NPR

Plutocracy, Not Theocracy Compels The Handmaids Of 'The Farm'

Joanne Ramos builds her own experience into this story of a young Filipino woman who ends up on a seemingly cushy "gestational retreat" where women — called "hosts" — carry babies for rich families.
Source: Beth Novey

The Farm might serve only as an echo-chamber treatment of The Handmaid's Tale, were it not for author Joanne Ramos's deft way of creating characters. She peoples her book with figures who are appealingly engaging — or, at times, engagingly repellent.

Debut novelists tend to honor the precept "write what you know," and Ramos grounds the work solidly in her own experiences; the dizzying world of Manhattan investment

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