A review by ali_jenna
The Farm by Joanne Ramos

1.0

This book had some major flaws. The most prominent, in my opinion, was the writing itself. It was terrible to a degree that I wonder if this book was professionally edited. Many times a characters name was repeated within the same sentence, for example, "Mae's fair comely mother tried to use Divina's appearance to scare Mae into wearing sunscreen when she was a child ("You have your father's skin, Mae, do you want to end up looking like Divina"), but her fearmongering was ineffectual, at least in those early years, because young Mae didn't find Divina ugly." I understand that sometimes there can be an unclear pronoun, but I don't think this is one of those cases. The dialogue was also clunky and was not like how a normal person would talk. I have never heard anyone who responds "I am good" when asked how are you. Most people just say one word like "Fine" or "Good" or would at least use a contraction: "I'm good" unless they're that kind of person who goes "wElL..." and then launches into a 20 minute explanation of everything. The characters in this book seemingly never used contractions when they spoke, which sounds incredibly unnatural, since most people generally try to say what they want in as few syllables as possible. This book had other flaws though! The ending was completely anticlimactic and a little weird. I get how the author tried to reveal secrets along the way, but it just made things confusing. The ending also seemed somewhat incomplete, for example, what happened to Reagan?? What was the deal with Roy? How about Ate? also why do they call Ate Ate?? I'm assuming that is a cultural thing, but it should have been explained.


However, I can appreciate how difficult it is to actually write a book, and the topic of this one is very relevant today, which is cool.