Feed

Feed

By M.T. Anderson

Titus lives in a future where information no longer comes through a device; rather, it infiltrates the brain directly through a “feed”.  Advertising and entertainment pop right into people’s heads.  People can “chat” each other through the feed and often are not accustomed to speaking out loud.  Titus and his friends are totally surrounded by consumerism, but having grown up with the feed, they cannot imagine a world without it.

Enter Violet, a girl who seems different from Titus' superficial friends. Violet questions whether there is more to life than the feed, and seeks out information about politics, the environment and the world outside the bubble that has been placed around her.  She even tries to disrupt the feed, shopping and searching for outrageous items but never buying them.  This confuses the marketing system of the big corporations and they can’t quite create a consumer profile for her.

When a crazy hacker/protester disrupts their feeds, Titus, Violet and their friends end up in the hospital with nothing to watch or do.  They are forced to hang out together without any external stimuli.  But it turns out that a feed disruption can have much more serious consequences than boredom; the feed is intricately linked to the brain and humans cannot “disconnect”, even if they want to.  Will Titus ever be able to go back to the carefree lifestyle he once knew?

Feed is set in a not-so-distant future that we can all relate to.  As technology surges forward at an incredible rate, we are all along for the ride.  But what are the consequences of our dependence on the constant flow of information?  Can we operate without it?  More importantly, what does it really mean to be human?

 

All The Crooked Saints

All The Crooked Saints

By Maggie Stiefvater

Beatriz Soria is not only fiercely intelligent, she can also grant miracles.  So can her cousins, cool Joaquin and saintly Daniel.  In fact, all the Sorias have the power to grant miracles.  In Bicho Raro, Colorado, miracles are commonplace. 

The Sorias are accustomed to “pilgrims” who come to them in desperation and they are willing to help.  But there is a catch: no one knows what kind of ill effects a miracle will produce.  Miracles, it seems, are simply a way to push people into dealing with their own problems, but some never do…

A Soria miracle could make you into a giant, as it did for Tony, a radio DJ.  Or it could make rain follow you wherever you go, trapping the butterflies that you attract on your dress, soggy and unable to fly away; this is what happened to Marisita.  Or the miracle could produce a giant snake that entwines you and your twin sister, leaving you unable to leave her side, as it did with Robbie and Betsy.

The Sorias would like to help when a miracle leaves a pilgrim in distress, but there are strict rules against this.  But when Beatriz, Joaquin and Daniel, set up a movable radio station in the back of a truck, they may find a miracle of their own.

Maggie Steifvater’s All the Crooked Saints is strange and beautiful.  Steifvater’s magical realism makes the high desert of Colorado, and its inhabitants, into a world unto itself.  In Steifvater’s world, fantasy and reality intertwine to create a bewitching novel.  

Highly recommended!