This book was a solid read.  If you lived through 9/11, many of the incidents described will be eerily familiar.  Those that were too young to really remember the impact of that day will get a good feel for how it felt to be coming into young adulthood at that time. 

Marcus and his friends are out playing a LARP-style game in San Francisco when terrorists attack and blow up the Bay Bridge.  While trying to get back home, they are all picked up by the Department of Homeland Security and taken away.  Eventually they are released back into a city they hardly recognize; a city reacting to the attack.  The adults seem to be going right along with all the government monitoring, but Marcus and his friends can feel what little rights they had as teenagers slipping away.  They decide to take action and take back their city.

Doctorow mixes classic Orwellian plot with a modern teen’s lifestyle.  The characters are believable and likable.  It does run a little long, and you feel like Marcus is going in circles in the middle of the book, but it all ends well.  This title would be a great discussion book for teens.