Cherish Farrah follows Farrah Turner who is seventeen and is one of the only black girls and has black parents. Farrah has a best friend called Cherish Whitman who is adopted by a white family and has money to get things that black parents can’t typically provide. She is white girl spoiled. Cherish is spoiled and there is a divide between Farrah and Cherish, lots of strange things happen at the Whitman household. It definitely has mystery and thriller elements. The writing of this novel was very good and I read the story in a day so it was compelling. I really liked the themes of this novel and would definitely recommend it.

Even though I read Cherish Farrah by Bethany C. Morrow over a week ago, I still have NO idea how I feel about it. This is a dark story to be sure, but it also feels a little abstract in a way that I think went over my head a bit. I got young adult vibes thanks to the ages of Farrah and Cherish, but there are definitely some adult themes in this book as well. The entire story is told from Farrah's viewpoint which I think really worked, and you get the feeling that she is more than a little obsessed with her friend. I basically spent the entire time wondering where the plot was going to go, and what the point of the story was going to be. There does end up being a big twist (to me) that I didn't see coming, but the beginning through the middle was just really strange and didn't really go anywhere for me besides repeating that Farrah and Cherish are friends that don't want to be apart.

I do think that the audiobook narrator matched the vibe of the book, and I can't think of a more appropriate choice than Angel Pean. This was the first time I have ever listened to her, but she was definitely perfect for this book, and I would want to listen to her on future audiobooks. I will also say that Cherish Farrah is one of the most unique books I have ever read so props to the author for being different. This story is completely character-driven and not just because I wasn't really sure what the plot was supposed to be getting at. The end just totally threw me for a loop and made up a bit for the ride to get there. I am not sure I would read another novel by Morrow, but I would still recommend this to the right person.

I received a complimentary digital copy of this book. Opinions expressed in this review are completely my own.

Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for sending me an advanced copy of this title in exchange for an honest review.

Cherish Farrah is the story of Cherish and Farrah-- best friends with very different lives. Both are Black, but one is adopted and raised by white parents. She's what Farrah calls "white girl spoiled" and is basically untouched by any hardships. When Farrah's family falls on hard times, Cherish's parents happily allow her to stay with them to finish out the school year.

But something is wrong-- Farrah isn't quite normal. And who is actually in control here?

This book speaks very eloquently about being Black, being female, and what it's like to have a best friend. The writing was absolutely gorgeous and flowery. It's interesting to see this kind of writing in a thriller/horror story. While I thoroughly enjoyed the tone, ambiance, and subject matter of this book, it was entirely too slow. It's marketed as a suspenseful, psychological thriller but the story doesn't *actually* become thrilling until the last ~15%. I wish we would have had more insight into characters besides Farrah before that point in the story. It would have helped to ratchet up the tension and help push the story forward. I found myself sort of slogging through from about 40-70% of the book until we started getting more action.

I would definitely recommend this book for people who love thrillers/horror, social commentary, and flowery imagery and writing.

This was very different but I liked it. It was compared to Get Out and I’ll say I think it was solid and lived up to my hype.

Thank you NetGalley and the publisher for this ARC in exchange for a honest review!

Man I was disappointed by this book. The entire time I was reading it, I just could not focus at all or care about these characters at all. They were both very frustrating and annoying. I was very excited for this book before because the reviews were good and the synopsis sounds good but it just didn't work for me.

TW: Racism, toxic friendships, toxic parent relationships, cheating, abuse, gaslighting

*****SPOILERS*****
About the book:Seventeen-year-old Farrah Turner is one of two Black girls in her country club community, and the only one with Black parents. Her best friend, Cherish Whitman, adopted by a white, wealthy family, is something Farrah likes to call WGS--White Girl Spoiled. With Brianne and Jerry Whitman as parents, Cherish is given the kind of adoration and coddling that even upper-class Black parents can't seem to afford--and it creates a dissonance in her best friend that Farrah can exploit. When her own family is unexpectedly confronted with foreclosure, the calculating Farrah is determined to reassert the control she's convinced she's always had over her life by staying with Cherish, the only person she loves--even when she hates her.As troubled Farrah manipulates her way further into the Whitman family, the longer she stays, the more her own parents suggest that something is wrong in the Whitman house. She might trust them--if they didn't think something was wrong with Farrah, too. When strange things start happening at the Whitman household--debilitating illnesses, upsetting fever dreams, an inexplicable tension with Cherish's hotheaded boyfriend, and a mysterious journal that seems to keep track of what is happening to Farrah--it's nothing she can't handle. But soon everything begins to unravel when the Whitmans invite Farrah closer, and it's anyone's guess who is really in control.
Release Date: 02/08/2022
Genre: Horror
Pages: 336
Rating: ⭐ ⭐ ⭐ ⭐

What I Liked:
• The story flowed
• I liked that I couldn't guess where it was going
• I didn't know who was the victim or villain

What I Didn't Like:
• 95 uses of the word control (very annoying😒)
• I did not care for the ending at all

Overall Thoughts: The author has said this isn't YA it just has teens in the novel, but if I had never read her saying that I would have thought this was a YA book.

I was invested in this novel completely for 75% of it and the ending takes this turn you don't see. Honestly I was okay with it just being a thriller where this girl is trying to force her way into the lives. I thought maybe the twist was that Farah wasn't even a teen and she had been impersonating a teen to take over Cherish's life this whole time. That was not the ending.... The ending was just kind of a let down. They keep her around so that Cherish can abuse her because people need someone to get their frustrations out on before they enter the real world. It was weird and confusing.

Final Thoughts: Pretty good book. I was sucked into the story and I would read another book by the author

This is a must read for anyone who enjoys a good thriller!!
Absolutely loved the characters, the plot, the tension - impossible to put it down

I'm really not sure where I fall with this book. Did I love it? No. Did I hate it? No. I finished it. It made me want to see where it was all going. But...it was all just a bit...off. The characters were all unlikable, for one thing. Farrah was such a horrible person that you almost don't care what's happening to her. In fact, I almost want to say "she got what was coming to her". Had she not been a money-hungry, power-wanting person...and been someone to root for...this could have been a really powerful read. And had Cherish been anything remotely interesting, I would see why Farrah wanted to be around her so much. But as written? No.

The pacing was also off. It's not until almost halfway through before the really interesting/"thriller" portion comes into play. The set-up took too long, and felt repetitive. If we had gotten more of the second half and less of the first half, this book could have been a real winner. And to add insult to injury: when it REALLY kicks into high gear, it just...ends. With cliffhangers. And I know this book is not a set-up for a series, which makes it even more of a head-scratcher as to why Morrow would choose to end the book here. There was so much more story to explore!

Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for an ARC of this copy in exchange for an honest review.

2.5 stars, rounded up

This is a really hard book for me to rate. I didn't enjoy it, but I also don't have particularly strong feelings about it either way. It just... was what it was.

Things I liked: social horror is a genre I have liked in the past and one I'd like to read more of. I only wish this book expanded on some of its statements, as the end seemed a little rushed. I also think the plot itself had a lot of potential and could have been really interesting.

Things I didn't love: the writing style didn't work for me here. It absolutely was not poorly written; I just think I struggled to follow this style of writing sometimes and found myself skimming or not fully engaged during some of Farrah's longer streams of thought. While I bring up Farrah, I just could not get behind her as a narrator. I struggle with unlikeable main characters/narrators sometimes, and this was definitely one of those times. I think this was surely intentional by the author (Farrah isn't supposed to be likeable or easily understood!) but it just ended up further confusing me.

The beginning of the book was also a little slow and felt a bit disjointed from the last quarter or so of the book. The entire book definitely felt ominous, but I wanted the whole thing to be a bit creepier, I guess.

I have read from Bethany C. Morrow before in a different genre ("A Song Below Water" - fantasy) and really enjoyed it, so I'm definitely not writing her off. I just don't think this author/genre mix was right for me. Obviously many people have loved this one, so check it out for yourself if the synopsis intrigues you!

Oh my, this book sadly was not for me. I understand the key themes and messages it tried to convey, but the writing was often confusing and long-winded.

If you've ever been the only one in the room, whether the school room or the boardroom, you're going to get this one.

Me? Yeah...I got it.

Cherish Farrah is a sharp and compelling piece of social horror and it's full of some very devious surprises. I was absolutely shocked by the reason behind everything. I shouldn't have been. I'm old enough to know better, but I was absolutely fooled.

I loved this. I loved every devastating page of it and hope to think I have just a little bit of Farrah's strength - vengeance and all - in me.

Very happy I read this!

I'm not really sure how to review this book. Did I enjoy it? No, not really. But was that the whole intention of the author? Possibly. The story follows Farrah who at first comes off as a spoiled rotten manipulative rich girl. I immediately did not like her. Again was this the intention of the author? Farrah manipulates her way into her best friend Cherish's family when her family falls on hard times and has to relocate out of the rich sub-burbs. As the story continues we learn that there is something very off about Farrah and her friendship with Cherish. Can you say raging psychopath? It was an interesting read. It had me uncomfortable throughout the majority of it. I have to give it 3 stars because I didn't care for it, but I also feel like that is what the author set out for so it warrants at least 3. Thank you, NetGalley for the eARC.

Unforunately I just didn't like this book. The writing style was difficult to read and my mind kept wandering while I was trying to read it. The summary of the book sounded good, but I just found it slow going and hard to concentrate on. I wanted to see how it would end but I just couldn't finish it. This book just didn't work for me.

This book had lots of suspense going for it and it’s a quick read (though it could be 75 pages shorter). I wanted to know what the hell was going on so I read it in two days, but I’m not sure I liked the book. It was a little heavy handed around racism, and I wished Cherish was a more developed character (especially because so many of the secondary characters had more depth). I don’t want to say too much because *twists* but mostly I kept reading to know how it would unfold, but not because I cared so much, I just wanted answers.

My initial thought on seeing the title, Cherish Farrah, was that it referred to cherishing - worshipping - a girl named Farrah. And it does - but it’s also about a girl named Cherish, which makes the title an interesting play on words.

Bethany C.Morrow provides commentary on race and social class in America, weaving these themes through a slow burn psychological thriller that pulls you into the dark and twisty mind of seventeen-year-old Farrah and her warped relationship with her best friend, Cherish.

As the only two black girls in their school and community, they form a close, intimate bond that is more than a little codependent and creepy. They perform dangerous rituals to prove their trust of one another, each needing the other in an unhealthy, possessive way.

Cherish was adopted by a rich, white couple who provide their daughter with all of the “white privileges” that make her, in Farrah’s eyes, White Girl Spoiled. When Farrah’s parents hit financial rock bottom and are forced to sell their house, Farrah is incredibly angry with them and manipulates them into letting her stay with Cherish’s family, who welcome her with open arms. The girls, in their clinginess, sleep in the same bed, even though they are seventeen, in a house where surely there are enough bedrooms to give each girl their own.

The relationship between Farrah and her mother is as interesting as the one between Farrah and Cherish. There is much said of how Farrah and her mother aren’t like other people, though not a lot of evidence is given to support this, and I was left wondering, through most of the book, whether this was all Farrah’s imagination. She has what I would call hallucinations, but they seem to provide her with great insight into people’s motives and feelings. It’s unclear whether her mother has this same “gift”. I would have liked more of the mother-daughter relationship, more interaction and dialogue between them, more showing this unnamed “difference” they share.

While I related to Farrah and felt her behaviour to be plausible, in the context of her controlling, possessive nature, the actions of both sets of parents were harder to understand. All in all, this is a good little mystery, although I did find the narrator to be old beyond her years, using words a seventeen-year-old would typically not use. Then again, Farrah is anything but typical.

The ending, in true thriller fashion, took me by surprise - not so much because of what happened, but because I expected more from Cherish, though it does paint a vivid picture of just what can happen when you give yourself completely to another and fall under their spell. I can’t help but think of the Manson followers here, and it doesn’t get any more twisted than that.

Thank you to NetGalley for this ARC digital copy. I have not been compensated for my opinion and this is an honest review.

Unfortunately, I was unable to finish reading this ARC digital copy before needing to switch to other books that were being archived. The book is not longer on my Goodreads "want to read" list. I will update my review to reflect an updated opinion if I finish it at a later date..

Where do I even start with this one? LOL. This was yet another odd, unsettling, and fever dream-esque type of story, but I did enjoy it!


When it comes to the characters, Farrah was by far one of the most fascinating and compelling ones I’ve ever read. I know a lot of folks don’t like unreliable narrators, but I always have, and Farrah did not disappoint. I was just as entertained by trying to figure out what’s real and what’s not, just as much as the outlandish plot. As for Cherish, I didn’t feel as connected to her character, but I recognized her significance and role, so I still found her interesting to a degree.


I also wanted to note that even though Farrah and Cherish’s friendship is very complex, odd, and essentially toxic, I appreciated Morrow’s analysis of their bond and enjoyed peeling back the layers of the true nature of their dynamic.


Moving onto the thing(s) I loved and didn’t - I loved Morrow’s writing style. This story and the characters are extremely unsettling, and that feeling stayed with me from Chapter one until the end. And if I’m reading a Thriller/Horror, that’s one of the things I look for; how does it make me feel? Am I thrilled? Scared? Unsettled? I can imagine that this isn’t an easy feat for authors to execute, so kudos!


The main things that stopped this from being a 5-star read were the ambiguous ending/plot holes and the fact that this story had the potential to really go there and get dark. I mean really dark, especially when you figure out the larger meaning behind the book Cherish’s mom gifted to Farrah.

This was intense and interesting. And also fairly disturbing.

All the points to Morrow for creating an incredible sense of foreboding and wrongness in the quietest and subtlest way possible. This is an extraordinarily difficult tone to achieve and the author did it flawlessly.

It’s a unique plot, and slow moving in a way that only works if the book is also very well-crafted structurally, which Cherish Farrah absolutely is.

Sadly, this is also very, um, psychologically icky. We want to feel for Farrah, and at times can’t help but doing so, but it’s not without trepidation and at times, disgust. The book makes some interesting points about why Farrah and the other characters are the way that they are and succeeds in demonstrating that Farrah’s flaws are not entirely her fault.

But it’s still tough to root for a character who is this emotionally manipulative and unapologetic about her psychological puppeteering of others, even if we understand and even sympathize with how she got there.

Thank you so much to @duttonbooks for putting this one on radar. I loved it! It is one of the books where you aren’t quite sure what is going on, but you aren’t able to stop reading it because you just can’t wait to find out what is going on. I sped through this one because I was so curious to find out the outcome. It did a great job of keeping my attention and keeping me entertained through out. If you are a fan of Get Out and mysteries involved wealthy families with some darkness mixed in I think you will enjoy this one!

Favorite Quotes:

“Being a spoiled white girl when you’re Black is literally my favorite thing ever. It confuses very literally everyone.” “That’s the only reason I put up with it.”

Polite society is a misnomer.

She’s the only person I still love when I hate her.

Whatever else you are, you’re still a Black girl. One day you’ll know how impossible it is to tell the difference between personalized terror aimed straight at you, and good ole run-of-the-mill systemic prejudice.

Cherish was a spoiled white girl who also happened to be Black, and it meant that the consequence of coddling, the incompetence it breeds, was dangerous.

My Review:

It has been over a day since I finished reading this one and I am quite conflicted and have been stewing and unable to start another book while I ruminate. I vacillated while reading but just couldn’t grasp all that was going on in this disturbing, multi-faceted, and complex tale. I occasionally felt lost, and frequently addled and confused while trying to understand the logic and symbolism the characters employed. And I wasn't the only one as they were confusing and confounding each other as well.

There was a surfeit of personality disorders, anger, smoldering resentment, and an annoying sense of entitlement, as well as significant features of mental illness to wade through. I was invested and motivated, yet I couldn’t put all the pieces together, it was beyond my plane of experience or comprehension. Regardless, the various characters’ level of sociopathy was chilling and distressing.

I still can’t settle on whom I despise more, as every single one of them was a source of deep disappointment to me in the end. There were no heroes in this tale but quite a few victims. I must surrender and move on, yet I give the author her due and respect her process and word prowess. Ms. Morrow kept me on edge, off-balance, and intrigued.