 |
| Elizondo, O. (2015, February 4). Book review: Feed by M.T. Anderson. Retrieved from http://literalbookthief.blogspot. com/2015/02/book-review-feed-by- mt-anderson.html |
Book Summary: Titus and his friends are out partying on the moon during spring break when they meet Violet. They invite her to join them at a different club, where they also meet this other, older guy who has “brag” dance moves. Turns out, he also has brag hacking moves: he has hacked into Violet, Titus, and their friends’ feeds, smartphone-like devices that are implanted in their brains often from a very young age that allows them to chat/text one another, receive ads from retail corporations, look up information, play games, and more. This hack-attack requires a hospital quarantine and to be temporarily “dormant” from the feed for several days. When they return to earth, Titus and Violet start dating, and Violet reveals to Titus that she received her feed when she was six, which is causing complications because it didn’t have the chance to seamlessly connect with her brain waves/functions. This is causing her to slowly shut down, and she will die. As a result, Violet and Titus spend a lot of time together, and Violet opens Titus’s mind up to unconventional opinions and awareness: about how the Global Alliance feels America has become a dangerous place of consumption, how they are destroying the world by destroying the environment, and how his friends are shallow and consumption-driven because the feed has conditioned them to be that way. At first, Titus is impressed with Violet, but then he becomes exasperated by her unwillingness to conform to his friends’ lifestyles. They break up and Violet’s health quickly deteriorates. When she’s at less than 5% functioning, Violet’s father sends Titus a chat message that she wants Titus to see her one last time before she dies. He takes his upcar to visit her, and he tries to say goodbye in a way that would be meaningful to her: without the feed blabbering in his mind, by telling her authentic and organic stories, by telling her the latest world news. She slips away, and his feed tries to comfort him: “‘Feeling blue? Then dress blue! It’s the Blue-Jean Warehouse’s Final Sales Event! Stock is just flying off the shelves at prices so low you won’t believe your feed! Everything must go! Everything must go. Everything must go.’” (Anderson, 2002, p. 235). The feed will never understand true human emotion.
APA Reference:
Anderson, M.T. (2002). Feed. Cambridge, MA: Candlewick Press.
Impressions: Like most canon dystopias, Feed is weird. It takes awhile for readers to situate themselves in the similar-but-not world, the lexicon and syntax differences, and the societal norms of the book’s people. Anderson tries to make the vernacular differences obvious to today’s lexicon by choosing words that are quantifiably similar, like “meg” meaning “a lot” and “brag” meaning “very”. The diction is very teen-friendly, which is deliberate on Anderson’s part: “To write this novel, I read a huge number of magazines like Seventeen, Maxim, and Stuff. I listened to cell phone conversations in malls” (Anderson, 2002, dust jacket flap). This adds verisimilitude to the style of Feed, which I appreciated and is always necessary in sci-fi novels.
The message behind Feed worries me. Its theme on how technology and consumerism is turning us into mindless drones is frightening to think about too long and/or too hard because I do worry that we are becoming overly dependent on technology, but I also love technology: information is at my fingertips thanks to my iPhone. I can store thousands of books on my Kindle. I can fly from Houston to Stockholm in 12 hours. We are cutting down forests to make room for suburbs. We are poisoning the air we breathe from all the pollution in the air. Global warming is making our planet increasingly unfriendly for animals to live in. People are mind-numbingly accepting what they see on tv as true, whether that be biased news sources or fallacious commercials. Feed could be our future if we aren’t careful.
Professional Review:
Rawlins, S. (2002, September). Feed [review of Feed]. School Library Journal, 48(9), 219. Retrieved from http://www.slj.com/
Gr 8 Up. For Titus and his teenaged friends, having transmitters implanted in their heads is as normal as going to the moon or Mars on vacation or as common as the lesions that have begun to appear on their bodies. Everyone's "feed" tells them everything they need to know--there's no need to read or write. All purchases are deducted from the credit account that's part of the feed. Talking out loud is rare because everyone "chats" over the feednets. Then Titus and his friends meet a girl named Violet at a party on the moon, and a hacker attacks them and damages their feeds. Everyone is OK except for Violet, who is told in secret that hers is so damaged that she is going to die. Unlike other teens, she is homeschooled and cares about world events. She's not afraid to question things and is determined to fight the feed. Anderson gives his characters a unique language that teens will relate to, but much of it is raw and crude. Young people will also appreciate the consumeristic lifestyle and television shows that are satirized in the book. Violet and her father are the only truly sympathetic characters. The other teens are portrayed as thoughtless, selfish, and not always likable. Only Titus learns anything from his mistakes and tries to be a little less self-centered. A gripping, intriguing, and unique cautionary novel.
Gr 8 Up. For Titus and his teenaged friends, having transmitters implanted in their heads is as normal as going to the moon or Mars on vacation or as common as the lesions that have begun to appear on their bodies. Everyone's "feed" tells them everything they need to know--there's no need to read or write. All purchases are deducted from the credit account that's part of the feed. Talking out loud is rare because everyone "chats" over the feednets. Then Titus and his friends meet a girl named Violet at a party on the moon, and a hacker attacks them and damages their feeds. Everyone is OK except for Violet, who is told in secret that hers is so damaged that she is going to die. Unlike other teens, she is homeschooled and cares about world events. She's not afraid to question things and is determined to fight the feed. Anderson gives his characters a unique language that teens will relate to, but much of it is raw and crude. Young people will also appreciate the consumeristic lifestyle and television shows that are satirized in the book. Violet and her father are the only truly sympathetic characters. The other teens are portrayed as thoughtless, selfish, and not always likable. Only Titus learns anything from his mistakes and tries to be a little less self-centered. A gripping, intriguing, and unique cautionary novel.
Library Use: This would be a great teacher resource recommendation to include in a lit circle focused on dystopias like Orwell’s 1984, Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World, Bradbury’s Fahrenheit 451, and Margaret Atwood’s The Handmaid’s Tale.
 |
| Carswell, B. (2012, July 26). 21 faces of Brave New World- Happy birthday, Aldous Huxley. Retrieved from http://www.abebooks.com/ blog/index.php/2012/07/26/21-faces-of-brave- new-world-happy-birthday-aldous-huxley/ |
 |
| Temple, E. (2011, June 25). George Orwell's 1984: A visual history. Retrieved from http://flavorwire.com/ 190248/george-orwells-1984-a-visual- history |
 |
| Amazon. (2016). The handmaid's tale (vintage classics). Retrieved from https:// www.amazon.co.uk/Handmaids-Tale- Vintage-Classics/dp/0099511665 |
 |
| Simon & Schuster. (2016). Fahrenheit 451. Retrieved from http://www.simonandschuster. com/books/Fahrenheit-451/Ray-Bradbury/ 9781451673265 |
No comments:
Post a Comment