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Sunil's Reviews > Feed
Feed
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Feed has a good, interesting concept to work with: in the future, everyone's brain is linked to the Feed, so what we've always dreamed of is a reality—we are literally on the Internet ALL THE TIME. What this means is that the Feed is always learning about you and your preferences and recommending things for you to buy, you have the whole Internet's worth of information at your fingertips, you can cyberchat with people without having to type anything, and, oh, your brain is full of ads. The audiobook impressively creates what are essentially fully produced radio ads that appear in between chapters or, sometimes annoyingly/distressingly, break into the narration unexpectedly. When characters chat, they sound different than when they speak aloud, presumably recreating different fonts/formatting in the text. I would definitely like to experience more creative audiobooks like this one!
If only Feed had compelling characters and a story to go along with the worldbuilding. I was reminded of Little Brother in that it seemed like M.T. Anderson had a good idea and wanted to make some social commentary, but he didn't really bother to tell a story. Some of the satire is pretty funny, and the social commentary is pointed and clever, but the main character is not likable at all, nor is anyone else in the book besides Violet, the girl he meets on the moon who opens his mind to maybe not being a sheep who relies on the Feed. Everyone talks in idiotic futuristic Valley Girl slang, and perhaps Anderson is making a point about how language will devolve into nonsense, but it sure makes for an annoying, frustrating read. At least Little Brother was entertaining. I wanted to give up on this book after the first few chapters, and it was a struggle to make it through most of it, since nothing really happened. The book focuses on the relationship between Titus and Violet, but Titus is so dull that I didn't really care. The book improves in the last third, but by that point, it had already lost me, and I wanted it to be over so I could move on.
If only Feed had compelling characters and a story to go along with the worldbuilding. I was reminded of Little Brother in that it seemed like M.T. Anderson had a good idea and wanted to make some social commentary, but he didn't really bother to tell a story. Some of the satire is pretty funny, and the social commentary is pointed and clever, but the main character is not likable at all, nor is anyone else in the book besides Violet, the girl he meets on the moon who opens his mind to maybe not being a sheep who relies on the Feed. Everyone talks in idiotic futuristic Valley Girl slang, and perhaps Anderson is making a point about how language will devolve into nonsense, but it sure makes for an annoying, frustrating read. At least Little Brother was entertaining. I wanted to give up on this book after the first few chapters, and it was a struggle to make it through most of it, since nothing really happened. The book focuses on the relationship between Titus and Violet, but Titus is so dull that I didn't really care. The book improves in the last third, but by that point, it had already lost me, and I wanted it to be over so I could move on.
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Reading Progress
January 7, 2012
– Shelved
March 28, 2012
–
Started Reading
April 1, 2012
–
Finished Reading
April 15, 2012
– Shelved as:
2012
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Sophie
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rated it 2 stars
Apr 02, 2012 01:54PM
This is exactly how I feel about this book. He was telling a story to make a point, and that's fine, but it's not going to keep me interested until the end of the book. He doesn't seem to care about his characters at all except as vehicles for telling his story, which IMO is the wrong way to go about it.
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It's kind of sad because the bit at the end about hipsters getting nostalgia feedback is SO BRILLIANT AND HILARIOUS that I almost wanted to give it an extra star just for that, but I think that any book I want to give up on constantly does not deserve more than two stars. Stop making me hate reading, books.It's weird to read some of the rave reviews because it's like, did I just not "get it"? Oh, the characters were SUPPOSED to be irritating and vapid, that was the POINT. Okay, well, you've got to find some way to make me enjoy reading your book then, sir. My problem with Little Brother was that the social criticism agenda dictated the plot, but at least it had a plot. And I was much more invested in the love story in that book too. Have you read it?
No, I haven't read Little Brother. It's been on my to-read list forever, but so have like three hundred other books, so, you know. I'll have to keep your observations in mind though.Have you read Anderson's Octavian Nothing books? I think he cares about his characters slightly more in those, although I still get the feeling that he's writing in order to make a point and he has this sort of clinical detachment from the story. I like writers who care.
I haven't read anything else by Anderson; I haven't even heard of Octavian Nothing. But that's a cool name.
Octavian Nothing is amazing, although very hard to take. It's the only book of his where I feel like he actually likes the protagonist.
