what to read if you only have an hour or two and want to devour a meaningful book

"we went to the moon to have fun, but the moon turned out to completely suck."

don't you love it when you're hooked on the first sentence? Feed, by M.T. Anderson, is a postmodern young adult novel. don't you dare give up on it right now because i said it's young adult. c'mon. we're all young adults. if i haven't recommended this book to you personally yet, it's probably because i don't know you or haven't talked to you in the last handful of years.

reasons i recommend this book to everyone include:

• it really does only take an hour or two to read but it's not fluff
• it's hilarious AND relatable (because it's terrifyingly telling and accurate about where our society is headed)
• it addresses some very important questions about our society/culture
• the story could only be called formulaic by a stretch of the old boy-meets-girl, but it's a great story
• anyone between the ages of .. oh.. cognizant enough to use a computer to curmudgeon-y will find something to love about it (or hate, which by translation in the literature world means the book got to you enough to make you feel strongly, and therefore, the book still wins.)

remember the first time you read 1984? or the first time you saw Vanilla Sky? or when you figured out who Keyser Soze was? that's how this book makes you feel. the best way to describe it, i suppose, is that it's 1984 for today's youth. but see, now i sound like a tool. so allow me to elaborate (without spoilers).

the main characters are teenagers in the not-too-unbelievably-distant future. the narrator is a teenager. i'm going to let that sink in for a moment as you think about how current teenagers talk. or think. *shudder.* this doesn't make the novel unbearable, as one might assume, however. it makes it funny. i swear. please refer back to the first sentence. also, it's interspersed with the actual advertisement, song lyrics, etc. with which the teens are being bombarded. it's scary how similar these are to current pop culture. because of the ridiculousness.

these teens live in a future (second generation or so) where, at birth, "everyone" (the way we say 'everyone' has a cell phone) is implanted with a feed. think internet that could fit on the head of a pin, stuck in yer brain, so you can access all the stuff you google and wikipedia just by thinking it. also, you can watch tv. also, you are bombarded with advertisements all the time, in your brain. there is no need for school anymore because anything you need to know you can just look up. in your feed. in your brain. but even further, there's really no reason to learn anything we would consider academic because society is based primarily on consumerism. the kids go to school, sure, but it's to learn what to wear, what to buy, how to decorate their bedroom. school is a corporation. the clouds themselves are trademarked. getting the idea?

another important point: you are profiled, categorized, based on what you buy. what you consider buying. the types of things you look up in your feed. starting to sound familiar? i love google, but sometimes those targeted ads creep me out a little. even further, there are seven categories. doesn't that make you feel special? you are one of seven types of highly predictable consumers.

ok. that's all i'm going to say about the book, besides READ IT. now i'm going to venture into a couple of the reasons it struck me so personally (i.e., if all you wanted was the book review, you may go now). now to address two points:

1. in a world where everyone has all the most up to date information, knowledge, pop culture, etc. accessible by instant thought, things change SUPER FAST.
2. consider the gap between where we currently are and the future this premise predicts. we have netbooks. we have bluetooths (blueteeth?). we have hearing aids, prosthetic limbs, artificial organs, and something called 4G! if "everyone" jumped off a bridge, would you?

1. superfast:
once upon a time, i was having a conversation with my dad (in person) and having a text conversation at the same time (on my fancypants flip phone). my dad was shocked. he said, astonished, "it's like.. you've... partitioned your brain!" oooo, i can text and talk at the same time! wait, that's actually pretty crazy. also, my dad knows what it means to partition (he really meant it like a hard drive partition!). but seriously, what?

i have applied the following thesis to literature, film/theater, music, business, conversation, relationships, adult learning, and child rearing. and it's not that profound. we are goin fast. we are goin faster than we went 10 years ago, way faster than 20 years ago, and stinkin crazy faster than ever before then. by fast i mean our attention spans are shorter because more information is available FASTER. in film, if the camera stays on one shot without moving for more than something like 3 seconds, the modern viewer is bored or uncomfortable. can you imagine waiting on a dial-up connection now? or waiting for a letter from your significant other (written by hand and delivered on horseback) versus the constant texting and chatting of today? seriously, 5 years of courtship in days of yore = maybe a week or two of tech-assisted get-to-know-you conversation now.

so. here comes a future so devoid of waiting, so fast, that in a group of friends - mid-conversation - all the female-types rush to the bathroom and return with a different hairstyle. because that's the newest trend and they're that up to date because they have all the latest pop culture (tv, music, commercials!) playing constantly in their brains. is this where we're headed?

i challenge you to stop everything and see how long that lasts. or, for that matter, do only one thing for more than 10 minutes. don't check your phone, don't go to the bathroom, don't check facebook, don't write yourself a little note, don't turn on the tv, don't pet the cat. IMPOSSIBLE, ISN'T IT?! because in our fast-paced society, we're trained to do so many things at once, and take in so much information that we can't sit still. in brain or body.

2. all the cool kids are doing it:
we're already at a place where it's mandatory to have a laptop for college. where every job you might want requires at least a basic knowledge of technology. what if, to compete in society, to get an education, to get a job, you actually had to implant something in your brain? what if you could get that bluetooth permanently implanted behind your ear? what if you everyone had one? what if you had to make the choice that, to give your CHILD a fighting change in society, you needed to implant some form of technology in them at birth? right up there with counting fingers and toes, standard procedure. we already put tracking chips in our pets. you have poor eyesight; you get glasses; you get contacts; you get laser eye surgery... you get electronic eyeballs?

i'm not saying the advance of technology is a bad thing. quality of life! longevity! awesome! i'm saying, what if something goes wrong? what if continue on this road? will we all end up superhuman? the antithesis of the ubermensch? will we end up like the society in wall-e? fat, lazy, bored, and useless, while our planet and everything of value about human society dies?

wee!! i hope you're not too depressed. just some stuff to munch on.