Feed

Anderson, M.T. (2002). Feed. Cambridge, MA: Candlewick Press.

Titus is a boy from the futuristic world.  Everyone is connected to the internet through an internal feed that is implanted directly into the brain.  These feeds provide access to everything from online shopping to chatting with one another in their heads.  On a trip to the moon, Titus meets Violet.  She questions the feed because hers was implanted when she was 7 years old.  Then one night when Titus, Violet and his friends were at a club dancing a hacker attacks their group and interrupts their feed which sends everyone to the hospital.  At the hospital, everyone is lying around with nothing in their heads as their feeds are being repaired.  Then then head back to Earth, where Titus and Violet’s relationship begins.  Violet informs Titus that her feed is beginning to fail and soon it will affect her entire body and all of its systems will begin to shut down, and she dies.  Titus cannot handle this information so he begins to retreat but it is in the end of Violet’s life that he connects with her and becomes her feed as he tells the story of how they met and fell in love. 

This science fiction novel really plays on one’s imagination about the future and what could happen if we continue to depend on technology.  It also has some dystopian fiction because Titus’ world is no longer the world that we know of today. There are very little animals left, people have weeping sores from unexplained pollution.  At the end, even Titus becomes aware of the world’s problems.  This is a book can really bring up some good discussions on technology for teens and how it can affect our lives.