I have liked all of Doctorow's books I have read but I felt Pirate Cinema was even better than his more will known works.

In a near future Britian a teenage boy gets his family cut off from the internet for one year for torrenting classic movies. He was using them to remix his own movies.

In hope of running away from his problems he runs away to London and ends up in a homeless shelter, where he meets some pretty dodgy characters who teach him how to squat and pan handle and he ends up with more time to download more movies and make more movies.

He meets a beautiful girl and falls in love and accidentally becomes the leader of a pro-piracy movement.

It just felt so realistic, I cried, I laughed, I hoped he'd get laid. If I had anything negative it would be that the love interest Twenty-Six, nor her family, felt Indian at all. I've had dozens of friends from dozens of different Indian states, and they felt nothing like them to the point I honestly wonder if Doctorow knows any Indians.