Fiction by Joanne Ramos
Mae Wu is an ambitious young woman who runs a special enterprise called Golden Oaks Farm that caters to the Very Rich. Golden Oaks is a home for surrogate mothers, but it's an elite one. The women who carry the privileged fetuses for the wealthy clients, called the Hosts, stay on the farm from implantation until birth, and they are taken care of and carefully monitored for the entire nine months. Mae meticulously manages every aspect of the farm, from sourcing the Hosts to keeping the Clients happy.
Jane and Reagan are Hosts at Golden Oaks, each carrying a baby for an unknown Client in order to receive a big bonus after giving birth. But Jane and Reagan are very different people; one is a struggling immigrant mother who does domestic work, and the other is a recent college graduate who wants to pursue an art career without her parents' support. The two of them are befriended by Lisa, a returning Host who knows her way around the farm and isn't above bending the rules.
This was a really interesting book with good characters. The reviews I read weren't overwhelmingly positive, however, and I think that is because readers were expecting the story to be something it isn't. It's not The Handmaid's Tale by any means.
This book is NOT a dystopian novel; it's a realistic one. These characters live in the world that we live in, where the gap between the very rich and very poor exists, but also where almost everyone falls somewhere in between. I really liked this story and it gives the reader a lot to think about.
