Feed

Premise:

Set far in the future, pretty much the entire population of the world have gotten chips inplanted into their brains and society is so dependent on technology that they cannot function without it. It also is set in a world where humanity has become so complacent that many of them do not know what the world is like outside of their own little bubbles. They let the feed and the corperations dictate how they live and choose to stay ignorant about how the entire world around them has become derelict and destroyed.
Titus, a teenage boy, and his group of friends go to the moon to have fun. However, they end up getting their feeds hacked.

Do not read this if you're sad, it will make you feel a bit hopeless.

Feed is a book that can heavily filter you if you don't like teenager slang and/or being stuck inside the head of a really stupid teenage boy. However, if you can get used to it, (it took me a chapter or two) it is a really good book.

The framing of this book is so good. Putting you in the head of a teenage boy who has been growing up in this world really shows the current state of society. You can see that no one in his life ever thinks for themselves or asks if this is the way life should be. They just let the feed dictate their opinions. In this book you can see the feed placing content and items for purchase in your face, things that you wouldn't nescicerily be searching for that are forced down your throat 24/7. The moment you wake up you are advertised to. The feed also seems to stray away from showing potentially distressing or actually informational news in exchange for trying to get you to spend more money.

It's not until Violet, a girl he meets on the moon, comes into his life that he begins to think more deeply about the world, and even then he strongly dislikes to think because it's confusing. It's very hard to live while not knowing what to believe. Beliefs are what makes you feel stable, so Titus decides to stop listening. He thinks of Violet as weird, and often times annoying, becuase she is the only one who has this deep despair about the state of the world and keeps reminding him of it. She challenges him and his entire view of society and Titus refuses to listen or engage with anything other than his own beliefs.

I read this book at least once a year, and every year I read it, it seems to be becoming ever so slightly more and more respresentative of the world now. With the rise of social media you see more and more people choosing to stay ingorant and just let one or two uninformed people dictate their opinions or views. Nuance is something that people don't think about anymore. It's either one thing or the other.

SPOILER WARNING FOR THE REST OF THIS POST!!!

I really like the commentary on capitalism. The fact that Violet dies becuase the company that makes the feeds deems her as not profitable is a very nice way to end this book.