Feed

I placed an order for this book (FEED) on CD on June 25. Three weeks later, I learned through my amazon account, that my order wasn't ever sent to me and I never heard from the seller. There was no explanations given about what happened. I'm really dissappointed in the service for this purchased item. I wanted this book on CD which would have been used for a class that required the book. Now its too late to use for the purpose intended.

Imagine a world where you don't have to leave your house. The internet, IMs, chats, stores and all connections to the outside world are directly installed... in your head. But, if you DO choose to leave your home, you have the ability to ride (not drive) in your "up-car" to the Moon, Jupiter, Mars, etc. Everything you'd ever want is directly at your fingertips. There is even a way to experience virtual reality and even watch your favorite personal memories with your friends. You can share your dreams and the thoughts and images that you see in your head (including your personal feelings while you were seeing these images) with other people- projected in their minds like a movie.

Everything is connected. Everyone is connected.

But, there's a problem. Due to this "connection" being constant, people lose pieces of their personalities. Commercials and advertisements are constantly being broadcasted into your MIND so that you'll get the sudden urge to buy, buy, buy everything that's in "style", even though styles only last about 15 minutes. Girls excuse themselves to go to the bathroom and change the part in their hair, people "zone out" during conversations because they're "chatting" with their friends IN THEIR HEADS!

Human bodies aren't meant to function this way, so they begin to fall apart. Not everything is "meg rad".

The scary part is, while this story is a bit over the top and far-fetched, I can't say that it will NEVER happen. I see the deterioration of Earth and America as a whole. (Tear down the forest to put up Air factories) I see the ever persistant need to be "connected". I am old enough to remember a time when cell phones didn't even exist- now, I can't possibly get through the day without checking my email and text messages. Even this review is online. How else would I be able to share this with you?

The difficult part of the book- the vocabulary is really aggravating at first. It took me a few chapters to warm to the characters because they "like" said "like" everything in "meg" overtoned simpleton language. It was frustrating, at first, but I was over it by the middle of the book. The storyline carries it enough to overlook the aggravation. Even the narrator's dad says "Dude". haha.

Great story. I read all the time and this story has been the best idea for the past few months, at least. Even though I am much older than its intended audience (I think around 14?) it is still really enjoyable. I may read more MT Anderson. "Feed" is my first.

I haven't yet read ALL 134 reviews. But one thing I've noticed from the reader reviews is that no one makes the point that this book, although it also has a "weird style," contrasts with Anderson's Octavian Nothing books. I had read book one of The Astonishing Life of Octavian Nothing right before reading Feed. As I began reading Feed (I had not at first noticed it was also by the author of Octavian..) I thought it shared a strange affinity with that book. This is mainly because the protagonist's language was so unusual in both books. In Octavian Nothing, he is articulate, learned, and elegant in his speech. In Feed, Titus (like his friends) barely can speak a sentence. I thought -- how brilliant of Anderson to show that prior to mass media (especially TV), internet blather and inane Consumerism, people still had their brains intact, seemed highly intelligent and were well-spoken. While in Feed characters reflect the shallow, pointless world they inhabit. I think that if the reviewers who gave Feed only one or two stars were to read Octavian Nothing, their criticisms of Feed would diminish or vanish. The author wants to create shallow, inarticulate characters in Feed to make a point. It was not accidental. His writing style, while not for everyone, is absolutely brilliant in Octavian Nothing. It seems less so with Feed, but that was deliberate and necessary to create a general gestalt of how stupid people can become when they let technology rule their lives.

I used Feed in a high school English course. Be warned that this book has multiple curse words per page. The main character, Titus barely says anything without cursing. Also, the teens in the book have their own lingo. Students will need a list of the terms and what they mean to really understand the novel. Once you get past the cursing and lingo, the book is excellent and has multiple themes. Mixed in the story of the future changes on our Earth are themes of teen love and death. Great to teach universal themes and cultural archetypes.

This book is a must for anyone concerned about the future of culture and society. Though set in the future, it is about the present: It shows the logical outcome of consumer capitalism, the takeover of the media by advertising and so-called entertainment, and of education by technocrats.