
Titus is a typical teen in the US in some unspecified time in the future. There are flying cars, vacations to outer space, domes over underground houses and subdivisions that control the weather and light, conceptionariums for custom test-tube babies, and a host of other technological advances that have contributed to a planet maimed by pollution and resource stripping. However, the most pervasive advance is the Feed – an internet-like system that is surgically implanted into children’s brains and grows up with them. Titus goes to the moon with some friends for spring break and meets Violet, the strange but beautiful girl who actually reads and writes, is interested in the news, and wants to go to boring places like the mountains. She tags along with them to a night club where a political hacker gets into their system and they must go to the hospital for tests before being reconnected to the Feed. In the hospital, Titus and Violet get to know one another and embark on a romance. Life soon returns to normal for Titus, but a Feed malfunction in Violet’s system wreaks havoc on their relationship, their lives, and their perception of the world around them.
I took the advice of others on the listserv YALSA-BK (you can join, too! See info at
http://lists.ala.org/wws/info/yalsa-bk) to listen to Feed before reading it. It was good advice. Much of the book is dialogue, and the rest is told from Titus’ perspective, so just begs to be heard. The performer, David Baker, perfectly emulates the bored teens’ slang, tone, and timing, which turns out to sound somewhat like the “Valley Girl” and “Surfer Dude” slang of the 80s, and underscores the teens’ disconnection from real life. (Interestingly, Titus’ parents also use this slang, but in more mature voices, and this also shows that the suburbanites of mainstream America are also unaware or uncaring about the state of their country and their world.) This was a disturbing and thought-provoking read. I would love to do a book discussion with it and see what others think!
Issues include: technology, pollution, big business, advertising, world politics, some sexuality, realistic profanity, conformity, illness, class division, consumerism, alcohol use, drug use.