A Young Adult futuristic-dystopic science fiction novel featuring a society where large corporations hold the power, and the majority of citizens get implanted as babies with devices that provide Internet like audio-visual interaction with their thoughts. Have a question about how something works? It’s answered almost before it’s asked. Thinking about what it’d be like to own an “up-car” (they fly and can be put on auto-pilot) here comes the barrage of commercials for all the options. Then too, there’s no need for phones, because this implant allows you to “chat”, speaking to whoever you please mentally, no matter where they are, but one can put themselves on busy, and refuse the chat. The book takes some getting used to, with new slang—but it’s easy enough to figure out, and some things never change, as apparently the F**** word is still around in a couple of hundred years. 😊 ( )

Turns out the main character already gave this book a movie rating, "Rated PG-13. For language and mild s*xual situations."

The writing of this book was so wacky and it took forever to understand (and I believe it is good that I did not understand all of it if you know what I mean).

Content: loads of language (multiple f-bombs per page), lots of s*xual references, I would personally rate this higher than PG-13 on the movie rating scale. ( )

The style in which this was written lent itself strongly to an audiobook reading. I probably enjoyed it more by listening to the excellent narrator than I would have had I tried to plow through the futuristic Valley-speak. The ending, though, was so-o-o-o depressing. ( )

I thought this book was pretty cool. First of all, it's teen sci-fi with a conscience that isn't terribly preachy. That alone makes it a find. The other excellent thing about this book is that Anderson created a future that's both really crazy and not too crazy, i.e. I was impressed by how real his imagined world seemed in light of the fact that it was also entertaining.

If you'll excuse me, I have to get mal now. I'm feeling so null. ( )

My son recommended this book. I'm reading it for a paper in New Literacies & Technologies and the Culture of Reading. Stunning view of youth culture in the media saturated/materialistic future. ( )