Joanne RamosBesprekingen

Adversity

See the full review and more at baileysbooks.home.blog!

Recommended: sure
For a [b:1984|40961427|1984|George Orwell|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1532714506l/40961427._SX50_.jpg|153313]-ish, [b:The Handmaid's Tale|38447|The Handmaid's Tale (The Handmaid's Tale, #1)|Margaret Atwood|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1546031886l/38447._SY75_.jpg|1119185]-ish kind of story, for a read that will make you bounce back and forth between whether something is right or wrong until you're tangled up in knots, for complex evaluations on ways of living and which is better (indignant pride and striving for what you deserve, or gratitude for everything that you have no matter how meager it may seem to others)

Thoughts
The surface story within this didn't compel me as much as the struggle to figure out who was correct in their view of Golden Oaks and their services. I don't think I ever came up with a clear answer, but it made me consider some important questions and challenge some of my own beliefs, so that in itself made me keep reading.

What kept me reading this book, despite my revulsion at phrases like a baby "stewing in her sour broth," was how the rationale of each character made me question everything. I very much appreciated the look contrasting Ms Yu, Reagan, and Jane's perspectives of the end result though, as it highlighted the best and worst about each, and made it really difficult to point to one and say, "Clearly that is the correct way to see it." It felt very much like reality in that way.

This is not sci-fi, or a dystopian novel. It's just fiction, and not that removed from reality. Doesn't mean it's bad, but not as advertised.

Nestled in New York’s Hudson Valley is a luxury retreat boasting every amenity: organic meals, personal fitness trainers, daily massages-and all of it for free. In fact, you’re paid big money to stay here-more than you’ve ever dreamed of. The catch? For nine months, you cannot leave the grounds, your movements are monitored, and you are cut off from your former life while you dedicate yourself to the task of producing the perfect baby for someone else.
Jane, an immigrant from the Philippines, is in desperate search of a better future when she commits to be a “Hoist” at Golden Oaks-or the Farm, as residents call it. But now pregnant, fragile, consumed with worry for her family, Jane is determined to reconnect with her life outside.
Author does a good job of building up events but the book lacks the punch in the end.½

Digital audiobook narrated by Fran de Leon.

Jane, an immigrant from the Philippines, is searching for a better opportunity to secure the future for herself and her daughter. So, the chance to become a “host” at Golden Oaks – a luxury resort in New York’s Hudson Valley – seems ideal. She’ll have every amenity: organic meals, a personal fitness trainer, daily massages, and an idyllic setting. All she has to do is be a surrogate mother for someone else’s child. But things at “The Farm” (as Jane and her fellow surrogates refer to it), aren’t as ideal as the brochures promise.

While the original premise seems plausible, the reality of Jane’s situation quickly devolves into a somewhat dystopian nightmare. She seems to be being played by not only those who run the operation but, perhaps, by one or more fellow surrogates. It also seems that the relative she’s entrusted with her daughter’s care while she spends nine months at Golden Oaks isn’t as trustworthy as Jane originally thought. All this adds to the tension … both for Jane and for the reader.

It certainly held my attention and I really wanted to see how Jane would fare in this scenario. I think this would be a work that book clubs would love to discuss.

Fran de Leon does a fine job narrating the audio. She has good diction and keep a good pace. There are a lot of characters, most of them female, and there were a few times when I got confused about who was speaking, but I quickly caught up.

I enjoyed reading this in part because it was through provoking about classism/surrogacy etc…but also because I thought it was going to go somewhere in the story line …but I found it ended disappointing me½

“Because in America you only have to know how to make money. Money buys everything else.”
― Joanne Ramos, The Farm

This was quite a read.

The Farm is a book that I have mixed feelings about. I cannot say I loved it but I CAN say it was an incredible read. Both of those things can be true.

I am not going to do a plot review..so many others already have..but I will talk about my feelings abut this book.

First off..nothing that occurs in The Farm is unlikely to actually happen..if it isn't already. The book just does an incredible job in showing the readers the difference in life styles between the Haves and the Have-nots. The top one percent and the people who are not as fortunate..or are they?

I say this because the rich..in this book.. aren't very good people. Nobody working at the farm is a particularly good person. It is a creepy place to be. But I also have no problem seeing why someone would make the choice to work there as a surrogate.

Jane is an amazing character. This book has been described as having characters "so real they could step off the pages". I agree with that. I wanted to give Jane a hug. The writer has done an amazing job bringing these people to life..all of them..and I've no doubt this will, at some point, be a film or even a TV series. How could it not be? And it is sure inspiring buzz.

My favorite character was Reagan. I related to her and loved her in a way..she is someone I would choose to have as a friend. My feelings about Lisa are a bit more complex.

This all being said, I didn't LOVE the book. I did not devour it in one sitting. I thought the creepy factor could have been amped up some, to show the horror of the Farm. There were moments of pure horror but not enough of those. I would have liked less emphasis on all the different characters and more on the sheer and utter dehumanizing of the women. And make no mistake that is what the farm does. It devalues everything..every good thing.

Trust, honesty, loyalty, privacy, human decency..all of that is thrown out the window..not because of any caring for human life and babies but because of..plain and simple..money. These ladies are cash cows and nothing more.

Not hard to envision this. But I did want more of the dread, not because I wanted to be scared but because I feel moments like that are pivotal in showing the..for lack of a better term..gross aspect of what is going on. We get some of that but not as much as I'd have liked.

So, in closing, this is an important book. It's a serious book about reality and what it shows the reader, sadly is that reality can often suck. Sorry for the bluntness but it's true. The epilogue was a bit odd and I'd have liked more depth on that. I'd have also liked to have seen certain things rather then just been told of them..like a confrontation between Reagan and the Farm workers themselves.

These are minor quibbles though. I did enjoy this read will be recommending it to others. My rating is four stars. This book will leave you talking.

This is speculative fiction about a company that organizes a surrogacy business for the richest women in the world. Some of the "hosts," surrogates, are well-meaning, well-educated white women (premium hosts), but the majority are women of color and/or immigrants who need the money. The hosts' lives are managed completely, for the sake of their rich babies. This is the best book I've read about Filipinas. Having worked with Filipina nurses for 20 years I've seen their strong work ethic, their dedication to family, their respect for rules, and sometimes their willingness to subject everything to their ability to earn. I didn't understand how the author could have so accurately depicted them until I realized that she herself is Filipina. One thing we've all learned in the past 7 years or so is that respectful rule followers will be exploited by those who think rules are for the weak. It fits very well with recent attitudes.

I found this book very disturbing. The concept of a farm for surrogacy for the wealthy who either can't have their own or choose not to carry their own baby is so wrong. Money is the motivating factor at the expense of the "hosts" for their babies.

"The Farm" wasn't what I expected. It is not just a book about a surrogate mothers' "farm." It is also about immigrant culture and what those women put up with to succeed.

People aren't who you think they are. Dig deeper. They learn.

"The Farm" is a superb book.

The Baby Factory

A conglomerate establishes a farm around an hour or two north of New York City in the Hudson River Valley called Golden Oaks. Rather than a dairy operation, or an orchard, both of which can still be found in this part of New York, this farm turns out babies. These aren’t ordinary babies. They hatch from the fertilized eggs of some of the richest women and couples in the world. The majority of the women who carry and birth these babies are poor brown women. These women lead regimented, highly restricted lives while residents at Golden Oaks. Though treated well physically, they are often psychologically manipulated and threatened with monetary punishment if they break farm rules. A group of coordinators, nurses, dietitians, doctors, and administrators control every aspect of their lives while on the farm. The women make what seem like small fortunes to them, while the farm harvests millions in profits. It’s surrogacy for profit on an industrial scale.

If this strikes you as some near-future tale of dystopian America, of a natural human process commoditized by American capitalism run amok, a sort of The Handmaid’s Tale wherein women find themselves breeding stock at the hands of mammon worshipping men, and you can’t wait to get your hands on the book, wait. Wait, because this describes the backdrop of the book. Joanne Ramos’ novel is more about the plight of poor immigrant women trying to make it in modern America, the power of family, not just the nuclear variety, but the extended encompassing one of immigrant ethnic groups, in this case immigrant women. Whether you enjoy The Farm depends on what you are expecting. If it’s a dark dystopian novel, you might be disappointed. If, however, you are looking for a story filled with insight into another culture, a novel featuring women generally working together to protect themselves from the vicissitudes of the outside world, and at that a novel pretty much with only female characters, you’ll like The Farm.

The novel follows the life of Jane, a recent immigrant from the Philippines, and her older cousin Ate. They live in New York City, in a rundown apartment building in Queens, in which immigrants rent bunks in crowded rooms for $300 to $400 a month. These are the people who do the scut work in restaurants, retirement homes, where Jane works, who do all the things nobody else wants to, but stuff that needs doing to keep the city (and the country) functioning. Ate’s that rare breed of woman. She has learned a lot since landing in NYC years ago, especially about nannying and baby nursing and the needs and desires of the rich and upper middle class of the city. She imparts this knowledge to Jane, who struggles to support herself and her infant daughter Amalia. For a time Jane does well baby nursing, though always suffering mentally being separated from her daughter. When she acts on a grave error of judgment, she loses her baby nursing job. That’s when Ate hooks Jane up with Golden Oaks.

Jane joins a corps of women carrying babies for the rich and famous of the world, living in the restrictive panopticon (a word the author uses several times in the novel) of Golden Oaks. Here, readers meet the two other main characters of the novel, Reagan, a young educated woman from a well-off family dealing with issues, and Mae Yu, the ambitious administrator of Golden Oaks. As you might guess from a situation such as these women find themselves in, intrigue follows. This primarily stems from Jane’s desire to keep in touch with Amalia (residents live isolated from their loved ones for the duration of a pregnancy); Reagan’s search for purpose in her life and expression of her repressed rebellious self; and Mae’s thirst for recognition and advancement that leads her into making some ill-informed decisions with regard to Jane. Depending on who you are, you’ll find the machinations that follow either propulsive or a tad bit contrived. The saving grace here is the humanity of the women, even that of the calculating Mae, who this reader personally liked.

Take it to the beach and you won’t be disappointed. (P.S. Commercial surrogacy is illegal in New York State. In the U.S., surrogacy regulations vary by state, with many states having no regulations at all.)

The Baby Factory

A conglomerate establishes a farm around an hour or two north of New York City in the Hudson River Valley called Golden Oaks. Rather than a dairy operation, or an orchard, both of which can still be found in this part of New York, this farm turns out babies. These aren’t ordinary babies. They hatch from the fertilized eggs of some of the richest women and couples in the world. The majority of the women who carry and birth these babies are poor brown women. These women lead regimented, highly restricted lives while residents at Golden Oaks. Though treated well physically, they are often psychologically manipulated and threatened with monetary punishment if they break farm rules. A group of coordinators, nurses, dietitians, doctors, and administrators control every aspect of their lives while on the farm. The women make what seem like small fortunes to them, while the farm harvests millions in profits. It’s surrogacy for profit on an industrial scale.

If this strikes you as some near-future tale of dystopian America, of a natural human process commoditized by American capitalism run amok, a sort of The Handmaid’s Tale wherein women find themselves breeding stock at the hands of mammon worshipping men, and you can’t wait to get your hands on the book, wait. Wait, because this describes the backdrop of the book. Joanne Ramos’ novel is more about the plight of poor immigrant women trying to make it in modern America, the power of family, not just the nuclear variety, but the extended encompassing one of immigrant ethnic groups, in this case immigrant women. Whether you enjoy The Farm depends on what you are expecting. If it’s a dark dystopian novel, you might be disappointed. If, however, you are looking for a story filled with insight into another culture, a novel featuring women generally working together to protect themselves from the vicissitudes of the outside world, and at that a novel pretty much with only female characters, you’ll like The Farm.

The novel follows the life of Jane, a recent immigrant from the Philippines, and her older cousin Ate. They live in New York City, in a rundown apartment building in Queens, in which immigrants rent bunks in crowded rooms for $300 to $400 a month. These are the people who do the scut work in restaurants, retirement homes, where Jane works, who do all the things nobody else wants to, but stuff that needs doing to keep the city (and the country) functioning. Ate’s that rare breed of woman. She has learned a lot since landing in NYC years ago, especially about nannying and baby nursing and the needs and desires of the rich and upper middle class of the city. She imparts this knowledge to Jane, who struggles to support herself and her infant daughter Amalia. For a time Jane does well baby nursing, though always suffering mentally being separated from her daughter. When she acts on a grave error of judgment, she loses her baby nursing job. That’s when Ate hooks Jane up with Golden Oaks.

Jane joins a corps of women carrying babies for the rich and famous of the world, living in the restrictive panopticon (a word the author uses several times in the novel) of Golden Oaks. Here, readers meet the two other main characters of the novel, Reagan, a young educated woman from a well-off family dealing with issues, and Mae Yu, the ambitious administrator of Golden Oaks. As you might guess from a situation such as these women find themselves in, intrigue follows. This primarily stems from Jane’s desire to keep in touch with Amalia (residents live isolated from their loved ones for the duration of a pregnancy); Reagan’s search for purpose in her life and expression of her repressed rebellious self; and Mae’s thirst for recognition and advancement that leads her into making some ill-informed decisions with regard to Jane. Depending on who you are, you’ll find the machinations that follow either propulsive or a tad bit contrived. The saving grace here is the humanity of the women, even that of the calculating Mae, who this reader personally liked.

Take it to the beach and you won’t be disappointed. (P.S. Commercial surrogacy is illegal in New York State. In the U.S., surrogacy regulations vary by state, with many states having no regulations at all.)

*Received via NetGalley for review*

Initially, I thought this was a dystopian novel about women being farmed for their babies. While that would have been interesting, thankfully I got a sympathetic and intriguing novel about surrogacy as it is today.

Surrogacy is a hot issue, even if it's one that hasn't made as many headlines as others. Ramos clearly did at least a little bit of research in inventing both Mae's business and Jane's situation. Often, as much as I'd like it to change, the women who go into surrogacy are pressured to by financial difficulties, and Jane is the quintessential surrogate.

Things wouldn't be so bad, if it weren't for two things: Jane's increasing unbelievable stupidity (though I still felt for her and rooted for her) and the strange anti-family policies of Golden Oaks. Usually, surrogates are recruited from women who are already mothers, in order to ensure that they have a record of carrying pregnancies successfully. Wouldn't it make sense, then, to allow these women to see the children they so desperately miss? Maybe that's Ramos' point...

While a bit sensational, The Farm is still an enjoyable, well-conceived read about an issue that won't be going away anytime soon.

Not nearly The Handmaid's Tale, but a fast, intriguing idea set in contemporary times. I especially liked the audio.

Well, this one didn’t pan out as I expected. And I’m not sure how I feel about it. ⁣
So based on the description and hype around this book, I was expecting another dystopian story in the style of the “Handmaid’s Tale”. The more and more I read, the more it came to me that whoever is in charge of publicity for this book and I, have clearly read two different stories. I have a feeling I won’t be the only disappointed reader. ⁣
Not that I didn’t enjoy the story that is really there, though. The author does a great job in depicting life for Filipino immigrants, surrogates, and the stark disparity between the 1 percenters and the poor. There are certain situations that seem purely fictional in their outlandishness, but you as the reader just have a sinking suspicion that they are actually factual. ⁣
This novel could have been a great book. But when compared to others like it, it will remain unforgettable for me. The entire book hints at some underlying evil at “the farm” and yet nothing ever happens on that front. Several main characters that had entire chapters from their point of view are relegated to an aside in the epilogue, or never mentioned again. ⁣
I was also surprised by the epilogue but not in a good way. There is a time jump involved that involves happy endings for some of the main characters, and it came across as too forced for me, and I felt like it either should have been left out completely or written differently.

This book was an interesting look at class and immigrants in the US more so than a dystopian novel. My only confusion was the geography of this book. You can see the Catskills, yet it's close to the Berkshires, right off of Metro-North, and two hours from the city? I don't think there is anywhere in the Hudson Valley that you can get all of those things!

Meh, the writing was just okay and the story was interesting but I didn't really learn anything about the immigrant experience. The poor are taken advantage of and the rich spend money willy-nilly. What else is new?

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.

Wow. It may not really be dystopia, because it seems to take place in the current time, and the things that take place could actually be happening right now. Jane is an immigrant who agrees to be a "Host," carrying a child for someone else--and be paid well while staying with other Hosts at Golden Oaks. As time goes on, Jane begins to wonder about Golden Oaks, and who she can really trust. The reader will wonder too--although we know what Jane does not about Mae Yu, and eventually about Jane's cousin Evelyn. There is mystery, intrigue, fear, and confusion. There are mostly well-drawn characters. There is a less than satisfying, but somewhat hopeful, ending.

I liked this book a lot, but the end felt really rushed and not very... end-like. I mean, everybody ends up happy, which seemed very strange for the sort of dystopian setup. I was about to give it four stars just because I was enjoying it so much, but then the last chapter and ESPECIALLY the epilogue killed it for me.

Once it got going, it was really hard to put down, and I was hit at least a couple of times by the potential terrors of what might as well be everyday life. The way in which Ramos lets what I'll call evil play out as the stuff of a severely unequal world is even more excellent when combined with the fact that there's no easy ending here—and maybe no real justice, either. (As one character puts it, "Because nothing is going to change.") Also? A demonstration that practical attitudes often necessary for basic survival harbor quite a lot of complexities we'd rather not acknowledge.½

In Joanne Ramos’ new novel, The Farm, healthy, beautiful and financially desperate young women are pregnancy surrogates living at the Golden Oaks medical campus. The mothers-to-be have housing, healthy meals, high-quality medical care during their pregnancies. They’re only permitted occasional well-supervised visits off the baby farm, and required to wear tracking bracelets every day. Pregnancy is business on the farm, and the surrogates will receive huge, life-changing payments after delivering a healthy baby. It’s not too far-fetched, just scroll Craig’s List for paid egg donation.

The novel also shows the future mothers, who are unable or unwilling to carry their own children for a variety of reasons. Without revealing too much, because discovering the characters and motivations is a real pleasure in this novel, I’ll say that I was expecting the tragic-infertile trope, and I was pleasantly surprised by the range of reasons women used The Farm.

This book explores race, money, motherhood, and more, while remaining a story first, and a treatise second. I was mildly disappointed in the ending, because I felt like so many intersecting lives and major social themes had been explored, and so I really wanted to see some systemic change, but of course that’s not very realistic fiction.

What value does a poor, struggling immigrant have--her womb. In the near future, these women take on the job of carrying and birthing the children of the uber rich who either have waited too long, are to focused on their careers, or simply don't want the side effects of pregnancy. Ramos writes a compelling story of the commodification of fertility while following the story of a poor immigrant woman and a middle class young woman looking for independence through the money they could make through surrogacy.

whew, this was brilliant.

I have frequently seen The Farm referred to as a dystopian novel, but I’m not sure that’s entirely accurate. It feels both horrific in many ways, and also extraordinarily close to reality. The titular Farm is Golden Oaks surrogacy centre, where rich women who maybe can’t have children, but often just don’t want pregnancy to ruin their figure (or they somehow feel they don’t have the time to be pregnant) pay vast sums of money for other women – typically women from a poor background – to carry their child. The Farm monitors it’s hosts every move – by video feed, ‘wellbands’ – basically a GPS tracker, and checking of their post and emails. Personal phones and computers are confiscated, and any transgression of the Farm’s strict rules result in a financial penalty, whereby the hosts lose part of their payment.

Jane is a Filipino woman, short of money and in need of a job to support herself and her baby daughter, and the Farm seems a good way to do that. But being apart from her child while carrying the child of an anonymous client takes its toll.

The books raises questions surrounding race, class and exploitation, and while I found it an absorbing and interesting read, it made me very angry at times. That’s probably the point. I liked Jane and her friend Reagan, who features heavily in the book, while I was not so keen on Jane’s aunt Evelyn, or Mae Yu, who ran the Farm for an extortionate salary. But despite the moral ambiguity of Evelyn and Mae, they were represented as believable and nuanced characters, as indeed were most of the others in the story.

So no, I would not necessarily class this is as a dystopian novel, but if you do like books in that genre, I would recommend it. Either way, it was certainly a thought provoking and emotive read.