Somewhat twisted story about the lies we tell and the lengths we will go to protect the ones we love. Kept me intrigued from the very start, and I loved how it unfolded, especially finding out how the characters were connected in one way or another. The epilogue was a bit long though; it could have been another chapter. The only other aspect that bothered me was the complete drop-off of Lisa's character. She went off with her Clients and we never heard from her again, not even in the epilogue. 4.5 stars.

Jane is a recent immigrant from the Philippines who is desperate for a job in order to take care of her baby daughter. She is offered a job as a surrogate, to carry the embryo of a rich and powerful mystery “client”. She is one of many women kept at a facility in the country in order that their pregnancies can be closely monitored and tightly controlled. They are not allowed to leave until their babies are delivered, at which time they should receive a generous “bonus” that will supposedly change their lives for the better. It seems like a good deal for Jane, who wants to create a good life for her daughter.

This facility is run by a large corporation that has been doing this on a small scale but plans to expand in the near future. The women, to them, are just receptacles, but treated well because they hold the product, a baby that the rich and powerful are willing to pay incredible amounts of money to obtain.

This would make an excellent choice for book club discussions. There are numerous threads to pull for discussion. Is this “farm” a good idea, to help the poor to raise themselves out of poverty? Or is this going too far, treating desperate people like animals utilized for profit? There are intriguing questions to explore related to how the rich treat the poor. When is charity just disguised exploitation? It is also an eye-opening view into the ways that some poor immigrants survive, their living conditions, the sacrifices they make to try to create a better life for their offspring.

I enjoyed reading this well written story very much and recommend it highly.

Note: I received an advance copy of the ebook from the publisher in exchange for an honest review.

I am so torn on my feelings for The Farm. This is a unique story about a grand location, where women are chosen to be surrogates for the extremely wealthy. This book brings up a lot of issues of class and race. However, I think this book tries to be too much. It is billed as suspenseful, though I did not understand why there even had to be this kind of suspense. In the real world that could never happen, and I do realize this fiction, but it felt very contrived.


The writing is excellent, and it was a page turner, but I did feel a little let down at the end of this story. This is hard book to stay too much as it starts to get into spoilers.


This is an interesting read, and I think this might a great one for book clubs as it will definitely serve for a good discussion. I think it worth the read, just to make you think. I believe I will be thinking about this for quite awhile, as it is memorable.


Thank you NetGalley and Random House for an Advanced Reader's Copy of this book, for an honest review

Raised some interesting questions about the business of surrogacy and how a woman can essentially become property. While I powered through, I did not feel particularly engaged at any point.

The Farm is an upscale resort where super wealthy people can hire surrogates to carry their child for them. The women who work for the Farm are essentially well paid prisoners until they give birth.
It had so much potential. I wanted to like it. I tried many times to finish this story, but the characters were dull, the plot line less than ideal, and honestly there are so many books in the world that I didn't want to have to force myself to read a book I wasn't invested in.

I enjoyed reading this book. I have seen this book everywhere and was looking forward to reading it The book did keep my attention throughout the whole story. I was a little disappointed in the ending. I was expecting a little more.

Thanks NetGalley for providing me a copy of the book to read for my opinions.

*Thank you @netgalley and @randomhouse for this ebook in exchange for an honest review.

📖WHAT I LOVED/THOUGHT: The Farm has been getting so much buzz, and I was excited to read it this year! I really loved the character driven parts of this story, and found myself really rooted to Jane. A mom, just wanting the best for her family and doing what she could with a chance at making a large impact financially, in exchange for being a “host” to deliver someone else’s baby.

Reading the blurb of this book, I thought it might have some sci fi aspects to it, like all these women at a “farm”, working to carry babies until term and working for a government or something. However it was much different than I anticipated, and it brought light onto racial diversity, the concept of surrogacy, and socioeconomic aspects that really had me thinking.

Needless to say I did enjoy it, it was just very different than what I expected.
⭐️⭐️⭐️💫

The Farm takes a hard look at how much we are willing to give up to change our lives, and how much of our lives we are willing to sell. At Golden Oaks, a luxury resort, women spend their time with the best of everything, meals, fitness classes and accommodations, with a windfall financial reward at the end. Their jobs as "hosts" (surrogates) are to look after themselves and to produce healthy babies. The story took a hard look as class, the manipulation of the poor by the wealthy, and the particular (and timely!) struggle of immigrant women. This was an incredibly compelling read until the ending. At that point, the tale suddenly jumps ahead 3 years and this left me feeling both disappointed and disconnected. Overall, a good and worthwhile read. I just wish the ending had been handled differently.

Thank you to NetGalley and Random House for the complimentary e-copy of this book. All opinions are my own.

This dystopian tale raises questions about motherhood, money, and the ethics of the concessions and trade-offs we sometimes make for those we love. I thought the premise and world-building were fantastic but found the execution unsatisfying.

I'm giving The Farm by Joanne Ramos a 3/5 stars. When I first heard about this book, I was very intrigued by the premise. There is a place where women can serve as surrogates for other, wealthier people. I thought that this book was going to have a much deeper and darker aspect to it. I also expected more intrigue and discussions about what was really going on. There were interesting points made about race and class divisions and how that affects what is going on in the story. For example, hosts who are educated and white are more sought after than any other kind of host. They are paid significantly more. I found this part of the book very interesting because in this kind of situation, neither of those things really matter. Other than that, I didn't find much of the book to be particularly interesting. The kind of "twist" at the end was okay, but I saw it coming from the beginning of the book. Not much happened in this book other than that our main character is struggling, becomes a host, gives birth, and moves on. The writing was also relatively dry, and I found several of the characters to be very annoying. I am sure that there are people out there that will love this book, but it was just okay for me. I'm definitely interested in this kind of book, and I will be interested to see what book this author releases next.

I enjoyed this book. The story was original and well-developed. With statements made on immigration, parenthood, gender roles, and class, this is an intriguing debut. It kept my interest and I was eager to see how it ended.

I’m not sure what I expected from this book. I think in my mind it was going to be a dystopian book similar to The Handmaid’s Tale. Instead, it’s about surrogates and paying women to have stranger’s babies. Honestly, I liked the book a lot. I loved Reagan and Jane. I worried about Amalia while Jane was away. I was disappointed that the bad things about Golden Oaks that were alluded to never materialized, but overall enjoyed the book.

I enjoyed this book than I actually thought I would. It was a bit dark and sad, but makes you think about the choices we make as a society, and how important every decision can be.

For some reason, I thought this would be a dystopian novel so I was a little thrown off when it was not. However it was a very good character study. I found the main characters to be very complex and three dimensional.

Upon reading the first portion of summary text for “The Farm,” the book seems poised to sit at the strategic intersection – the past few years have seen a wave of pop culture interest in surrogacy stories (both real and fictional, think Kim Kardashian and “Fuller House”) and feminist dystopias (“Handmaid’s Tale,” Naomi Alderman’s “The Power,” Christina Dalcher’s “Vox”).

As a staff member for a bioethics organization (the Center for Bioethics and Culture), I was particularly interested in the surrogacy aspect of “The Farm.” How realistically did it represent surrogacy and the industry’s potential future? What sort of conclusions might it lead readers to make about surrogacy overall?

Imagine my frustration when it became obvious that “The Farm” is barely about surrogacy at all.

More on that in a minute. This is probably a good place to mention that there are too many things in this book to unpack for me to try dancing around spoilers. If you want to be surprised by “The Farm,” this is where you should stop, though I can't say I recommend reading it. In addition to a variety of spoiler-filled issues, I found it to be a slow, plodding read that turned its main core of women into caricatures of the viewpoints they represented.

“The Farm” rotates between four narrators; the first two receive the majority of the chapters while the last two appear only occasionally:
• Jane: a Filipino immigrant and single mother who becomes a Host in the the hopes of giving her daughter Amalia (six months old at the start of the book) a better life.
• Reagan: a young white Host who struggles with her dual motivations of wanting to help a family, yet also yearning financial independence from her wealthy, controlling father.
• Mae: an highly ambitious Asian-American woman, the head of the Golden Oaks “gestational retreat.”
• Ate: An older Filipino immigrant woman who is a sought-after baby nurse among New York’s elite families. She is Jane’s cousin, and first tells her about Golden Oaks; it is later revealed that she is a paid Scout for the company.

Also of note is Lisa, a white Host unabashedly driven by money who is carrying her third child for the same couple. She is the most jaded of the Hosts, and is portrayed as an ungrateful, slightly-crazed alarmist, despite speaking some of the most truthful lines in the book: “You’ve got to understand what this place is. Okay? It’s a factory, and you’re the commodity.”

“The Farm” opens with an emphasis on the ultra-rich New York families that hire predominantly immigrants like Ate and Jane as baby nurses, nannies and housekeepers, i.e., the target clientele of Golden Oaks. After Jane is fired from a well-paying baby nurse job, Ate tells her about Golden Oaks. Unable to pass up an opportunity where “the work is easy and the money is big,” she applies and interviews with Mae. Along the same time frame, we see Mae heavily recruiting Reagan, intending to offer her as a “Premium Host” to Madame Deng, an extraordinarily wealthy Chinese woman who is nearing 50 years old and has frozen embryos.

Fast forward to Jane checking in at Golden Oaks, recently implanted with an embryo, while Reagan has been there for two weeks. Seriously, “The Farm” makes exactly that leap within exactly two sentences. In one line, Jane is finishing her interview with Mae; in the next, she’s checking in. There is no elaboration on the implantation process, uncomfortable hormone injections or fears of complications, not even a mention of a positive pregnancy test. This was my first major indication that “The Farm” was not really interested in discussing surrogacy or artificial reproductive technology at all.

The remainder of the book largely follows Jane and Reagan, who are assigned as roommates, through their time at Golden Oaks. The driving source of tension becomes Jane’s anxiety over not being able to see Amalia for months on end. She is promised visits several times, but they keep getting revoked for a variety of reasons. Her stress and sadness, combined with Reagan’s savior mentality, Lisa’s tendency to go rogue, plus a miscommunication that makes Jane falsely believe Amalia has been hospitalized, all lead to the climax of Jane escaping Golden Oaks to see her daughter again.

Throughout “The Farm,” its inclusion (or lack thereof) of the technologies, legalese and ethics surrounding surrogacy was at the front of my mind. I was left with a lot of mixed thoughts about nearly every single page, but in the interest of this not becoming a dissertation, I’ve boiled them down into key points where “The Farm” misses the mark, hits the target, and is almost there.

Misses the Mark

Reagan has never been pregnant. The faulty logic in this is obvious no matter what side of the surrogacy debate you’re on. Surrogacy agencies categorically seek out surrogates who have proven they can carry a pregnancy to term. A real Craigslist ad for The Surrogacy SOURCE listed the following requirements, among others:
• “Previous pregnancies without complication”
• “Raising at least 1 child in your home”
Why why WHY would Golden Oaks target millionaire and billionaire Clients, promising the best of everything except a womb with a proven track record? Mae goes so far as to consider making childlessness a requirement for Hosts, backed by the flimsy logic that when other children are in the picture, “their loyalties, inevitably, lie elsewhere.” This actually counteracts the Big Fertility party line that already having a family of their own allows surrogates to detach from the surrogate child; they’ve had their kids, now they’re just helping someone else do the same. But as you’ll see in the next point, this book has zero interest in examining the mother/child relationship of surrogacy.

The only mother/child relationship “The Farm” cares about is between Jane and Amalia. After that, the biggest focus is on the relationships between the Hosts, and particularly on how race affects their interactions. We get next to nothing about how the women feel about their pregnancies, other than generically viewing it is as a hurdle to clear in the quest for a better life. There’s a moment of joy when Reagan first hears the baby’s heartbeat during an ultrasound, but that’s about it. For all we (don’t) see, these women have about as many feelings, positive or negative, about their babies as you’d have for the contents of your purse. The surrogate children are the least important characters in “The Farm,” and yet they are the very foundation for the story.

The surrogate pregnancies were essentially presented as having the same experience (and risk level) as a natural pregnancy. There was no acknowledgement that “the risk of severe maternal and fetal morbidities (disease and symptoms of disease) are increased for women that utilize IVF, especially those resulting from donor eggs,” a category that all gestational surrogates fall under. We actually see no pregnancy-related complications at all, aside from spontaneous abortions and later miscarriages happening to characters that are barely mentioned once. And while it wouldn’t make sense for Jane’s desperate, less-educated character to be concerned about a surrogate’s increased risk for pre-eclampsia, maternal hypertension and gestational diabetes, it would’ve only been natural for Mae’s analytical mind to consider such things as she meticulously monitors the Hosts. Readers are given the impression that Golden Oaks has a high success rate, and the skilled staff and state-of-the-art facilities allow the author to skip over dealing with any of the actual risks that would drag a real fertility center’s successful birth rate down.

Hits the Target

Surrogacy is eugenic – one of the Hosts has a forced abortion when it’s discovered that her baby has mosaic Down syndrome. Reagan goes on a small rant when she hears about it, finishing with,
“‘It’s a complete violation–’
‘Not of the contract,’ Lisa answers without missing a beat.”
And Lisa is right - loss of medical autonomy, including mandated abortion or selective reduction in cases of multiples, is a standard part of surrogacy contracts. Every feel-good campaign about promoting loving acceptance and opportunities for people with Down syndrome means absolutely nothing to Big Fertility, who will likely encourage parents to leave those embryos unimplanted in a frozen limbo or destroyed. IVF in the U.S. particularly is the Wild West: I've read an interview with a fertility doctor believes the target genes will eventually be found for things like height, vocal ability and athletic ability, “and when that happens, he will offer to screen for them. ‘If you do what I do, you can’t have a strong ethical opinion.’”

The big secret that Madame Deng has implanted embryos in multiple Hosts is not a fictional concept. A real surrogacy broker shared that VIP Chinese clients often start with two or three surrogates, and once the pregnancies are confirmed, they decide which babies to keep and which to terminate. Madame Deng uses nine surrogates (two children are confirmed born in the book, with a possibility for a third), but that doesn’t even reach the level of a Japanese man who won sole custody of 13 children he had using surrogates. And that’s not old news – that was in 2018.

Almost There

“Baby factory” group living for surrogates is not unheard of internationally, though this typically happens where surrogacy is cheaper than in the U.S. rather than being a luxury experience, such as in Ukraine. The industry’s desire for control remains the same.

“The Farm” is set in New York, which I found...curious. In all likelihood, this book was nearing the end of its final edits well before the state’s current fight over legalizing commercial surrogacy erupted. As of now, NY only allows altruistic surrogacy; the Golden Oaks bigwigs dream about a second resort in California, which truthfully would’ve been a more realistic setting to begin with. Also, when Jane escapes Golden Oaks in her grand act of defiance, Mae uses the threat of kidnapping charges to bring her to heel. Can you “kidnap” an implanted fetus that isn’t biologically yours? According to NY law, the birth mother cannot relinquish her rights until after the child is born, and pre-birth parentage orders are not granted. So either Mae is guessing Jane won’t know it’s a empty threat, or whatever fictional contract the author has imagined is not based in legal reality.

The ending is disappointingly quick, convenient and, if anything, too easy on Jane. We jump from Mae getting Jane to agree to come back to Golden Oaks (she’s still pregnant at this point) to...two and a half years later. Another fast forward past incredibly crucial moments. Jane and Reagan both gave birth to babies for Madame Deng, but Jane lost her big final bonus due to her escape, putting her basically back at square one. Mae “asked Jane to be her surrogate. She told her that there was an apartment on their property where Jane and Amalia could live rent free during the pregnancy and, if things worked out, maybe even afterward.” Jane is now baby nursing/nannying Mae’s son. If you were hoping for a dramatic “underdog outwits evil corporation” conclusion, too bad, because in real life Jane could’ve had it far worse. She could’ve been saddled with paying the remainder of her pregnancy’s exorbitant medical bills, or told to repay money since she breached what is likely an iron-clad contract. Challenging any of this would mean a flood of legal fees that surrogates are rarely in a position to pay, and a fight against a company that has money to burn.

How did this book happen?

I honestly spent a lot of this book confused by its narrative choices. The blatant inaccuracies with realistic surrogacy arrangements that could’ve so easily been avoided, the emphasis on interracial friendships and attitudes between the Hosts, the comparative lack of any concrete discussion or inclusion of artificial reproductive technology...and then I read the author’s note. Joanne Ramos as a person is obviously more than the sum of a few paragraphs, but it’s extremely telling that she:
• Was born in the Phillippines
• Had her worldview opened to disparities of wealth, class, experience and opportunity while attending Princeton University
• She “realized one day that the only Filipinos I knew in Manhattan [New York], where I lived with my family, were the ones who worked for my friends--baby nurses, nannies, housekeepers, cleaning ladies...I listened to their stories...I saw the daily sacrifices these women made in the hope of something better.”

The author’s personal perspective encapsulates it all. It explains why “The Farm” essentially felt like “The Nanny Diaries,” except instead of carrying for the children of elite families, they’re literally carrying them. This focus on the uber-wealthy unfortunately ultimately leaves the story’s door open to make an argument in favor of altruistic surrogacy via a flood of “if onlys:”
• If only Golden Oaks hadn’t been so greedy and demanding...
• If only surrogacy was reserved for people who really need it instead of for vanity (Lisa's wealthy intended mother lied about suffering from endometriosis when she actually wanted to continue modeling)…
• If only we could all just get along and let happy surrogates carry happy babies for happy new families!

The besmirching of the uber-rich in “The Farm” is ironic, considering pop culture lauds celebrity surrogacy: Jimmy Fallon, Elton John, Kim Kardashian, Gabrielle Union, Tom Daley, Andy Cohen, take your pick. On the more normal end of the socioeconomic scale, surrogacy also leaves us wrestling with modern cases like the Nebraska woman who carried her gay son’s child. Simultaneous mother and grandmother, what on earth are we doing???

Unsurprisingly, there is no mention of ethics/bioethics, surrogacy, or modern “family-building” in any capacity in either the author’s note or acknowledgements. It’s entirely possible she conducted research that was not reflected in these components, but if that’s the case, I disagree with how she chose to warp truth for her fiction.

As to her intended purpose, she does write, “The book is meant to explore–for myself, and hopefully for its readers, too–questions of who we are, what we cherish, and how we see those who are different from ourselves.” I suppose “The Farm” does do those things, but that could’ve taken place within many frameworks. To use surrogacy as a mere vehicle, a husk scooped out to make way for her real emphasis, is a disservice to the women whose lives have been ruined by it and the children who have been and continue to be sold through it. The truth is so much more harrowing than this fiction.

(All quotations have been checked against the final, published copy.)

What if pregnancy, in this case surrogacy, became a moneymaking venture? How much would the world's millionaires and billionaires be willing to pay for a healthy surrogate? Who benefits and who loses from such a situation.

The Farm by Joanne Ramos attempts to answer these questions and the premise is intriguing, however, the novel falls flat. There are a plethora of recent novels that center around pregnancy, power dynamics, individual autonomy, etc. (The Red Clocks, Future Home of the Living God, and more), perhaps so many so that this novel did not feel unique or all that interesting. There is nothing particularly bad about it, so perhaps it deserves a three-star rating, but if you have read similar books The Farm will strike you as nothing special. I think it could make a good book club book because there are a lot of issues for discussion that are raised in the novel.

I received this book free from NetGalley/Random House in exchange for an honest review

The premise is good. It has so much more potential that could have been explored.

The story itself has some lose ends and questionable decisions. However, I did mostly enjoy it. I liked the characters though I think they are one dimensional (Jane - poor immigrant, in search if anything to support herself and her young daughter; Reagan - white wealthy girl concerned with world changing questions but unable to commit to anything).

At first, I didn’t like the ending, but more I though about it, more it seemed appropriate for the story and characters it portrayed.

Thank you Netgalley and Random House Publishing Group for this e-ARC in return of my honest review.

This was my most anticipated read of 2019, but it left me hugely disappointed. I was so fascinated by the premise of this book, but I found it extremely slow, and the ending was extremely disappointing- not only was it anti-climacu, but it frustrated me that Jane still seemed hold herself to no higher standard than a life of indentured servitude. Unfortunately, this one left me feeling underwhelmed.

This was phenomenal. The character development was consistent and rich, I truly felt like I knew these women. There is nothing I love more than a story where no one is the good guy or the bad guy, but that humanity is just flawed and wonderful all at once. The only issue I have is that at times it seemed like it tried to veer a little into suspense / imply something more would happen with the mystery of which Host had the baby, but it never fully developed or took off which left me feeling vaguely dissatisfied.

What an interesting story. It took a little while to get into, but once the characters were established, I couldnt get enough. This was a fun read being a mother, it gives a diffetent perspective of child rearing. A mist read for those who are fascinated by parenting and woman friendships.