Totally Believable To Me

I finally finished reading M. T. Anderson's satire Feed, which I thought was fantastic. Anderson has created a well-defined world and populated it with some believable, complex characters. And there's lots of other clever stuff, too.

Can you believe that Gail, who hardly ever likes anything, is raving like this? Or, at least, raving in the good sense of the word?

Of course, I personally believe that the commercial world we live in now is already trying to control our minds so the basic premise of Anderson's story, to me, is just a logical extension of what is already going on. I thought that having the characters lose their flesh and hair was a little over the top, though. I agree that the environment is adversely affected by our mass consumerism and that will affect our health. But for the book's sake I think sticking to just the consumer stuff would have been plenty.

And, finally, I imagine some readers will be disappointed with how Titus, our narrator, treats Violet when she is sick. (Someone I know who has read the book referred to him as "a puke," though believably so.)His behavior isn't pretty. However, I think it is realistic about how hard it is for a young person to deal with this kind of situation. The things he says to her are all things that must go through the minds of many young people. Plus, he is part of a group of kids who aren't noteworthy for their depth and strength of character.

In spite of the sickness and skin disappearing from peoples' bodies, there is a lot of clever, sophisticated humor in this book. I liked it so much, I'm going to give one of Anderson's earlier books, Burger Wuss, a try.