Summary
Analysis
The school year ends, and Titus goes to one of Jupiter’s moons with Marty and Link. By this time, he’s dating Quendy.
Titus seems to have moved on from Violet, dating new people and once again unthinkingly pursuing pleasure for the sake of pleasure.
Back on Earth at the end of the summer, Titus goes to lots of fun parties. Marty gets a Nike speech tattoo, meaning that everything he says automatically begins with the word “Nike.”
As the book comes to an end, the characters’ consumerism and “branding” becomes increasingly grotesque, to the point where they can’t even speak normally.
People’s skin begins to peel and their hair begins to fall out. People have begun freezing in the middle of the street due to something called Nostalgia Feedback, in which people become nostalgic to the point where they’re nostalgic for the moment they’re living in right now. At night, Titus thinks of Violet.
Societal decay reaches a point where it can no longer be obscured, fetishized, or glamorized. Corporate America has brought about its own collapse, and it appears to be taking its customers down with it.
Titus realizes that nobody wants to ride in his upcar for some reason. He keeps trying to buy things to be cool, but he feels that he can’t “catch up.”
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