The Farm by @jessica_mansour_nahra_author is Kenneth Cook’s Wake in Fright meets Chloe Hooper’s The Engagement. (With a bit of Jane Eyre and The Handmaid’s Tale)

In a nutshell: Following a miscarriage, Leila and her partner James move to his family’s farm where they hope some time away from bustling city life will help her process her grief and allow them to try again. However life on the farm is anything but bucolic and Leila finds herself isolated and haunted by strange noises and visions. Is there something really going on? Or is it her medication playing with her mind?

The novel is divided into sections around the menstrual cycle, therefore the female body and reproduction are front and centre of the themes. It’s not body horror, but it has elements of body terror - fear, not of the jump-scare kind, but of the creeping anxiety kind.

While Leila questioned her sanity, I was right there being gaslit with her.

Jessica has a clear grasp on the gothic genre, and I loved the nod to Horace Walpole as Leila browsed the books in the farmhouse.

The Farm will be published on 26 August by @hachetteaus. Many thanks to @netgalley for the review copy.

4/5 stars

A haunting debut that nails the vast and often empty nature of the Australian outback, threaded through with compelling discussions on domestic violence, race, and womanhood. Leila, an Arab-Australian woman, suffers a miscarriage and falls into a deep depression, so her white Aussie partner James moves them to his family’s outback farm for a year of healing and rest. And a whole lot more.

I thoroughly enjoyed The Farm. The writing was lovely and drew me in immediately, with lyrical prose that never veers too far into flowery. It’s so interesting and different to see gothic vibes paired with the Australian outback, something I never even considered but worked so well in this book. It reminded me so much of my trips to Echuca when I was younger, but added such a filmy, creepy quality over the top. The atmosphere was amazing.

While the centre of the novel definitely slows down in pace and eeriness, I think the discussions of race and womanhood were really poignant here. Leila has Lebanese heritage through her mother, and goes through what a lot of women of colour do (or fear to) when marrying into a white family: colourism and the crazed expectations of the in-laws. Pregnancy and it’s repurcussions is a big theme through this story, and boy is it tough. What Leila goes through is simply horrific and I feel so strongly for her.

I would’ve liked more creepy moments, as they’re written so well, to really enhance the middle of the book keep the feeling of dread going all throughout the story.

Overall a really interesting novel and I’m very excited to see what else Jessica Mansour-Nahra writes. The Farm was a gripping read with some real messed up moments that are singularly Australian, and I hope to see more of it!

Thank you to Netgalley for the ARC!

A really good dystopian lit fic novel that centers around the autonomy of a woman’s body. I love cult and folk horror and this book has tones in the same vein.