Feed by M. T. Anderson

Feed

3/5. A rather Modest Proposal future hellscape where our repugnant teenaged protagonist experiences a brief interruption in his implanted networking chip, and an only very slightly longer disruption in his world view when his girlfriend doesn't recover from the same event. This is deliberately and wildly over the top in its horror. Personally, I would have appreciated a little more of it creeping around the edges, but I get that's the point. The narrator is intellectually and emotionally stunted, and he's just not going to notice the horror screaming in his face. I do give this book credit for, a decade and a half before it became a talking point, presenting an indictment of the impact of content algorithms. The protagonist here isn't fucked up because he's connected to the internet 24/7. He's fucked up because he's connected through a service provider that has designed the entire experience only to sell him things, and yeah okay maybe he can have a chat function too.

Content notes: Teenager death, one purposefully horrifying description of an animal hunt.