Feed by M.T. Anderson

Pages: 300
Intended Audience: Mature Teens
Genre: Science Fiction
Notes for Parents: Contains lots of coarse language and some mature scenes.

The Back Cover

“We went to the moon to have fun, but the moon turned out to completely suck.”
So says Titus, a teenager whose ability to read, write, and even think for himself has been almost completely obliterated by his “feed,” a transmitter implanted directly into his brain. Feeds are a crucial part of life for Titus and his friends. After all, how else would they know where to party on the moon, how to get bargains at Weatherbee & Crotch, or how to accessorize the mysterious lesions everyone’s been getting? But then Titus meets Violet, a girl who cares about what’s happening to the world and challenges everything Titus and his friends hold dear. A girl who decides to fight the feed.

What the cover doesn’t tell you:

In 2002, this book was the winner of the Los Angeles Times Book Prize, and was a National Book Award Finalist for Young People's Literature. It has also been named a “best book” by the Chicago Public Library, Publishers Weekly, New York Times Book Review, and the American Library Association.

What’s good?

This cautionary tale easily inspires conversations about corporate influence, media, consumerism, and the use of technology in our everyday lives. The world building in this story is well-done. The reader quickly gets a sense of how dependent society is on the constant feed of information, and how devastating it is when that feed is lost. The first-person narrative is strong, and the premise is thought-provoking.
Best Part: “They try to figure out who you are, and to make you conform to one of their types for easy marketing. It’s like a spiral: They keep making everything more basic so it will appeal to everyone. And gradually, everyone gets used to everything being basic, so we get less and less varied as people, more simple.” (pg. 97)

What isn’t good?

Nothing really happens. Titus was a jerk and Violet was whiny. The only character I really liked was Violet’s dad. The loads of slang really just equated to bad grammar and verbal laziness, not to mention the overuse of the word “like.” The ending should have been emotional, but I wasn’t moved.
Worst part: “…and then I said this thing, and Calista said this thing, and it was like, da da da da da, da da da da da, da da da da da, all day.” (pg. 75-76)

Recommendation þþooo

I absolutely loved the idea of this book, but I didn’t like the execution. I was forever waiting for something significant to happen. It’s a nice love story, and it’s an interesting commentary on consumerism and media, but ultimately, I found it dull. For a story that was supposed to be a satire, I felt it was more like a tragedy. It seems wrong to NOT recommend this book because it’s received so much praise in the 14 years since it's been published, but I didn’t like it.

Anderson, M.T., Feed. Cambridge, Mass.: Candlewick Press, 2002.