A review by barnesstorming
The Farm by Héctor Abad Faciolince

3.0

I mean, I didn't hate it, but I did dread having to pick it up every day to read 3-4 chapters to make my book club deadline. It's told from alternating perspectives of two sisters and a brother, all hailing from a small farm in Columbia. And IDK if it's a fault of the translation or a fault of the storytelling, but I struggled to connect with any of the three of them in any meaningful way. They were in no way loathsome; I just didn't care about them. And the greater story -- a heartbreaker about wanting to hold on to *something* in spite of a country filled with people who want to take that thing about from you -- could have been powerful. But here's the thing: I watched the Disney animated film "Encanto" the other night, and I thought it carried much of the same message but delivered it in a way that was more powerful. Abad's writing seems elegant enough and was, I suspect, well translated. So I think I'd try him again, but maybe one of his award-winners, like "Oblivion: A Memoir" or, if it's ever available in English, "Angosta".