Feed

Rating:
Summary: not crazy about the book
Review: eh. it was alright... however the problem with this book is that the main character doesn't begin to feel real or show emotions untill the last few pages of the book. when its tough to care for a character or at least find somehting to identify with its tough to enjoy a book.

Rating:
Summary: Feed me more!
Review: Feed is an amazing roller coaster of laughter, tears, pain, joy, love and friendship. I found myself laughing out loud on more than one occasion and fighting back tears when it got rough. The writing style is nothing like I've ever seen and the slang used by the characters is witty and original. My friends and I find ourselves quoting the book almost unknowingly. (Coincidence? I think not...)

Feed displays the effect media has on us in a get-to-the-point style. It's scary how close to the truth this book is. Once you start reading this book, it's impossible to put down. Anderson's unique plot and awesome writing are sure to suck you in.

It was book love at first sight. Even the jacket is sending you a subtle message..."Pick me up, read me..." Feed became one of my favorite books immediatley, and I hope you enjoy it as much as I did.

Rating:
Summary: Average Teenagers In A Futuristic World
Review: Feed takes place in a future when cars can fly and advertising has been taken to a new level. Titus is a teen who, like everyone he knows, has a transmitter implanted in his brain. His friends and he communicate often without words by sending their thoughts over the transmitter. The government and advertising agencies can also transmit their messages over it at any given time. Titus and his friends like to party, but Titus' girlfriend, Violet, enjoys appreciating the world as it was before the feed. Violet also has fears. Her transmitter is malfunctioning. This is because it was put into her head when she was older than most people when they received it. Her body has not taken to it. Sometimes, she loses control of parts of her body. The government technicians tell her that they cannot fix the problem and that she may die. When Titus is out with his friends without Violet, she transmits to him a clip of her memory. She is lying alone in her house with the inability to move her legs. She has just received word that no corporate sponsor will sponsor her to partake in a program that might help her, and the computer called Nina asks if Violet would like to purchase any products today. The computer had just told Violet that corporate sponsors did not select her due to her poor purchasing record. Violet feels she is doomed and begs Titus to help her experience true life in a world where this concept is rapidly vanishing. This is an excellent book for teenagers that are seeking a novel that takes place in the future. The novel is essentially a teen-version of Atwood's The Handmaid's Tale or Orwell's 1984, and I believe it is one of the best existing novels for teens that incorporates these styles. Some plot points are simplistic, but teens will enjoy contemplating whether their country will ever evolve in the way shown in the book. Teens today delight in using instant messengers to communicate, and Anderson builds from this and other current teen trends to create somewhat-plausible ways that these popular devices will develop over time. The book contains elements of popular science fiction movies in terms of its political statements and eeriness. This captivating novel will instill in teenagers the importance of analyzing society rather than simply accepting it as it is presented to them.

-Allison Parham


Rating:
Summary: Feed: The Dim Future
Review: For anyone who has pondered the power and influence of consumerism, this novel shows how corporations and consumerism leads to a disturbing future. Feed is set in the future who almost everyone has the internet built into their heads. So every experience and every emotion is accompanied by screen from the feed trying to sell things to the people.
Titus, the narrator, begins the novel as a shallow, superficial teenager. He hangs out with a group of even more shallow and superficial friends, who are mostly concerned with fashion, which changes every day with the help of the feed. While this group is hanging out on the moon, they meet Violet. Violet is the opposite of Titus. She is aware of resistance movements in the world and isn't into the feed as much.

The story is really about Titus who doesn't really understand Violet until the very end of the book. They become a couple after an experience with a hacker on the moon. Violet's feed is not as good as everyone else's because her feed was installed late and so her "chip" doesn't fit as snugly as others. Her family was poor and couldn't afford it. Throughout the book, Violet takes him on a mental adventure, teaching him values that he doesn't quite understand. There are conflicts between Violet and Titus's friends. Consumerism is so powerful with the feed that anything can turn into a fashion. Because there is so much pollution, people have developed lesions, so the feed turns having lesions into a style. One of Titus's friends took it to an extreme and Violet found it repulsive. The conflict between his friends and Violet tears Titus apart. Violet doesn't recover from the hacking experience on the moon and slowly deteriorates. During this time, Titus because less and less attached to Violet. Only at the end of the book does Titus become aware of the dangers of consumerism and more aware of where Violet has been coming from.

I rate this book five out of five stars. It's my favorite book. The main reason is that the theme is very powerful today. Teenagers play right into corporations' profits. We buy and buy and buy without thinking of the consequences. It's a deep and important message. The future in this book is scary. The seas are dead, the earth is crowded, and the air is toxic. Corporations are in control. It makes you think.

I really enjoyed way it was written. It is in first person,. It's written in the language of a teenagers in the future. So instead of saying "hey man" he says "hey unit" and instead of saying "getting high" they say "going into mal" which means "malfunction" of the feed (which they do on purpose by going to a website). The whole book is written this way. Even though it's in the future, the writing style reminded me a real teenagers' talking.

This book is written creatively. It's catchy. And it is about important themes for teenagers.

Rating:
Summary: "Hatched, matched, and dispatched!"
Review: I did not want to read this book. I was absorbed into a heated debate about the book and before I knew it, much to my chigrin I agreed to read it. The first fifty minutes reading the book, I was about ready to scream; then, all of sudden "things" began to "click." I believe the purpose of the author to write in such a manner was to make the reader feel as if YOU had "the feed" implant and to "experience" the constant bombardment of the media, complete with "spam", going on -- in one's BRAIN.

If telephone automated customer assistance is an annoyance, imagine this transpiring in YOUR HEAD!
If you are disenchanted with "Alot of error messages,"(pg. 144) from an external machine, imagine this erupting in YOUR HEAD!
The author gives us a new "appreciation" to the meaning of the word "virus"-- T-H-E fatal plague: "death from overload"(pg. 118).

"Whatever" the timeframe of this book, if it were to happen, I would hope by then, swaring would become passe'! I too, was disgruntled by the rhetoric of four-letter words! Personally,
I subscribe to the belief that one should try to elevate one's audience, not lower ourselves to such base.

Big business, seems to have survived. "Gap tees (pg.22); "Nike" (page 22); Gatorade (Pg. 23); Muzak (pe. 101) and Dodge (pg. 101) are survivors.

Littered with adult "jokes" such as "Weatherbee & Crotch" (Abercrombie & Fitch); "neck bat- bowties" (pg. 21); Dead languages --
Fortran, Basic (pg. 54); "Kent State Collection of Riot Gear" (pg. 128); "Watts riot top" (131); and such verbage included "rusting brown in her brain..." (pg. 196); the bright genius depiction of speed crafted in the use of such words: "People were going by me in streaks of light." (pg.223); wording as " the salad days couldn't last forever" (pg. 56); "Natucket Sleighride" (pg. 221); and in retrospect, WHAT TEENAGER knows who (Nikola) Tesla is ( besides "the band")?...(I had to "look up" the ELOI reference to H.G. Wells "The Time Machine!"and I found "The ELOI, the descendants of the leisured classes, have become child-like androgynous creatures, weak and unable to fend for themselves. Their lives of leisure are enjoyed only at the cost of premature death...", therefore I noted the similarities) ... all of which is more directed for the baby boomer generation than the newbie pubescent target audience.

As a number of previous reviews indicate, the book could have been a bit shorter, the first foreshadowing appears on page 4-- "Old and empty the space is."

(Page 228) "We're the land of youth."
"It was like I kept buying these things to be cool, but cool was always flying ahead of me and I could never exactly catch up to it: "I felt like I'd been running toward it for a long time." and this statement summerizes this untrammeled society . Theres' is a throw-away world were "We American's, he said, 'are interested only in consumption of our products. We have no interest in how they were produced, or what happens to them...'what happens to them once we discard them, once we through them away.'"
Theres' is a world were people are discarded as if they were common refuse "I didn't throw her away."

The characters do worry of dying alone -- which most people fear: "Now I'm living. I have someone with me. I'm not alone. I'm living." (pg 212). "We come into this world alone. We do not want to leave it alone." (pg. 213.) Food for thought for today's generation.

The author instigates the Profound: 51.5: "There's always time. Until there's not."

I had a "love/hate" relationship with this book. It would be excellent material for a book discussion in a college literature course.

(Pg. 219) Thought (provoking) of Violet: "I thought of her lying without moving, but only thoughts, HER EYES WERE OPEN."
"And its' your time on Earth, I mean, your hundred years, that's all you have, so there you are..!" (pg. 95.)
Pg. 228 "Read it." "Will YOU ever open your eyes?" --this is an excellent question to pose to the careful reader!!!
Lastly it IS a didactic work, as indicated in the "preachy-teachiness of" -- we as a creation, QUICKLY need to get our "acts together". Another "stark reality" is the numbing reflections on: "The nothingness of death."(4.6), "sorrow... comes so cheap." (pg. 227);

If we do not heed the author's "warning", life depicted within the book may be "just around the corner!"
"the final 'sales event'"..."everything must go."

Rating:
Summary: Needin' the feedin'
Review: I give books a certain amount of credit if, after reading them, I find myself unduly influenced by their message in my daily life. Take "The Best Christmas Pageant Ever" for example. Read that book through and then try to watch a pageant on your own without remembering the book's fantastically written scenes. Good writing engenders creative thinking. So a large amount of cred should fall on M.T. Anderson's "Feed". Though it admittedly has a number of strikes against it, I challenge you to walk around a mall or watch television after reading every word of this beautifully thought out book cover to cover. If you don't, consequently, find yourself trapped in the eerie uber-consumerism of this modern day and age, then obviously you were only skimming this clever little novella. And I wouldn't be able to blame you. Anderson has undertaken a very difficult task. First of all, this kind of message has (to some extent) been done to death. Yes yes yes, the world is full of too much advertising and consumerism. Yes yes, it's bad. We know. Thank you. Second, he has placed his book in the future and has invented a kind of futuristic slang that, while interesting and consistent (Mr. Anderson never errs or disobeys his own rules) is nonetheless difficult to get into. Some readers are going to have difficulties dealing with people calling one another "unit" (an upgrade on our currently popular "dude") or saying things are "meg" this and "meg" that. It is meg annoying at first (see?), but keep at it. Read on and this brave little new world becomes incredibly interesting. Here, humans that can afford it are wired directly to the internet. Forget having the web on the brain. Now the web is IN your brain, controlling the human body's daily functions and activities.

Today, teens hungry for futuristic sci-fi can have their fill with such titles as "Jennifer Government", but I give this book, in particular, a lot more credit. The author takes this world to its obvious extreme, making a girl who is a poor consumer into a victim of corporate medical care (or in this case, poor tech support). More importantly, the author never loses sight of certain facts. Our hero is undoubtedly rich and his moneyed family allows him a greater amount of leeway with things like school trips and purchases. His poorer girlfriend suffers from living in a world where consumerism has been literally wired to the brain. It is this character that will readily point out that many Americans do not have access to "the feed", their name for the internal internet link. The poor are always with us. They just don't advertise their existence particularly well. This book is basically the adventures of a very average joe schmoe who doesn't really care for international strife (of which there is quite a lot) or anything particularly unpleasant (his girlfriend's physical collapse being an excellent example). And how different is this charming young man from most Americans today? His is a world where the feed, in Homer Simpson's words, "Isn't afraid to tell the truth. That everything's just fine". Parents please note, this book is chock full of swearing. If that bothers you, fine. But if it doesn't, I commend you. The book will make anyone reading it think. For that reason alone, I recommend it to anyone and everyone.

Rating:
Summary: Read the Book!!!
Review: I have read many books over my 17 years of life and I would have to say that Feed by M.T. Anderson is one that I would recommend to everyone.
I do not write reviews, so to write this on my own accord should show how powerful this book really is. I was literally blow away by it. This is the first time I have read a book by M.T. Anderson and was delightfully surprised by the emotions this book can cause.
It takes place in the future, how far away I am not sure, but still it brings to life teenage society to a very fine point. It is has first person narrative that was weird at first but one gets used to it fast.
At the end of the book there is a reader's guide and a conversation with the author which I found very helpful to understand where the auther is coming from and the weight that this book has to our every day life.
I will from now on look at advertising in a new light and beware of what it is truely trying to do.
I found it meg cool and ironically funny so...read it and understand why!!!

Rating:
Summary: From Ignorant to Aware
Review: I read this book on a recommendation from a fellow librarian in my library. I didn't think I'd like the book, based on what I had read in the inside cover. But, when I opened the book, I was immediately drawn into a disturbing tale of a future I don't think that I want.

Basically, almost everyone has "feeds" installed directly into their brains, which run constant ads and marketing campaigns, as well as performing other functions. Most people find it to be a way of life, except for one girl, whose "feed" begins to malfunction shortly after she meets this boy.

I don't want to give away too much, and I'm afraid I'm not giving away enough, but I hope it's enough for me to say that I got chills up and down my spine at the thought of becoming like these kids in the future. Technology is fine up to a point, but I draw the line at letting anyone into my brain like that.

Trust me. It's a chilling read.

Rating:
Summary: WOW. Wish I could give it more than 5 stars.
Review: 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.

Rating:
Summary: Sci Fi fans beware
Review: If you like Science Fiction, you will not like this book. While the concepts are extremely thought provoking, the story line lacks. I bought what I thought was going to be a Sci-Fi satire. What I got was a bad teen romance tragedy with all the works, and some futurist anti-corporation propaganda wrapped in.

All in all, if you like tragic romance novels that have horrible endings, and your a slave to the commercial world, you'll not only find this book entertaining, but also eye opening. For the rest of us who have brains, we got the message ten pages into it. Yeah, they're being controlled, yeah they've lost all sense of language, yeah that are uneducated, yeah, yeah, yeah...I get it already. Oh, and for thrills, when you finally do get into the characters and start to somewhat care about them, you get a kick in the gut... Twice! First off, they almost flat out tell you the ending. I mean I could have almost drawn a map. Second, this "satire" becomes all too dramatic when you find out one of the main characters is terminally ill.

My advice? If you want to get the gists of this book and the message, buy it, read half of it, and find some other poor sap who may want it. I do agree it doesn't belong in schools, only because the language is atrocious, so parents use your best judgment. Sci-Fi readers...just read the last novel you liked again.