The Farm by Joanne Ramos Book Review

The Farm by Joanne Ramos

As I’ve just become obsessed with reading versus watching tv lately, I wanted to continue my series of book reviews, including those that I’ve read in my book club. As most of you probably know at this point, I run an online book club that empowers women. We focus primarily on books written by female authors that highlight important stories, and The Farm by Joanne Ramos is no exception.

First off, I was SO excited to read a book by a Filipino-American author for the first time. I didn’t realize it until I was reading it how comforting it was to see tagalog words and “Ate” as one of the main characters in the book (this translates to big sister in tagalog).

The story focuses on the very different perspectives of four main women, three of whom are POC. In an seemingly idyllic setting, the majority of the novel takes place at Golden Oaks, a high-end surrogate facility. There, ‘hosts’ aka the surrogates, carry babies of the worlds’ richest and live on-site to ensure that they receive the best care possible and have successful pregnancies.

The Farm by Joanne Ramos

A little background on each of the characters:

Mae, comes from the perspective of the ideal “American dream.” She is a successful Asian-American business woman and runs the show at Golden Oaks, in charge of making sure everything goes according to plan for her high-end clients. Raegan, a Caucasian middle-class woman, becomes a host in order to find a deeper purpose for her life. Jane, a timid Filipino woman, joins Golden Oaks after her cousin, Ate, recommends it to her in order to make a lot of money to support her baby daughter and give her a better life. And Ate is a strong-headed Filipino woman who hustles 24/7 in order to support her children back home.

Currently, on Goodreads, this book has a 3.5 rating out of 5. I gave it a 5 out of 5 rating on Goodreads and said the below:

I feel like this story touched on themes of feminism, motherhood, the immigrant story, Filipino and Asian-American culture, and ethics. My book club discussed it at the end and there are so many ethical dilemmas for us to dive into which I thought was really cool. I also loved that Ramos was able to show so many different perspectives. We had a lively debate on whether or not Mae is a villain throughout the book and I think that’s what makes this novel so good - the complexity of the characters.

Ultimately, I definitely recommend this book and especially for those looking for more diverse representation in the stories they read.

Let me know below if you end up getting the book <3

xo,

s.