For fans of the Handsmaids Tale, I really enjoyed this book! I love that it was told from the perspective of several characters. Hearing the thoughts and motivations of different women about the same situation was enlightening. I’ve never read a fiction book about surrogacy and I appreciate the author tackling the subject in such an open manner.

First and foremost - whoops.

I read this in 2019 in time for the book release date but I just never got round to writing the review for it. Every time I put my fingers on the keyboard no words came out. Writing a review for this book was so incredibly hard to do and I just didn't know why.

I decided that 2021 was the year that I finally got round to writing these reviews, so here I am. Making myself.

In some ways, waiting a significant length of time can be a good thing in terms of writing a book review because you're able to put a bit of emotional distance between yourself and the text. Also, a few years on, means you can question whether the story had an impact on you and whether your initial thoughts and feelings stood against the test of time.

So I guess there's that.

What I felt for The Farm has remained. However, I didn't really feel much for it to start with.

It was labelled as a Sci-Fi Dystopian with hints of The Handmaid's Tale and, I believed, was about female reproductive rights in a contemporary world.

The blurb above was not the marketing description I read on Netgalley which lead more to a 'women live in luxury but are essentially trapped on a breeding farm with no free will.'

Yes, the female characters do live in luxury on the farm and yes, it very much is a private estate for surrogates (aka a breeding farm). Yes, they are heavily monitored and so 'free will' is questionable but and this is a BIG but - the publishers or the author or whoever really got their target audience a bit off.

My biggest gripe is that this is in no way a Sci-Fi Dystopian that should be pitched for 'those who enjoyed The Handmaid's Tale' just because they are both different takes on a sort of similar subject (reproductive freedom). But then again, the similarities are really only there if you squint.

The women in The Farm choose to become surrogates for a variety of reasons; for one character who has a meaningless life it's her chance to find meaning and 'give back'. For another it's a way to make decent money and get a bit pampered for nine months (while also being open to the possibility of making more money by blackmailing the owners).

For our main character, Jane it's a completely different story.

Jane is a Philippine immigrant in America who has lost her job and who is desperately trying to provide for her daughter. She's delivered her own healthy child so there's a chance that she will be able to do the same for someone else whilst receiving free accommodation and a hefty pay check to boot.

The only one whose choice seems less like a choice and more of an act of desperation is Jane's and even then it doesn't seem like a commentary on reproductive freedom but a commentary on class, race and capitalism.

The rich who can buy everything they want - even living wombs- will take advantage of the poor and desperate. And, as an Asian immigrant there is an underlying sense of racism with how harshly the farm treats Jane for her slip-up's then it does the white surrogates.

Whilst this makes for a tense and horrible situation for Jane who feels increasingly trapped and isolated from her family on the outside it doesn't exactly come across as women's reproductive rights under attack.

It's a story about how already rich people use other rich people to get richer and how both parties exploit the dumb, greedy or desperate. Of course, there are varying levels of sympathy from the reader on this exploitation with Jane being (appropriately) the receiver of most of it.

The writing wasn't bad and I felt for Jane but this was pitched incredibly wrong. I liked it for what it really was which is a mild contemporary thriller with commentary on the themes I've mentioned above.

I say 'mild' though because while I was concerned for Jane's wellbeing I was never really under the impression that anything was truly that much of a threat.

It wasn't a bad book but it wasn't a great book and I think had it been targeted correctly my expectations wouldn't have been what they were.

This wasn’t the book for me. It wasn’t what I hoped. Not what I expected. I couldn’t give it a chance. It’s not something I would read

This was a really interesting concept and it definitely raised some questions. However, I'm not sure that it was as good as it could have. Especially when you compare it to similar works, it just lacks a bit of depth. I appreciate what it was trying to do but I wish it had just pushed it a bit further. Maybe if it had gone for a more original take?

In The Farm, young women are paid to be surrogate mothers for the wealthy. These women get the best of everything to keep the baby healthy, paying parents to be…..regardless of what the mother herself wants.

This is a tale of power and privilege, of the exploitation of immigrants and racism. 

A dystopian world that feels all too close to the present day. I found this to be a compelling and thought provoking read.

Thank you to the publishers and NetGalley for an eARC of The Farm.

I wanted to love this book - it sounded like it would be the sort of thing I would love (very Handmaid's Tale), but I really struggled with it. I didn't really like any of the characters, and actually this 'shocking' set up isn't that astonishing. However, it was a good read overall, and the pace was really well set throughout.

A dystopian story which sits well along the likes of Handmaid's Tale.

It explores high end surrogacy, where women receive a luxurious lifestyle and hefty bonuses in exchange for being perfect surrogates. On the surface, it's a great deal, but of course nothing's quite what it seems.

While it doesn't delve into the issues quite as deeply as I would have liked, it's nevertheless thought provoking and would make a great book club read.

Thanks to Netgalley for the ARC without obligation.

This was brilliant, it covered so many facets of society, the way the world is moving, feminism and power. Sped along as a story and drew real characters you felt for and recognised.

Set in the murky world of surrogacy, this thrilling novel explores the potential for subjectivity and personal agendas at a "surrogacy" farm. Questionable ethics, morality and the autonomy of a pregnant woman and the rights of her unborn child are just some of the issues this deals with alongside class and racial issues.

I found this a thought-provoking and engrossing read

This is one of those 1984ish thought-provoking stories that makes you ponder how easily The Handmaid's Tale could be a reality. It's intelligent prose and subject matter provide the reader with a part thriller, part dystopian colonisation tale and ultimate a warning.
I highly recommend this book by Joanne Ramos.

Read this on a rainy Saturday in lockdown. Very good way of taking yourself off to another zone. It’s a dystopian premise that will have you thinking long after you’ve finished. 
Really enjoyed it and can see it as a film.

The Farm has such an interesting premise. Unfortunately, the character development felt really poor and relied on stereotypical portrayals of women who weren't that complex. Two stars because the writing itself is beautiful and the author is clearly talented.

Golden Oaks. A center for wealthy people to handpick their surrogates and ensure their future children are given only the best food with the best medical care money can buy. The main issue? Golden Oaks can only survive on the suffering of others. They prey on the poorest communities they can find. They hone in on immigrants who are struggling. They offer them life-changing amounts of cash with the promise of heafty (and in some cases eye watering) bonuses should they give birth to a healthy child. 

This is a book about exploitation and what makes it worse is that this doesn’t feel so radically out there that it absolutely could be happening right now. And even with that in mind, The Farm had the premises to be such an amazing book but it just didn’t quite hit the mark for me. The writing is beautiful, but the story jumps around from character to character, those of which added very little to the main story, and left my poor, pathetic brain a little confused as to who I was supposed to be paying attention to.

I just wanted a little more 💜

I can see this book being part of book clubs as it raises so many interesting themes about a woman's body and her right to do with it what she wishes. The baby-factory where women are paid highly for their wombs is a fascinating idea, but I was getting bored towards the end.
The characters weren't truly engaging and I lost sympathy for them.
I was sad because it had such a great premise.

Joanne Ramos’s intriguing but flawed debut novel is a colonisation story set inside Golden Oaks, a baby farm in Massachusetts. The Farm may be a 'social issues' book, but it wears the mantle lightly. It is a breezy novel full of types (the Shark, the Dreamer, the Rebel, the Saint), and veers, not always successfully, from earnestness into satire. Joanne Ramos’s characters articulate both sides of the surrogacy argument, however, it lingers indulgently over the trappings of the wealthy, to the point where reading this novel felt a bit like watching several hours of reality-TV.

Hence The Farm isn’t not a critique, but it’s also not an indictment. The novel’s too-neat ending won’t provide satisfying answers.

I really enjoyed reading the debut novel from Joanne Ramos - The Farm.  It deals with the issue of surrogacy and pushes the limits of what money can buy in a society not far off from our present. 

 It tells the story of young Filipino woman Jane who at the opening of the novel is living in cramped conditions, sharing a room with a number of other women.  In desperation, she signs up to the surrogacy farm - Golden Oaks.  It appears to be idyllic and the situation appear to be ideal however the conditions are incredibly strict.  As a surrogate, Jane has limited rights and the amount of money she ultimately earns from the surrogacy are dependent on a number of conditions being met, including method of birth and the number of rules that she abides by during her pregnancy.  

At the heart of the novel, The Farm explores the limits of what money can buy and the relationship dynamics between different classes in American society.  In it´s very normalcy, it is a terrifying vision of a possible direction our society could take in the future.  

I thoroughly enjoyed reading the novel and look forward to reading more works of Joanne Ramos in the future.

From the description of the book, I was expecting a different story. I thought it was going to have more of a dystopian slant to the book. However if I remove my expectations from the book, then I did enjoy the story. Jane is Filipino, and is desperately in need of money for herself and her daughter Mali. She wants to provide a better life for Mali, and this is presented in the form of becoming a host at Golden Oaks. The catch - she won't be able to see her daughter at all during this time. It's worth it for Jane as this will set her and Mali up for life. Is it worth is though? Is professional surrogacy worth signing your life away for 9 months?

The premise of The Farm sounded fascinating: a place where girls get paid huge sums of money to be surrogates for rich people’s babies. I was really interested in how the ethics of this idea would be explored, and in how the author would present the characters. Sadly, I was a little disappointed. The story itself was interesting enough – each time I took a break from it I was keen to get back to it, but I felt that the detail of the place was never really explored, and the characters motivations (especially those in charge of the facility) were never really explored fully. I was definitely disappointed with the ending, which didn’t really do the characters or the potential of the story justice.
It was easy enough to read, and fairly enjoyable, but it didn’t really explore the idea to its fullest extent for me, and the sticking plaster ending was poor.
I received a free e-copy of this book from Netgalley in exchange for an honest review.

The Farm is one of those novels that I kept seeing everywhere – first on Netgalley where I was fortunate enough to receive a digital copy. The central premise is that anything is for sale – for a price. This includes women’s wombs, contracted to carry babies for time poor, cash rich women who are busy running the world. In exchange, they get a contract which includes a 9 month stay in a high end facility where they are waited on hand and foot, and multiple bonuses along the way. At least, that’s one way of looking at it. 

Joanne Ramos is a debut novelist who was born in the Philippines before moving to the US. Her Wikipedia bio tells me that she then graduated from Princeton and worked in investment banking.  This is clear in the characterisations of the women we meet in the book. 

The Farm has three main characters – Jane, Mae and Regan. Jane is born in the Philippines  and is struggling to make ends meet as a single mother to a young daughter. Mae is an investment banker who describes herself as mixed race and is the mastermind of Golden Oaks, the facility where surrogates are taken care of. Reagan is a US based host, born into a privileged family but uncomfortable with that title. 

The story begins with them separately walking their paths, with a particularly well written scene involving a nanny, her infant charge and an ill advised but nearly unavoidable breast feeding episode which made me both gasp out loud and cringe. 
As the novel progresses the women meet, and Jane and Reagan form two halves of a whole while Mae orchestrates. 

It’s interesting to read through and think about, especially with all of the different perspectives. Is it morally wrong to sell/buy space in someone’s womb? If they’re not using it, if someone else needs it, isn’t that okay? How about restricting someone’s choices as a result – what they eat, what they listen to, who they talk to, in the guise of looking after the very valuable unborn baby they’re carrying? 

I enjoyed it and would recommend it, although I get the feeling that Ramos veered away from delving into the big philosophical questions too deeply in return for keeping the narrative going. Some may think it’s too sympathetic to the ‘corporate bad guys’, but actually I felt that it did a good job of showing balance and different view points.

We follow through the new age genre of female dystopian fiction in this exhilarating text. It follows the pretext of a surrogate mother farm where these women ‘grow’ babies for those who can’t conceive. A very interesting concept with excellent characters