Wednesday, September 22, 2010

Review: Feed by M.T. Anderson

Book: Feed (M.T. Anderson) 
Stand-Alone or Series: Stand Alone
Pages: 320
Genre: Young Adult
Description (From Goodreads):
For Titus and his friends, it started out like any ordinary trip to the moon - a chance to party during spring break and play with some stupid low-grav at the Ricochet Lounge. But that was before the crazy hacker caused all their feeds to malfunction, sending them to the hospital to lie around with nothing inside their heads for days. And it was before Titus met Violet, a beautiful, brainy teenage girl who has decided to fight the feed and its omnipresent ability to categorize human thoughts and desires. Following in the footsteps of George Orwell, Anthony Burgess, and Kurt Vonnegut Jr., M. T. Anderson has created a not-so-brave new world — and a smart, savage satire that has captivated readers with its view of an imagined future that veers unnervingly close to the here and now.
 
 
So, I don't think I have ever been more on the fence about a book, then I am in regards to Feed. I honestly cannot tell you whether I enjoyed this book or not, and I cannot decide if that's a good thing or a bad thing.
 
I was required to read this title for my Children's Literature class and I probably would not have stumbled upon it otherwise. After seeing it on our list of required readings, and after looking it up, I was excited to begin it. The premise sounded amazing - I am not a huge fan of Science Fiction books, but every once in awhile I come across a plot that really draws me in; this was the case with Feed. The storyline brought up alot of intriguing and thought provoking questions about where our society is headed, and I really appreciated that. While the Feed is obviously a make believe plot point, I could easily see how it relates to our society today. Let me tell you a little bit about the feed - basically it is a constant running internet connect that people get implanted into their brains. The Feed streams videos, music, news; it allows for instant messaging, web searches and shopping. You simply have to think about looking something up, and then you have your answer. It is also creates a user profile, based on your interests and activities and constantly streams different products or items you might like the purchase.
 
Now, like I said, I enjoyed the plot of the book, because I think it brought up some wonderful points about our society in a very imaginative and creative way. However, I hated the characters in the book. I could not stand the protagonist, Titus, I thought he was annoying, irritating and I spent most of my time wanting to reach into the book and smack him. Violet, Titus's love interest did not exactly do it for me either. I could not connect to them at all and there for I struggled to make an emotional attachment to the book. I don't know about you, but I have an extremely difficult time enjoying a book in which I don't like the characters. The rest of the characters, the secondary ones, were equally as annoying. I found them flat and uninteresting.
 
This is why I am on the fence. While I loved the idea and plot of the book, the book itself fell a little flat for me because I did not like or relate to the characters. This really disappointed me because I was really looking forward to this book and I saw so much potential in it.

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