
The Department of
Homeland Security runs
amok post attack.
Hacker teens fight the
power and teach the reader
about crypto tech.
Teen reader primer
on history, politics
and the internet.
Plus boy meets girl.
Parents are dumb then helpful.
Ends with vote or die.
I just spent 400 pages in the mind of the mother of a teenage mass murderer, and I'm here to tell you that is not the nicest place to be. Mama Eva and sociopath Kevin's story is told in the form of letters from Eva to her husband/baby daddy Franklin. (Don't you love the name Franklin, btw? Why is it so much more appealing than Frank or Francis?) The basic premise is that Kevin, born to a mother who has a hard time bonding with him, is pretty much a psycho from birth, but somehow while this is apparent to Eva, Franklin can't or won't see it, which leads to some strife in their marriage. At points that stress was so hard to take because it seemed so unjust to me that I might have put the book down if I weren't reading it at a friend's recommendation.
This is a placeholder for the review I will write after I talk about this with my book club (i.e. Celia), augmented with some quotations.