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Feed (Boston Globe-Horn Book Honors)
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Author: M. T. Anderson
List Price: $16.99
Our Price: Click to see the latest and low price
ISBN: 0763617261
Publisher: Candlewick Press (October, 2002)
Edition: School & Library Binding
Sales Rank: 25,076
Average Customer Rating: 4.03 out of 5
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Customer ReviewsRating: 1 out of 5
What was the point?
I read maybe 3 or 4 chapters of this book before I had to just admit defeat. The author had a very interesting idea but a very poor way of presenting it. He throws in words like 'unit', that are supposed to mean something but he fails to illustrate what that is. Also I think the '?' key on his computer/typewriter was stuck, for they seem to just be thrown in there for the hell of it. Nothing can be achieved by reading this book except wasted time and a decrease in intelligence.
Rating: 4 out of 5
Fictional science or future prediction?
M. T. Anderson has written a refreshing science fiction novel in a genre that has recently relied largely on fantasy and far less on science. He has created a not-to-distant future world where everything is accessed via a "feed" that is implanted directly into the brain. An internalized internet, the feed even allows for "chatting" so there is little need to speak if one chooses not to and true reading is nearly obsolete.While the narrator, Titus, lives in a world that is still identifiable to those of us in the 21st century - school (although it is trademarked), parties, music, driving, dancing, and drinking - there are also unfamiliar and extreme aspects like an electronic drug substitute, standardized lingo, disposable tables, and extreme consumerism. Even this tightly controlled future however, is peppered with resisters, and Titus' own girlfriend suffers horribly from her feed when it malfunctions due to a combination of having it implanted late in life (when she was 7) and being hit by a "hacker". Perhaps because it is a young adult novel, Anderson just barely skims the surface of the economic, political and environmental tensions of the feed and its consumer culture. He does not, however, wimp out in building believable, dimensional characters and relationships. Anderson has created an intriguing read about a world that is so close you may be reading about the first "feed" in the newspaper tomorrow.
Rating: 5 out of 5
WOW. Wish I could give it more than 5 stars.
I'd heard good things about this book, so I was willing to give it a try even though I was less than impressed with the same author's vampire novel, Thirsty. Feed, however, deserved all its buzz, plus more. This book is a piece of brilliance. In this dystopian novel, you'll hear echoes of Holden Caulfield, as well as bits of Minority Report and language worthy of writers like Douglas Coupland and Francesca Lia Block, but M.T. Anderson still creates a world that is at once unique and frighteningly familiar. The invented slang and the culture from which it has sprung are pitch-perfect, and the tone of the writing rides a fine line between absurdly funny and darkly horrifying. The futuristic world described in the book is exhausting, sickening, ridiculous, seductive and brokenly beautiful. The fact that it is, more or less, the world we live in today, makes this the most terrifying book I've read since Margaret Atwood's "The Handmaid's Tale." This book is for people who like to think and who are willing to examine their lives. Such people -- no matter how young they are -- will be able to handle the occasional curse word that pops up in the book. I couldn't put this book down. It's a fast read, and worth rereading. I felt the ending was a little "light" and disappointing, but the ride that gets you there is unique and unforgettable.
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