This was a fascinating book that had me completely hooked not least because what should be far fetched and very much fictional felt uncomfortably plausible.
This book deals with the idea of wealthy families being able to choose surrogates for their children and a place where they are 'cared' for to ensure the most optimal pregnancy. The book raises so many questions about morality, about wealth distribution, about the rights of women and about motherhood and aspiration. At times you question where the power lies and who is manipulating who. It really is a fascinating and moving exploration of the world as we know it and as it could - just possibly- be. I loved it!

A page turner set in the not too far off future. The commercialisation of surrogacy has meant that women are using other women to carry their babies not just because of fertility, but to get round the modern time constraints of time and money. As the clients become more demanding the circumstances of surrogacy become more skewed towards the clients' demands, rather than the needs and safety of the surrogates. A book that raises many questions, not just about the ethics of surrogacy but also about the socio-economics and race of the surrogates.

But don't expect a political manifesto, this is an enjoyable read with mystery and suspense. I was not totally sold on the ending, it was all a bit too neat but that is a very small criticism for an otherwise thought provoking read.

Really thought provoking exploration of immigration, exploitation, ambition, racism and motherhood told in an accessible commercial novel. This kept me engaged throughout and I’ll be recommending it onwards.

An overall decent read, it didn't lag much and was a page-turner. However, on the one hand, whilst Ramos' novel was thought-provoking, discussing class, race and womanhood, it failed to impart an emotional connection with the reader so that these issues can take form, and on the other, the characters, apart from Jane, were caricatures, unrelatable and unreal.

This is a brilliant and compulsively readable book. In it, Joanne Ramos paints a vivid portrait of race, immigration, equality, motherhood, wealth and power, and of a disturbing, close-enough-to-touch future. Already sure to be one of the best books of 2019!

I really loved this book. First, the way it's written is beautiful. you hardly get a thought-provoking story told beautifully, without boring the reader.
The idea of farming pregnant woman was so effecting. This is one of the books that's going to stay in my head for a long time.

This was quite an interesting and intriguing read. Right from the offset I felt that something dramatic or sinister was about to happen, it didn't to the extent I felt it would but it did raise some deep probing questions.

This book follows the story of Jane who is an immigrant to the USA, trying to find a way to establish herself so that she can continue to look after her daughter Amalia.

After being hard up and out of work she finds herself in this centre where she is a surrogate mother for an unknown woman using the commodity that she can offer, her womb.

This was a centre set up purely for the sake of making money out of women who did not want to get pregnant but still wanted their own biological children, hinting at the fact that this was due to being career women or not wanting it to affect their bodies. Other cases were due to infertility. The surrogate women used were willingly looking to make some money with the use of their bodies and this did probe the question as to why not? At the facility they were not allowed to leave and they were controlled to the extent of what they ate, their exercise and how they behaved. Although the hosts as they were called did not feel that they were prisoners until the babies were born it almost felt like they were.

Jane was not allowed to bring her baby daughter to the facility. Promises were made that her daughter could visit but then denied as a form of punishment when she fell out of line and you felt her pain and anguish as this was metted out. This highlighted her plight even further as to how desperate she was to get paid the full amount for her completing the surrogacy.

In the end it highlighted the vulnerabilities of the women who became the hosts and I had to ask myself if this is an ethical situation in the modern world. Can money really buy anything even a child? Should women be exploited in this way and can companies get away with it?

A clever premise with a story line that will make you turn the pages, this book is a pleasure to read. It will fill your heart with love and empathy, it'll uplift your mood and leave you with food for thought (is charity always selfless? or can it be a win-win for the one giving as well as the one receiving?).

When I began describing the plot of this novel to a friend, they said, ‘Oh, that sounds like that series I saw on Netflix, you know, where not many women could conceive anymore and they were getting the fertile ones to be surrogates.’ Before he helpfully pointed it out, I hadn’t thought about the links to Margaret Atwood’s Handmaid’s Tale because The Farm doesn’t need any change in regime, or depletion in fertility, for its surrogacy plans to flourish. It wouldn’t even surprise me if such a place already existed.

By mentioning The Handmaid’s Tale there is a sense in which The Farm can be downplayed as a bandwagon book, but what is pleasing about The Farm is that, regardless of its compelling narrative, it plays out the various sides of the argument for the existence of an expensive, surrogacy service that takes young, poor, mostly ill-educated and often immigrant women, and uses their bodies – monitoring them intensely, providing all their nutritional and physical needs – to give the babies they carry the best chance of healthy delivery.

Whilst on the one hand these women surrogates, described as Hosts or numbers, are seemingly managed as cash cows, their payments cancelled or bonuses rescinded for bad behaviour or failure to deliver, they are also given voices by the narrative. The moral complexities and uncertainties of the modern world unravel beautifully through the magnifying glass of Golden Oaks (aka ‘the farm’).

What matters most? Family, money, success? How do we manage these across the globe? How can we judge the motivations of others if we don’t understand their situations or needs?

In a strange way, I’m drawn once again (I think of it often), to that wonderful George Saunders short story, ‘The Semplica-Girl Diaries’ where a middle class man of struggling means, tries desperately to please his daughter by buying her the latest garden accessory: a row of women hanging and swaying in the breeze like washing attached to the line through holes in their skulls. The women are poor and mostly immigrants, trying to improve the lives of their families by earning the kind of money the other jobs they could access simply cannot match.

The novel explores the impact of economic disparity. It shows how what we chose to do to safeguard the welfare of our children, or the care of our elderly, is as dependent upon our social status and economic security as it is on our moral framework.

At one point, one of the main characters Mae Yu, the self-made, mixed-race woman who manages Golden Oaks, mentions research that points to the correlation between wealth and empathy. The more wealthy people are, the less empathy they have. This is something the novel tries to unpick from many different angles and in the end, it is this complexity of viewpoints, this multiple exposure of what lies beneath the lives of the four main women in the story – Mae, host Jane, host Reagan, Jane’s cousin Ate – that really gives this novel its punch. There are no simple answers, no black and white choices. The agony of the rat race, the continuing gender imbalance of managing a career and family, the complications of love, the difficulty of compromise, mean that The Farm ends up asking a lot more questions than it solves. It says, ‘Here, look at this complicated seam of problems that is family and reproduction in our modern world. What do you think of it?’

The novel ends with the perspectives of the two mixed-race women, Mae and Jane. What does it take for them to make it in America? What does success mean? What is worth sacrificing for family? You don’t expect the novel to necessarily go where it does, or end where it does and this makes it challenging and interesting. This a striking book, setting new discussions over women and their bodies in a global economy. Not out until May 2019, I suspect The Farm will be a much discussed novel.

It’s a good book however be warned it does take time time to get used to the characters and also to try and work them out.
This book is very deep.
Thank you to both NetGalley and Bloomsbury Publishing for my eARC of the book. This is in exchange for my honest unbiased review

Thank you for the opportunity to read 'The Farm'. The book engaged me quickly although I had to read for a while to realise the connection between the characters. I wonder how far from reality the concept of 'The Farm' is and it serves as a warning on how science and money can allow things to go beyond what society should allow.

An interesting read and one can't help but feel sorry for many surrogates.

It took me a while to get into this because I was not clear about the characters and what was happening to them. Then I thought it might be true and I was horrified. (Although I could see this happening in the USA). It is actually a distopian novel set in the near future (or an alternative present), in which girls are persuaded to be surrogates for rich clients and go to live in a hotel/home where they are monitored closely. pampered and yet imprisoned. The feisty Jane gets over her ordeal and survives, but I did not feel that any of the characters were particularly good people. It reminded me a bit if Ishiguro's Never Let Me go, It has strong themes of racism and exploitation, ambition and greed. The agonies of infertility and maternal angst are secondary. I did not enjoy reading this but thought it was well-written and powerful. (And not at all funny, even darkly!).

This is a powerful book. It should be widely read. I could say more and more and justify why, but the book should be left to speak for itself. Don't miss out on what feels like an important publication.