M.T. Anderson is another author I’ve been wanting to revisit. I read his book Burger Wuss several years ago and liked it, and some of his other books, including Feed, have been getting a lot of attention. I really liked Feed. For starters, you gotta love the first line, “We went to the moon to have fun, but the moon turned out to completely suck.” You soon learn the teenagers in Feed are always on the lookout for the next big thing, a new way to have fun, but too often they’re disappointed. To get a grasp of what the “Feed” is, think about all the things you do online: shop, check your email, instant message, watch videos, etc. Now imagine having all these capabilities from a computer feed linked directly to your brain. So, you can just think your IMs directly to your friends. They can share videos, memories, and thoughts with you at any time. Businesses tap into your feed to sense your emotions, wants, and environment to recommend the products you “need.”The Feed is the center of the story which involves Titus, his friends, and his new girlfriend Violet. Violet was raised in somewhat traditional means and is only now really exploring normal teen life of the times. Her emotions are tangled admist wanting to fit in and questioning what society has become, and her questions force Titus to acknowledge some of their world’s darker realities. The world in Feed is constantly mesmerizing. There’s the Feed itself with its onslaught of images and information. Then there’s the people and the physical signs that something is very wrong (hint: lesions have become cool). People drive in floating “upcars,” farms are just genetic plants where meat is produced in rows of tissue, and each neighborhood produces its own clouds and weather determined that day by the homeowners’ association. Despite how freaky everything appears at times, Anderson manages to keep it in a perspective that at the same time makes it clear that we are really not that far from such a reality.

A great read, Titus and Violet are each incredibly interesting and every turn in the story brings new fascinating details about this future world.

Find Feed in the Fiction section under FIC And. Note: Be warned that this book contains strong language.

Reviewed by Mrs. Walker