From the Archives--Book Blog--FEED by MT Anderson

As we're book blogging this week (and Bret is still wrapped up in that newborn baby, sleep-deprived glow), I thought I'd reblog this, one of Bret's first book blogs from 2011.  I second his call-to-arms, and I'm sure there are other Muses who agree, because FEED is brilliant and gripping and stays with you for years...

Folks, it’s prime time for a good ole’ fashion movement. My call to arms is to elevate M.T. Anderson’s FEED to the literary level of eerily-possible, deeply-disturbing, and way-before-its-time. This book meg delivers the same brilliance of Jules Vern, H.G. Wells, George Orwell, and Aldous Huxley.

From mt-anderson.com:

In a future world where internet connections feed directly into the consumer’s brain, thought is supplemented by advertising banners, and language has gone into a steep decline, a little love story unfolds. Titus, an average kid on a weekend trip to the moon, meets Violet, a brainy girl who has decided to try to fight the feed. Assaulted by a hacker who interrupts their connection, they struggle to understand what has happened to them – and to everyone around them.

In his National Book Award Finalist Feed, 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.

Or, if you’re dead and that description doesn’t hook you, the opening line will:

“We went to the moon to have fun, but the moon turned out to completely suck.”

Titus’s voice perfectly captures a teenage boy navigating his first relationship while communicating in a world filled with personalized shopping and direct-to-consumers’-brain marketing. Every day we creep closer to this vision and Anderson takes an unblinking look at the consequences (and even a few advantages), but the heart of the story is the gripping characters.