Feed

Reading Anderson’s Feed was kind of hard for me.  I have never been a huge fan of dystopian novels.  They just do not really appeal to me personally I think because I struggle relating to them.  I have never lived in a life like the one that is described in most dystopian novels so I have a really difficult time relating to them.  I do though understand that dystopian novels are very popular with readers today.  For this reason I was able to analyze Feed as a novel that I would teach in a class in the future.  This novel really plays on the idea of an unhealthy governmental take over.  These people are imprisoned by their “feeds” which only allow them to think to a certain extent.  It is almost as if they live part of a life because of the effect that the governmental “feeds” have on them.  As the story progresses and the characters lose their “feeds” they are forced to live full lives which is difficult because of how they have lived their whole lives.  The way that adolescents are portrayed in this novel is very interesting.  It is interesting because it is a dystopian novel so the teens are completely different from teens today.  While the teens are different because they are part computer they are the same because of their actions.  They question authority, they fall in love, they struggle with everyday things that a lot of teens struggle with.  I think that this would be a fun book to teach in a high school class.  I think students would really enjoy it because dystopia is such a topic of interest in society especially with the rise in technology that continuously changes our environment.  This book does pose a number of challenges though.  I think one of the biggest challenges that a teacher will face when implementing this novel in the classroom will be with explicit language and how parents will respond.  There are so many curse words in this novel that I think parents will really struggle with allowing their children to read it.  I think this is an argument that parents should rethink though because I think that students would argue that the novel really portrays their language and dialect.  High school students use offensive language and I would argue that it is their way of trying to find themselves.  Also, when parental supervision lacks I think that kids tend to act differently.  Overall I think if a teacher really wanted to implement this book they would be able to, but it would take some dedication and great preparation.  I give this book a B on a grade scale because I do not enjoy dystopian novels but I was able to analyze it as if I would like to teach it to a class.