I just finished re-reading Feed by M.T. Anderson. I had read it first about 10 years ago, and I remember really enjoying it. I thought I would give it another go to see if it held up, and I’m pleased to say that it surpassed my memory of how good it was.
The book is set in a future in which nearly everybody has a “feed”, which is the internet embedded directly into their head. A large part of the greatness of this book is the way that the experience of this reality is conveyed by the narrator, the book’s main character, Titus. In his first-person account of the story, he constantly describes how this feels – the perfectly tailored ads that constantly flood his consciousness, the messaging by which he and his friends communicate. All aspects of the feed that he actually really enjoys and values, but as a reader you just cringe at thinking what that would be like and what impact it has on him. But then you can see how similar this is to the experience we have with our technology today. And then you go back and see that this book was written in 2002 and you cannot help but be impressed by how clearly Anderson saw the future of our technology and its impact on us.
The story features a really beautiful, quirky romance of the Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind sort (which when done well always makes my heart do loop-de-loops). But its ending is just absolutely emotionally devastating. I remembered roughly how it ends, but for some reason I didn’t connect with it as fully when I first read it as I did this time. Something important that the book does I think is that it creates sympathy for the main character – he’s a likeable enough guy throughout the story – and then at the end it just mercilessly captures how deeply and tragically he has been hollowed out by the Feed.
All told, this is a fantastic book. Highly recommended.