Book Review: Feed by M. T. Anderson

This review is spoiler free. This book earned three stars because while I liked it, there are some things that didn’t rub well with me by the end of the book.

 

Likes:

Right off the bat, some of the things that I really liked about this book was the romance. Although very faint, it was fairly modest and timid, which made it enjoyable. It also made it more realistic. There were other romances as well but the romance of Titus and Violet, with all the sugar nonsense and page long kissing scenes being gone from this text, represented more of the awkward and impulsiveness that a teen romance has the potential to be. I loved it.

 

Another thing that I thought was a nice touch by the author was the inclusion of the random headlines at the end of some chapters by the feed. Now I personally read the audiobook version of this and these feed voices that rang in Titus’s head while he slept made it all the better. In the book though, it provided the readers a glimpse of what it was like to have ads constantly running through your head. It makes me admire the ability that these people have to just tune it out. The feed itself is a very interesting concept but also kind of a scary one because it does more than just provide entertainment to people.

 

Throughout the novel, I had a love/hate relationship with Titus. I loved him for how human he was given his situation, but I also hated him for it. His relationships with his friends and family, his thoughts on the world around him, and even how he handles his fears made me love him at times, but I also hated him for it as well. Although Titus was the main character, he wasn’t always the center of attention either. Being around a large group of friends who all have their own problems that go beyond what Titus seemed to have experience with sometimes pushed him into the background while he supported them.

 

Another thing that really stood out to me was the lack of a definitive antagonist. Readers can speculate all they want about who it could be, but when it comes down to the bare-bones of it, there wasn’t one. For Titus, a teen going through his first love and other parts of reality, who cares? Again this book really reflects the age of the character by making him aware of the world’s bigger picture, but he himself isn’t ready to face it. Therefore, to me, there are no real defined antagonists.

 

Dislikes:

 

Yep, I will always share the likes and dislikes of a book no matter many stars I give it.

 

Something that I disliked about this book was that one of the characters died. For me, this was more of a personal attachment since I had really bonded with this character. However, part of me thinks that the death was unnecessary since it implied towards something greater in the story that was never addressed.

 

Which leads into my second dislike for the book: the perpetual problem. The book does try to imply who the antagonist is but- unlike most books, the main character doesn’t try to conquer it. Therefore, if there was an antagonist in this book, it was never confronted and brought to justice. Something that I found to be frustrating. It left the plot incomplete and with no sequel in the foreseeable future it left me highly unsatisfied and like I had just wasted my time reading this book. What was the point if nothing is done about the problem? What was this book really about?

 

All in all the book was an okay read, but not something that I would read again and definitely not something that I would want to add to my collection.

 

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