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: Fantastic Book
Review: Frankly, I'm floored by the mixed reviews this book is receiving from other readers. This is, hands down, the best young adult book I've read this year (and, being a YA author myself, I read almost everything). It is set in the future, but really about the present, a scathing indictment of a society that sees people primarily as consumers, thereby destroying almost everything that is honest and true. This is a disturbing, challenging book, but one that succeeds brilliantly both as satire and as a satisfying literary experience. The people who give the Michael Printz Award were nuts not to name this book as the winner. It deserves a place alongside THE GIVER and JULIE OF THE WOLVES as a young adult classic.
Rating: 
Summary: Amusing Ourselves to Death
Review: Going online to Amazon -- which, of course, tracked my previous purchases and suggested things that, yeah, I really *would* be interested in buying -- became a creepier experience than usual after reading this book. Anderson does what the best writers of dystopian fiction do: he takes elements of our world and distorts them only slightly; we recognize ourselves and where we're headed and see that our feet are already on the path. A sharp attack on the mindless purchasing of everything, Anderson's novel makes you want to unplug yourselves from your own Feed -- the television, the Internet, Ebay -- and go anywhere EXCEPT a mall. Frightening and chilling.
Rating:
Summary: This book was amazing
Review: I absolutely loved this book. In the beginning, I thought it to be a bit boring, but as I read through it, it became better and better. All the issues it dealt with are issues I really care about. This is a great book, and I definitely reccommend it.
Rating: 
Summary: Original idea, poor execution
Review: I applaud MT Anderson, the idea of the novel was very original and fascinating. The way he displayed the future was very thought provoking and disturbing. But, the characters, I thought, were SO shallow and annoying sometimes I couldn't stand it.
Plus, the way in which the book was written was sometimes impossible to understand. The book drags along with seemingly no point, and the ending was predictable. If you read this book, prepare to be disapointed.
Rating:
Summary: It was OK....
Review: I bought this book after reading the first chapter and I really had high hopes for it. Although it was interesting, expecially the feed, I felt like it wasn't finished. I was turned off by the ending, not because of the ::obvious event::, but because nothing happened. She's gone, so what? It didn't show how he was changed or anything...Though I really disliked the ending, it was an interesting book. If you don't have a thing about endings, read it.
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: good book
Review: I enjoyed reading the novel Feed, by M.T. Anderson very much. Reading this novel had many positive effects on me. It taught me to respect and care for your friends and family. It also taught me to appreciate what you have. This novel had many themes and overall was a very influential read. I learned much from this book while I enjoyed reading it.
The characters of the novel Feed were very interesting and realistic. While the novel was of the science fiction genre, I would say it could also belong to the realistic fiction genre. The characters deal with very life-like problems and were very believable. My favorite character was Titus, as he reminded me of myself. Our personalities were very much alike, having a sense of humor while being mature and intelligent. The author did an excellent job of creating the characters of the novel as they are just like you average, every-day teenagers. M.T. Anderson wrote this novel as if he, himself were one of the characters.
The novel Feed, was very interesting throughout. The author was able to maintain the reader's interest the whole time. Something exciting, interesting, or strange would happen at a dull moment sparking the reader's interest even more and making them want to turn to the next page. This novel was very intriguing as it is an extraordinary aspect on the future. Just the main idea of the novel will keep you reading because it allows the characters to do incredible things that we thought a computer was needed to do.
I learned much from reading this novel. I learned to respect and care for my friends and family and also to appreciate what I have. After reading this novel, I gained a new philosophical view on the future. I would recommend this novel to anyone who is curious about what the future may be like. This novel should be read by students in years to come. It is a very interesting and intriguing book. I learned much from and enjoyed this novel. It was a fantastic read.
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.
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