Feed by M.T. Anderson - Reviews, Discussion, Bookclubs, Lists

Jun 03, 2011 Greg rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: books-for-kids, life-is-shit, sf-fantasy-and-other-dorky-shit

In lieu of a review here is a rant inspired by Feed, using actual examples from real-life teens to illustrate the possible retardation of our culture and language. Enjoy.

This is a discussion from the Emo Girls/Boys r HOT!! group on Goodreads. I wanted to see what our youth really talk like. I figured I'd get them at their best, discussing politics. Here's a sampling:

I"M BLACK BITCH!! i'd b racest against ME!! no....Obama is just a fag...plain & simple!!

ill bakk out right now... BYEZZZ

sorry...more

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Meredith Black I don't approve of your generalization toward the teenager. Sure, there are utter morons, but there are stupid adults as well. I know many well-spoken...more
Mar 16, 2013 07:42am

Daniella As a thirteen year old, maybe I should take offense by all the comments about people feeling sorry for my generation. But reading this book...I honest...more As a thirteen year old, maybe I should take offense by all the comments about people feeling sorry for my generation. But reading this book...I honestly don't understand since I've read quite a few dystopian worlds that show people in an extreme version of our society now, but I feel terrible about all the time I spend doing unproductive activities: Facebook, Instagram, being obsessed with TV shows, etc. The thing is, though, I don't do these things nearly as often as everyone else is. I was probably the last person in my school to learn the cup song from Pitch Perfect, the last one to know about the Taylor Swift/Harry Styles breakup, the last one to try (emphasis on the word "try") watching Dance Moms...all because I don't care about these things at all. I find them rather mundane and not really worth my time (with the exception of Pitch Perfect as a whole - while the cups song has gotten annoying, it's really funny). Reading about Titus's friends being obsessed with that reality show, the damage of the "lesions," and all of those scenes where they seem to have extremely low intelligence levels, especially at their parties, just makes me want to never be like them. I'll never get a tattoo; I'll never party while in high school (maybe in college just for the experience); I'll make a pact to always write out all of my words in correct grammar, even while texting. I'm already that weird girl; I might as well be even weirder and keep away from things like that if it will help me in the long run. I'll be my school's Violet, so to speak.
I guess this goes to show that you really do learn from books. This book has changed my entire perspective on how to see this world today...and I'll always remember it and keep it in mind. Next up: War of the Worlds. Then re-reading The Hunger Games. And then off to the library tomorrow to pick up The Time Machine as well; I want to know what the eloi are. This is all in one night, just to let you know...I have no life.
And that ending....I was in a mess. What do you guys think Titus did after Violet *SPOILER ALERT* dies and the final advertisement comes up. Everything must go....Everything must go....Everything must go....so eerie and fitting for the ending. But the ending! WHAT DOES TITUS DO?? Does he rebel or something? However, I have a feeling that I would hate the book if it told me what happened and just turned into one of those "fighting against the government in a dystopian world" books. I feel like I've read too many of those and I loved the variety of the ending. It made you try to figure it out for yourself. Personally, I find it interesting for Titus to discover all of Violet's books and read from them, learn from them...and then find out a way to hack into the feed with one of the hackers from the beginning of the novel, and distribute the information he learned to everyone in the country with the feed. It would show that Titus learned from his mistakes with Violet and put it to good use. *END SPOILER ALERT* For those of you who've read The Fault In Our Stars by John Green (which I highly recommend), this book gives me in the same feeling/the same way that Hazel feels for An Imperial Affliction. I connected to this book on levels that most people wouldn't understand, and it just might become one of my favorite books of all time.
So this comment might be way too long to be a comment...I'll just add in a few more things later and turn it into an actual review.(less)
Mar 28, 2013 06:45pm

Mar 20, 2011 Flannery rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: audiobooks, swords-and-lasers, kcls, young-adult-teen, liked-listening-prob-hate-reading, read-in-2011, ya-space-quest-o-mine, reviewed-2011

While I’m sitting here writing this review, a Seattle Groupon advertisement is trying to get me to buy nachos with some amazingly tasty-looking picture in my sidebar. Now I really want some nachos. I just turned on the television and the advertisements while I’m perusing the OnDemand selections (because who can be bothered to watch television in real time these days?) made me want to watch The Fighter again. But I’m not going to! (I’m going to watch Clueless, duh) My mom told me today that Bath...more While I’m sitting here writing this review, a Seattle Groupon advertisement is trying to get me to buy nachos with some amazingly tasty-looking picture in my sidebar. Now I really want some nachos. I just turned on the television and the advertisements while I’m perusing the OnDemand selections (because who can be bothered to watch television in real time these days?) made me want to watch The Fighter again. But I’m not going to! (I’m going to watch Clueless, duh) My mom told me today that Bath & Body Works is bringing back Copa Cabana scented lotion so I just bought lots of it online. (It was Buy 3, get 2 free!! OMGZZ!) We are sick. Our entire consumer-based society makes me ill but I am a willing participant in a lot of it.

This book is set in a (plausible?) future wherein our consumer desires have taken over. Corporations rule the roost, run the schools, and implant wetware into humans so people can research online without having to do any work, receive targeted ads and shop 24/7, and chat their friends without, you know, having to move their lips. There isn’t an incentive to learn anything because your feed can just tell you what you need to know. It’s soooo MEG! Titus and his friends do all sorts of unit things like frag around in clubs on the moon, wear whatever the hip new style of clothing is (I actually laughed out loud at the conversation about the geriatric chic clothing—canes, walkers, muumuus—and the riotware—the “Kent State Collection”), and go mal (malfunction) which is the equivalent of getting f*&ked up. No one seems to give a second thought to the system they are a part of--save a few people. Titus meets Violet on the shuttle to the moon and she got her feed later than most. Because her parents are academics she still has a lot of experience reading actual books, speaking (in the air as opposed to chatspeak), and philosophizing. She, arguably foolishly, tries to get Titus and his friends to actually think about what their consumptive lifestyle means in the larger scale of things. It was frustrating to listen to his friends let her inquiries about their knowledge of worldwide riots, mass killings, deforestation, etc. just slide off them—they just called her pretentious and said she was on the lookout for any sign of the decline of civilization. Sigh.

This aspect of the book, actually thinking about the effects of disposable culture and (over)consumption really struck home for me. I am fascinated by attempts to create closed-loop manufacturing systems. (ideally, a circle from raw materials through to end product in which little to nothing is wasted and byproducts may be used rather than disposed of) and the entire seven generation sustainability concept. (making our ecological decisions based on their effect seven generations ahead). But do I get ecstatic thinking about new video games coming out? Yes, I totally do. Can our individual environmental choices actually effectively change anything? Is our only choice to either watch our entire world deplete its resources at a disgusting rate or overthrow it all and start anew? Even at the end of this book, though it ends on a semi-hopeful note, I was still depressed. The types of people who would probably benefit the most from reading a satire like this will never read it.

While I feel like this book was successful at making me think a lot about our current society and its possible devolution into something even more corporate than it already is, I don’t know if this book is as successful as it could’ve been. I thought Unwind was so fascinating because it brought up tons of societal issues while still having an engaging plot. Here, I was only passively interested in what was going on in the story. Which brings me to the audiobook—awesome. The audiobook is narrated by one man but the feed portions are actually done by a cast and it sounds completely real. You hear all sorts of crazy commercials and advertisements just like you are actually experiencing the feed. I really don’t think I would’ve enjoyed this one as much in book form—maybe 3 stars—but the audiobook popped it up to a 4.
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Apr 10, 2013 Sam rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Recommended to Sam by: Maggie Stiefvater

Shelves: science-fiction, sci-fi-favourites, romance, other, other-favourites

“The natural world is so adaptable... So adaptable you wonder what's natural.”

Feed, to put it simply, is disturbing. This book gives us an almost apathetic look into an entirely conceivable future – a future where technology is everything and corporations own as much as the schools and clouds. Though, first and foremost, this is a book about a teenager. This is a book about Titus, a boy linked to the Feed, and his group of friends as they travel to the moon to have fun. But the moon turned out...more

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Oct 19, 2010 karen rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: mark-harmon, dysto-teque, and-so-this-is-grad-school

oops, i accidentally liked this book. i swear it was unintentional. i was all set to hate it, especially after greg's review (which to be fair, was less about hating the book and more about hating the people this book might be hoping to educate) the wariness i had about it being in kidcode teenspeak was unnecessary - it was like reading clockwork orange or irvine welsh or anything else in dialect. i thought it was going to be written in contemporary teentalk, which is retarded, but if it's made-...more

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Apr 07, 2008 Meghan rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: ya

Here's a fact: I don't like futuristic satire. I mean. It's always blah blah blah corporate this and blah blah blah takeover that and people are dumber and machines are everywhere and School (tm) and it all just feels to me like a line of cheap jokes being lobbed at basically what amounts to a society = wet paper towels, like, it doesn't take that much to punch through our faces anymore. And all of that stuff is in Feed, so, really the two of us were up against a wall together and one of us was...more

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Jun 09, 2010 Annalisa rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition Recommends it for: rated for language

Shelves: young-adult, sci-fi, speculative, dystopia, cover

I started this book over a week ago and only got through the first page before all the "likes" turned me off. I took a break, read a few other books, and tried again. This time I got through two chapters before I closed the book and took a breath.
"I can't do this," I told myself. "I hate books that overuse our obnoxious vernacular. And the made-up words are annoying and stupid. I much preferred the made-up slang in A Clockwork Orange."
"So you're going to punish Anderson for using slang that is m...more I started this book over a week ago and only got through the first page before all the "likes" turned me off. I took a break, read a few other books, and tried again. This time I got through two chapters before I closed the book and took a breath.
"I can't do this," I told myself. "I hate books that overuse our obnoxious vernacular. And the made-up words are annoying and stupid. I much preferred the made-up slang in A Clockwork Orange."
"So you're going to punish Anderson for using slang that is more realistic? You're going to punish him for making you uncomfortable with the world the way it is, for yourself because you know you use that word, like it or not."
"Okay," I told the stupid analytic part of my brain. "If you'll just like shut up. I'll keep reading."
And that is how I ended up reading this book.

And it did make me uncomfortable. It's everything obnoxious about our media-frenzied, frantic-paced, impulse-driven, uneducated-praising society exemplified megawatt. In Anderson's world people are hardwired into corporate feeds that advertise to them according to what they're thinking, feeling, saying, looking at, etc. They chat with each other, watch shows, check the internet, invade each other's privacy, all within their bodies. Schools have quit teaching them facts because all that's accessible at the push of a button-no simpler than that, with nothing more than a thought. All their interactions are interrupted by this internal conversation/shopping/distraction. Through a combination of advertising and ignorance these shallow people don't care that the feeds are destroying them after they've destroyed the world where they continue to live in vertically stacked suburbs with fake air and fake sun and fake food. And they all (adults included) speak in that valley-girl like/dude hollowness, only their words are mega and unit and still plenty of like and f words.

I picked up this book weeks after my disenchantment with facebook over the debacle on targeting advertising for us. I can see spelling and vocabulary plummeting in this text-typing generation and the interruption of technology into every moment of our lives. I fear for the laziness in education when information is at our fingertips. I can fathom technology being introduced where electronic devices are implanted so kids (okay me too) stop breaking them and losing them. I don't think we're that far off from biological computers. I can see the pitfalls of our society heading in something akin to this direction and it's disturbing. No more jokes from me about my surgically implanted cellphone. But those "likes" are too ingrained. I just have to keep kicking myself mentally whenever one slips out.

ETA: I've been thinking about this book ever since I read it. I can't stop thinking about it. For all the dystopias I've been reading, I'm amazed that Anderson's world could discomfort me this much. And I've been thinking about his main character. While reading it, I was often disappointed with his choices, but now I think he was the perfect embodiment of this shallow world. I loved that Anderson offers no judgment or solution, just shows us this world with all its many flaws and lets it creep under your skin and make you uncomfortable with where the world is headed. M.T. Anderson is amazing. I look forward to reading his other books.(less)

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May 12, 2011 Architeuthis rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: 2000s, goodest-reads-2011-a-sad-year, fiction-that-speculates

You could be eating Taco Bell tacos right now! In fact, there's a Taco Bell nearby calling your name!

description

Just think of that taste as the steaming beef-like substance hits your tongue, with Taco Bell's savory blend of spices all ready to give you MOUTHGASM! With a side of those cinnamon twists, and a big, plastic quart of a dark, sugary substance, you're ready to have a tasty tasty meal! And you've earned it! Perhaps you should consider buying some when you finish reading this review!

Because this re...more

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Jun 19, 2007 Haboism rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition Recommends it for: the jaded

Shelves: something

Feed is dark, satirical and surprisingly funny. Don't be fooled by the blurb, which makes it out to be post-apocalyptic horridness. In a sense, it is, but not in the way the blurb makes it sound.

The story is about Titus and Violet, and the Feed - an internet connection implanted in the brain at birth. Titus, the narrator, is as ineloquent and bizarre as the rest of the world, and yet his narrative is startlingly deep and pretty; but not half as deep and pretty as Violet, who is a wonderful heroi...more

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Jul 12, 2007 Bloodanna rated it 2 of 5 stars · review of another edition

While I did end up liking this book I was very close to banishing it to the back of my bookshelf.
This book is one that I found hard to get into, the beginning is slow and slightly tedious with the slang and the "Like, totally, man" quality of the narrators speech, it wasn't 'til about page 48 that I really started getting into it and even then it (in my opinion) wasn't very well-done. It seemed at times like the author was trying too hard to get his point across/to make you see the satire that i...more

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Jun 18, 2012 Tatiana rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Recommended to Tatiana by: Catie

Shelves: ya, national-book-award, 2012, dystopias-post-apocalyptic

As seen on The Readventurer

I might feel uncertain if I actually liked Feed or not, but one thing I know for sure - the audio version of it is excellent. The book itself is unique because of its narrator - a teen in a future with a device in his head that directly connects him to the internet. Titus, who is constantly fed a cocktail of advertising, entertainment and targeted info, has an almost atrophied brain, he lacks in basic knowledge of speech or reading, because why bother if all communicat...more As seen on The Readventurer

I might feel uncertain if I actually liked Feed or not, but one thing I know for sure - the audio version of it is excellent. The book itself is unique because of its narrator - a teen in a future with a device in his head that directly connects him to the internet. Titus, who is constantly fed a cocktail of advertising, entertainment and targeted info, has an almost atrophied brain, he lacks in basic knowledge of speech or reading, because why bother if all communication can be done through the Feed? His "voice" is highly stylized and peppered with "likes," "dudes," "fucks" and "dadadas." This voice can be annoying at times, but the audio truly brings it, as well as the Feed - a constant stream of information - ads, news, chats, whathaveyou, to live.

But other than the high quality of the audio production, Feed didn't really impress me.

For one, I guess Feed failed to properly scare me. You see, even though I am not a particularly tech savvy person, I am sooo far from lamenting the advancement of technology and the "loss of humanity" that comes with it. Yes, yes, Feed draws from present day culture of teens and tweens tweeting and texting in never ending OMGs and LOLs, but I am still not concerned. Somehow, these ignorant pubescents manage to grow up and become functioning members of society and in fact are often at an advantage in our Twitter and Facebook-driven world.

People have been predicting the end of the world due to technological or cultural changes since the dawn of days. Burn those astronomers and scientists! Don't let them women go to school and vote! Nobody writes letters a la Jane Eyre any more! Those telephones are EVIL! EBOOKS will ruin literature the way we know it! Every time there is a change in technology or culture, someone is crying apocalypse.

You know what? I am not scared of the changes. People evolve, communications evolve, and life goes on. Will there be time when internet is directly plugged into our brains? When we communicate mostly electronically? Maybe. So what? I am already plugged into my iPod/laptop/cable a significant amount of time. Would I be better off spending more time outside planting potatoes, picking cotton, turning over hay, grinding flour? You tell me.

In addition to the Feed concerns, there is another layer of the novel where human population seems to be decaying, physically, with people developing lesions on their skin and the planet being destroyed, but that's a completely different story. All of that doesn't seem to be attributed to the evils of the Feed. Just carelessness of people. I am not even sure why Anderson put it into the story, without significantly connecting it to the rest. Was it all supposed to be a treatise against American over-consumerized culture, the cause of everything bad in the world? This side dish of social commentary wasn't flavored enough for my taste.

To me, Feed read a bit dated and a bit young. In spite of massive cursing and sexual content, the book's message is delivered in a simple and obvious way. But that's a normal thing. After all, this YA novel is over 10 years old and lost some of its bite.

I enjoyed the novel's "voice" (thanks to the fabulous audio), but did it provoke any thoughts or emotions in me? Not really. The highly satirized and stylized narrative might be at fault here. Satire doesn't work for me usually. Making a joke out of serious issues doesn't compel me to cheer for the cause, no matter how legit it is.(less)

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May 20, 2011 Gavin rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: sci-fi

When I read the jacket blurb about this book I knew I was going to have a fun time with this story. Add to the fact that Anderson admits being influenced by none other than Mr. Thomas Pynchon, and this book had serious potential. (I have serious man crush on Pynchon, which is really gross if I stop to think about it. But I digress.)

And then I read the first page.

Okay, I understand the need to get a voice of a character and to tell a story in that voice, if applicable. But this voice was atroci...more

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Sep 05, 2011 Shawn Sorensen rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: fiction

If this is how the world is going to end up, we need to divert all of our attention to space travel. We need to find a planet where we're not top dog, where our benevolent superiors make us behave, make creativity more important than creature comforts.

Alas - 'Feed' does not quite get us there. It's the reason we need to get there.

I can certainly see a time when we have chips in our head that stimulate our every sense and advertise non-stop. Technology keeps our strict hierarchies intact. When e...more If this is how the world is going to end up, we need to divert all of our attention to space travel. We need to find a planet where we're not top dog, where our benevolent superiors make us behave, make creativity more important than creature comforts.

Alas - 'Feed' does not quite get us there. It's the reason we need to get there.

I can certainly see a time when we have chips in our head that stimulate our every sense and advertise non-stop. Technology keeps our strict hierarchies intact. When everyone has the feed then everyone can be numbed and manipulated, even more so than television today.

Of the two main characters here, Violet is the one coming from thoughtful parents who resisted the feed for themselves and for their daughter. When they sense that they'd be holding back the daughters chance for success, they let a cheap feed be installed when she is seven. She's too developed by then, too aware. In her teen years she tries to resist all the advertising - but by doing so, she jeopardizes her life. The gigantic corporations that rule the media/world won't assist a person who doesn't constantly consume.

Then there's Titus, a champion consumer. He's a tad bit more aware that his friends, but still a dolt. I think he's even more self-absorbed than I was as a teen. He gets upset, which means he buys a lot. You can't see the people you're really empowering while shopping at the catalog website our world is becoming. Violet pins all her hopes on Titus and is let down in heartbreaking fashion. That Titus can't handle her demise but is still the main character is at the heart of why this book works. It's not the feed, placing us in the middle of a daisy field feeling Zestfully clean - the characters stay authentic to the bitter, lesion-infested end.

'Feed' spends most of the time developing this world, showing how lackadaisical everyone becomes. When the U.S. starts losing a war, nobody cares. We're easy prey. We can't see the forest for the trees because there are no trees left. Still, it's very much a teen book, focusing on Violet and Titus's time together instead of placing them in more globalized action. It could have been moodier, or with it's focus more intentionally tied down to nobody caring anymore. The books purpose is to create this world, trying its best to get in all the correct lingo, trying to make the current version of us get up and stimulate our senses on our own. It's not too late for a lot of things if we decide they're real. (less)

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Dec 30, 2010 Kristy rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

It must be the week for me to be reading weird books... first "Unwind" and now this....
I'm straddling the proverbial fence on this bad boy:
On the positive hand,
1.It was a unique story
But
Sometimes different doesn't equal good.
2. The story itself was interesting
but
the writing sucked and it was "MEG" hard to get into
3. It was a cool take on how technology can be beneficial, but in extreme quantities we are actually worse off, to the point it makes our mind numb
But
it could have been executed so mu...more

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Sep 09, 2011 Kristin rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: read-in-2009

This is a strange, twisted novel about how fucked up our future could be... there are no more computers, no more books, no more hands-on information... everything is downloaded right into your head... the feed.

"I don't know when they first had feeds. Like, maybe, fifty or a hundred years ago. Before that they had to use their hands and eyes. Computers were all outside the body. They carried them around outside of them, in their hands, like if you carried your lungs in a briefcase and opened it...more

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Apr 13, 2009 Mykle rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

When I was sixteen, I caught an early matinee of The Man Who Fell To Earth. I was hungover after a night of serious teenage drinking, and that film made me decide to go straight-edge for the rest of my youth. It was such a cutting story, a hero's journey derailed by substance abuse, and it hit me at exactly the right moment.

Having just finished Feed by M. T. Anderson, I'm now wondering if I ought to pitch this whole Internet thing overboard as well. Put it down and run away screaming.

Feed reads...more

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May 25, 2008 Yosafbridg rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Titus’s world is so fast-paced that the girls must dash off to the bathroom, not only to touch-up their make-up, but also to change their hairstyles, just to stay current with the latest fashions. M.T. Anderson has envisioned a commercialized future in which the corporate world truly controls everything, including things like the (no-longer-quite) public education in School™ (indicated by the trademark symbol~they took over once the government could no longer afford or control it) and the enviro...more Titus’s world is so fast-paced that the girls must dash off to the bathroom, not only to touch-up their make-up, but also to change their hairstyles, just to stay current with the latest fashions. M.T. Anderson has envisioned a commercialized future in which the corporate world truly controls everything, including things like the (no-longer-quite) public education in School™ (indicated by the trademark symbol~they took over once the government could no longer afford or control it) and the environmental-like special effects such as Clouds™ (necessary once most of the true environment was destroyed). These corporations also control America’s citizenry, not through any type of “Big Brother” oversight, but through almost more insidious means: direct computer Feed.
At birth the majority of the American population (about 73%~basically the ones who can afford it, but they are the only ones who really count in this marketing culture) have a transmitter chip implanted directly in their brain. Through this transmitter they can receive (and transmit back) everything: the latest new music, fashion, entertainment in all its current forms, they can instant chat their friends and family, buy and track items from all over the world, anything their little hearts and minds desire. The feedcast also allows corporations to market directly to the population, to instantly collect ALL their demographic information and to TELL them exactly what their little hearts and minds desire (perhaps before they are even aware of it themselves), and how, when, and where to get it and at what price. Right Now!
The illiteracy of the population is demonstrated, not only through Titus’ first person narration (a voice which Anderson captures perfectly) but also by the name of one of the most popular feedcasts: Oh! Wow! Thing! News of what is actually happening in the world, politically, environmentally, culturally is of no real matter to most people as they are too obsessed with what they can buy and how it makes them look to others. Even things like the lesions beginning to affect everyone become a fashion statement rather than a health concern.
Then Titus meets Violet, a girl who dares to think differently and he doesn’t know quite what to do. All does not end well. This young adult novel is seriously dark, with a wonderful ironic tone, and it might just accomplish the feat of making the teen reader think of the implications of rampant consumerism.
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Mar 31, 2008 Karyn rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here. The thing about this book is that I read it five years ago (as an advance copy,) and I still think about it today.

This is what Brenna said about it at age 15:
"WOW. This book was amazing. I don't know how M.T. Anderson thought of all this. Everything in the book was so creative. The feeds, upcars, going in mal, lesions and all the weird slang. Feed was sad, funny, weird and really scary. I will be thinking about it for a long time."

This is what my brother wrote about it at age 12:
"Feed was...inte...more

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Dec 18, 2007 Patrick Richardson rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

First and Foremost, this book should be read by adults. It is great for young adults, in fact vital, but for adults it is also extremely important to read. The reason it is considered a young adult book is that in order to accurately portray the world correctly it is in a lingo that young adults would use and that adults would be too arrogant to want to read. Get over the vernacular and read it, the necessity of teen-speak should become apparent as you read.

This book provides a realistic world (...more

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Aug 28, 2008 Jackie "the Librarian" rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition Recommends it for: fans of dark dystopian romances

Shelves: awardwinners, sciencefiction, teen-books-adults-can-enjoy, youngadult

It's the future, the internet is beamed directly into your head, people live in domes because the air and water outside is so polluted, people are getting lesions on their skin and their hair is falling out, and all anyone thinks about is amusing their jaded selves and buying stuff. But don't bother visiting the moon, 'cause it's totally lame.

The one exception is Violet, but she was homeschooled, so she's pretty weird. But Titus kind of likes her anyway. Too bad her feed got so fried.

Anderson c...more

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Dec 22, 2008 Osho rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: 2008

Dystopian cyberpunk for teens. This is the first of Anderson's I've read and it disposes me to read more (which is good, since I bought it in order to see if I wanted to take on his The Astonishing Life of Octavian Nothing, Traitor to the Nation, Volume One: The Pox Party). Anderson captures teenspeak, sometimes excruciatingly so, and teen preoccupations. This is a cautionary tale about capitalism, consumerism, the environment, and technology. It is not a typical teen novel and its ending is als...more

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Nov 15, 2011 Kevin rated it 1 of 5 stars · review of another edition

I hated this book. I felt patronized and belittled by his futile attempt to relate with me. This book has no content and the English was horrendous. My head started to hurt about half a page through. I am accustomed to reading books that have meaning and structured grammar. I don’t spend my time on Young Adult novels because I can’t relate to them. Feed did exactly that. It ostracized me. It is by far the worst book I have ever read. I really wish that I could have quit after the first chapter....more

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Ms. Peil Kevin,
I'm sorry to hear that you felt that Anderson was patronizing you as a reader. I don’t think he had any intention of doing this; satire often of...more Kevin,
I'm sorry to hear that you felt that Anderson was patronizing you as a reader. I don’t think he had any intention of doing this; satire often offends readers because of the author’s plan to point out faults in society using tools like sarcasm and irony. Wasn’t the horrendous English Anderson’s point? He didn’t use the language in this way because he doesn’t understand the standard rules of our language. He wrote this dialect to make his point about where humanity may end up if we continue down the current path (as he saw it in 2001 when he wrote the book). As for Feed being a YA novel, it is identified by Anderson as a book for teens and adults. If possible, don’t discount YA lit that is put into the category by a publisher but not the writer (this happened to the Harry Potter series also even though Rowling did not write the books strictly for young adults). Anderson’s commentary on his novel may be of interest to you. Here is an excerpt:
“I don’t think this would have been an interesting book to write (or to read) if I had only hated the hyper-marketed world I describe. For me, the key to the discomfort is how much I love some of it, how much I still do want to be slick like the people on the tube, beautiful, laughing, surrounded by friends. And how much I legitimately do think that the technology-based information resources at our command now are incredible (things like Project Gutenberg, the Internet Archive, instant music and movie downloads, even the much-maligned Wikipedia). These are tools for an amazing new intellectual understanding of the world, though they come with strings attached. Think about the way technological progress over the last twenty years has revolutionized the artistic possibilities in film, or the scientific processes of medical experimentation – or almost any field. We have at our fingertips knowledge and power like no other generation before us, and that’s intoxicating. I am no Luddite. And this would not have been an effective satire, in my opinion, if I hadn’t also been seduced by what I was mocking. It is the anguish of indecision that animates it. This is indeed a brave new world, but there is a cost.”
http://mt-anderson.com/blog/his-books...(less)
Nov 09, 2011 08:13am

Yvonne I completely agree with Kevin.
If this is satire, it's not done very well.
Jan 31, 2013 01:11am

Nov 27, 2012 Chy rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Like, it's not really five stars, okay? Like one major thing was meg cool and the other was meg emote, you know? But they didn't really mesh up together in the best way.

Okay, so like--yeah. Like, the satire, and the, like, writing style that should have gotten on my nerves but didn't because it was satire---that was like...like, whoa, unit. You know? And some of the lines and such were just, like, funny and still a statement. Like how even the parents and president talked like...I'm doing right...more

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May 03, 2011 Liz rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: 2011-reads, young-adult, sci-fi-fantasy

I gave this book three stars more for the world than for the story. I think that both the storyline and the world could have used some more development. The world however, is almost like a scary preview.

Almost everyone has the "Feed" inserted as a small child (perhaps as a baby?). Through the feed they can search dictionaries, encyclopedias and gather information. The feed is also a source of online shopping and constant "pop-up" adds. The feed learns what an individual is interested in and tail...more

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Dec 23, 2012 Mike rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

I began reading Feed only several days after the Newtown shootings. The tragedy at Newtown managed to push the envelope farther with ammunitions-related atrocities by once again reducing the lower bound age of massacre victims. It is difficult to cope with the slaughter of innocent people, and for most it's harder to surpass the innocence embodied by little children.

My emotions about the tragedy were immediately swept away from the valuable reflections, however, into the evaluation of other peo...more I began reading Feed only several days after the Newtown shootings. The tragedy at Newtown managed to push the envelope farther with ammunitions-related atrocities by once again reducing the lower bound age of massacre victims. It is difficult to cope with the slaughter of innocent people, and for most it's harder to surpass the innocence embodied by little children.

My emotions about the tragedy were immediately swept away from the valuable reflections, however, into the evaluation of other people's reactions to the tragedy. It was immensely important to stay emotionally involved in a primary fashion: directing grief, sorrow, and abject confusion to the muddled and potentially rationale-absent massacre. The reflections it spurned in me were, in the moment, biting and compelling. I remembered thinking to myself that, once again, we find ourselves trading out tangible lives to intangible ideas like rights and liberties. Rights are not God-given, vary from country to country and often from state to state; they are arbitrarily bartered and exchanged from one invasion to another instillation of democracy; they are almost the currency by which international sham democracies operate. But still: the discussion became an economical one about the cost-benefit trade-off of human life and the preservation of a constitutional right. It recalled Leonard Cohen's "Story of Isaac," and the biblical story in general. A generation of convicted fathers holding the hatchet over the altar on which they place their sons, once again sacrificing to a purportedly greater good. Only this time it was to preserve the right to bear arms rather than illuminate the awe of God's Word. The cogent epiphany was that it is not so far off from the truth in this country that we shovel our children into the furnaces that heat the wealthy's vacation homes. For all intents and purposes it is an intensely dark yet fitting allegory. Millions of children in America reside in food-unstable homes, tens of thousands died primarily because of inaccessibility of insurance, and millions are homeless. This is a nation that has embedded into it a systemic psychopathy; this is a system wherein the neglect and eventual termination of youthful life is a championed off-shoot of the current system. The "free market," in the most generous and wrongful co-optation of the word.

But alas the communication of these words are put forth within the context of the ever-present bile-and-scorn that is Internet opining. Facebook feeds, tweets, spam, chain e-mails, blogs and memes shared their mourning and theorized on the true cause of this tragedy. My anger and frustration, then, was re-directed to the onslaught, the media blitz, and the endless trolling and mindless, agenda-pushing status updates where people pushed their thoughts and feelings to unknown ends to an unseen witness. In The Art of Cruelty, Maggie Nelson bemoans this simple tragedy: in order for human beings to cut through what they see as a miles-high torrent of bullshit and hootenanny in the national discourse (or even the state of art), they must create. Their only defense against that which has seemed so relentlessly created is to create further. It happens to the point where a viable audience is not crucial to the transaction: one 140-character message is shot into the abyss, predicated on blind faith that someone else may respond.

No one responds. The Kony viral video was a broad, failed attempt to mobilize the world toward a goal. Despite the campaigning, the video, the support and the desperate need to disperse awareness, none of it actually translated into viable action. I saw no Kony stickers of any sort, any merchandise, or anything of the sort on the designated day.

Seeing this all within the context of Feed, Feed takes on a different shape: yes, it does, and can, read like a funny and biting satire, but at the same time was a timely and seethingly bitter indictment of modern complacency. The novel's protagonist cannot handle the steady accrual of harsh realities that Violet exemplifies, so he crawls into a bubble and essentially ignores her tragic descent. It is immensely easy for him to turn away from her and stay sheltered and deluded. The Huffington Post tried with the "How You Can Actually Help the Sandy Hook Victims' Families" post, which I'm sure was spread about like wildfire such that its readers and seekers can pass the baton of responsibility elsewhere. We are all information managers, and as managers, we blindly delegate instead of taking due initiative. I am doing this right now.

Feed is an alarmingly convincing story about the collapse of empathy. It hints at a very well-drawn futuristic world, but not in a world-building, braggart way by which some authors indulge their achievements. The vivid minutiae are given briefly, inserted without contrivance, and explained only in crucial ways so as to stay within the things that deal with the protagonist. Aside from the things that are easy and worth appreciating - the invented slang, the satire, and its fear of the Filter Bubble - it is also a good reminder of how corporate engineers market the Internet consumer's experience of what information is true or not. Our tastes, preferences, and eventually needs are tailored and trimmed by involuntarily feeding different companies (e.g. Netflix, Last.fm, Google) inputs by which they can keep providing us the same things over and over. They keep us within a tunnel-vision-laden circle of confirmation bias to keep us just isolated enough to keep spending more time on their web pages.

Feed is political, sharp, and immensely important. At the very least, liberate yourself from the invasion of privacy that is just about every Terms of Service agreement you can read from Facebook to (especially) iTunes. Among other things: many, many, other things. One of those is a modern-day love story drenched in apathy and obliviousness. Another is a quick read and healthy reminder of the world we ought to avoid. As someone who doesn't generally take too kindly to the dystopia genre, this one implicates in a healthy fashion. Now, to go actually do something.(less)

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Jun 28, 2012 Chandler rated it 2 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: read-for-school

I'd like to start off by saying that this book is probably a good one in reality, but my experience reading it was not and therefore I hated it. I feel like under different circumstances, I could have like this book. The premise of everyone on earth having feeds in their minds is a great one and the futuristic-details of the book were fun.

Unfortunately, I had to read this book for my tenth grade english class, and I stand by my belief that reading books for class means you will never like them.

A...more

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Mar 06, 2012 Dashka rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

A marvelous, sad, and moving book that I keep revisiting in my head. Anderson keeps the satire sharp and funny, but also creates an emotionally resonant story without ever betraying the fundamental rules of his world, in which nobody is very deep or very introspective or very articulate. In fact, one of the most astonishingly effective aspects of the book is the way that he shows us the impoverishment of thought through the impoverishment of language. The narrator of this book is inarticulate by...more

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Apr 01, 2012 Sunil rated it 2 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: 2012

Feed has a good, interesting concept to work with: in the future, everyone's brain is linked to the Feed, so what we've always dreamed of is a reality—we are literally on the Internet ALL THE TIME. What this means is that the Feed is always learning about you and your preferences and recommending things for you to buy, you have the whole Internet's worth of information at your fingertips, you can cyberchat with people without having to type anything, and, oh, your brain is full of ads. The audio...more Feed has a good, interesting concept to work with: in the future, everyone's brain is linked to the Feed, so what we've always dreamed of is a reality—we are literally on the Internet ALL THE TIME. What this means is that the Feed is always learning about you and your preferences and recommending things for you to buy, you have the whole Internet's worth of information at your fingertips, you can cyberchat with people without having to type anything, and, oh, your brain is full of ads. The audiobook impressively creates what are essentially fully produced radio ads that appear in between chapters or, sometimes annoyingly/distressingly, break into the narration unexpectedly. When characters chat, they sound different than when they speak aloud, presumably recreating different fonts/formatting in the text. I would definitely like to experience more creative audiobooks like this one!

If only Feed had compelling characters and a story to go along with the worldbuilding. I was reminded of Little Brother in that it seemed like M.T. Anderson had a good idea and wanted to make some social commentary, but he didn't really bother to tell a story. Some of the satire is pretty funny, and the social commentary is pointed and clever, but the main character is not likable at all, nor is anyone else in the book besides Violet, the girl he meets on the moon who opens his mind to maybe not being a sheep who relies on the Feed. Everyone talks in idiotic futuristic Valley Girl slang, and perhaps Anderson is making a point about how language will devolve into nonsense, but it sure makes for an annoying, frustrating read. At least Little Brother was entertaining. I wanted to give up on this book after the first few chapters, and it was a struggle to make it through most of it, since nothing really happened. The book focuses on the relationship between Titus and Violet, but Titus is so dull that I didn't really care. The book improves in the last third, but by that point, it had already lost me, and I wanted it to be over so I could move on.(less)

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Aug 24, 2012 Tommy Beard rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Tommy Beard

Rich

English II

10 October 2011

Book Review C

Anderson, M.T. Feed. Massachusetts. Candlewick Press, 2004.

I could not make up my mind about what I thought about Feed by M.T. Anderson. After hearing reviews from different people and reading the backing cover, I thought that Feed would be a good fit for me. The summary reminded me of The Giver which I have read multiple times and is one of my favorite books ever. Sadly, although the main ideas in The Giver and Feed are alike, Feed did not h...more

Tommy Beard

Rich

English II

10 October 2011

Book Review C

Anderson, M.T. Feed. Massachusetts. Candlewick Press, 2004.

I could not make up my mind about what I thought about Feed by M.T. Anderson. After hearing reviews from different people and reading the backing cover, I thought that Feed would be a good fit for me. The summary reminded me of The Giver which I have read multiple times and is one of my favorite books ever. Sadly, although the main ideas in The Giver and Feed are alike, Feed did not have the same impact on me as The Giver did.
In The Giver, the author used creative words to describe how the protagonist felt. “Fuck, said Link, kicking into the minibar. I want to get weasel-faced” (Anderson 33). As you can tell, Anderson does not use as subtile language as Lois Lowry used in The Giver. It’s almost as if Anderson wants to be a teenager again and to seem hip by using curse words and silly abbreviations such as “meg” for mega “lo grav” for low gravity. The language really got to me after a while and it was one of the reasons I lost interest in the book. “He was all, da da da be removed from the premises, da da da, express instructions, da da” (Anderson, 18). The abbreviations were one thing, but when he would include gibberish in sentences and made up slang words like “unit”, which I later found out meant “dude”, was when I went from reading the book everyday, to reading it every few days at best.
Feed opens up on Earth far into the future. Anderson does not make it exactly clear how many years ahead the story takes place, but I would guess around two hundred years in the future. In this time, space travel is available and seems to be somewhat cheap and almost everyone has a type of device called a feed. This feed is some kind of electronic device that is implanted into the human’s head that almost serves as a type of internet. These “feeds” become more and more important as the story continues to open up. In the opening scene Titus, who is the main character and narrator of the story, is on a space craft with a few of his friends heading to the moon for a vacation. While they are on the moon, a hacker hacks all of their feeds, which seems to be dangerous to the human body because all of them end up in a hospital for a few days.
Later in the story, Titus becomes close with a girl named Violet who he really starts to like. Violet is different because she likes to actually speak with her mouth instead of using the “feednet” which is a type of messaging system that allows people to telepathically talk to each other. Titus is interested in Violet’s thoughts about the feed and keeps an open mind to what she is saying. Violet’s thoughts of anti-consumerism rub off on Titus and opens up his eyes to realize that the feeds are bad for civilization.
Feed had a great idea for a story but failed to complete. I kept reading hoping that it would improve but the plot never gained any excitement. If Anderson would of used language that everyone could understand, more diverse dialogue, and a better written plot, then this book would be up there in my personal favorites. Feed had potential, but did not leave the reader with the excitement and satisfaction that is could have.(less)

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Apr 09, 2009 Tina Dalton rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: sci-fi, dystopian, ya

This book was recommended by one of my library school classmates. One of the topics we talk about quite often in classes is the future of information. How will it be stored and in what format? Are books on their way to extinction (this topic in particular is a favorite)? What is the best way to convey information to each other? One article we read discussed the idea that in the future we will not have text, we will only have images. The same article also discussed the idea of libraries storing n...more

1 like · like · see review

Jan 28, 2009 Jean rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: fiction

The irony of seeing all the ads on goodreads to get me to this page is not escaping me.

Feed is a novel that needs to be experienced. Anderson projects a world where fast-paced internet consumerism has taken over society, where people have the internet basically wired into their bodies, directly feeding them a stream of advertisement based on their every random thought. It's cleverly done. Anderson beats the reader over the head with a devolved and annoying language (the people are so dumbed-dow...more

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topics	posts	views	last activity
American society and themes	3	18	Mar 08, 2013 08:56am
When Violet is ill	6	43	Dec 02, 2012 10:55pm
What's The Name o...: Interesting cover - shaved (orange) head with plug at the base of the skull? [s]	4	34	Nov 19, 2012 03:26pm
Blackhawks and Books: Don't forget to READ!	1	6	Nov 13, 2012 06:51am
Goodreads Librari...: Please Help!	4	37	Oct 18, 2012 10:01pm

title link	preview: Feed
avg rating	preview: Feed Goodreads rating: 3.57 (20883 ratings)
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