Paperback, 420 pages
Published November 21st 2012 by Penguin Books
ISBN 1405909250 (ISBN13: 9781405909259)
Blurb: “For Lily and her twin sister, Mel, there is only the Farm . . .
It's a prison, a blood bank, a death camp - where fear and paranoia rule. But it's also home, of sorts. Because beyond the electric fence awaits a fate much, much worse.
But Lily has a plan.
She and Mel are going to escape - into the ravaged land outside, a place of freedom and chaos and horrors. Except Lily hasn't reckoned on two things: first, her sister's ability to control the horrors; and, secondly, on those out there who desperately want to find and control Mel.
Mel's growing power might save the world, or utterly end it. But only Lily can protect Mel from what is to come...
The Farm takes you into a terrifying future where civilization has ended, and leaves you there - fearful, gasping and begging to escape.”
I do love a good dystopian thriller so I was very excited to start reading this one. This one was really good but just fell short of amazing. I thought the idea was really clever but I have to admit that the presence of vampires in the story threw me a little. I don’t know why really as I’m usually enthusiastic for a good vampire story. I suppose it was mainly because there had been no mention in the blurb of vampires that it caught me by surprise. There was a different blurb on the back of my copy of the book which seemed to suggest zombies rather than accidentally (maybe) genetically engineered humans. Also, I was a little confused as to why the humans accepted having their blood taken to satisfy the Ticks when they knew they were mindless savages. However, the politics of the vampires definitely helped to explain many events in the book. The ticks seemed scary and the author successfully created tense moments
I really liked Lily as a character, mostly due to her determination to keep her autistic sister, Mel, safe in their dangerous new world. Although her continuous list of ‘if’ plans were a little annoying…
However, there are quite a lot of inconsistencies and the strange plot twists were sometimes unnecessary.
Carter was a great character and I could completely understand why he kept Lily in the dark about the truth until later in the book.
Joe and McKenna were an interesting addition to the book and showed how such dramatic events can change people and how people are not always as they appear to the outside world.
The chapters which were from Mel’s point of view were interesting observations. I don’t know how accurate the style is but it was really beautiful and mysterious and I liked that this portrayed autism in a positive light.
There is probably more to be said about this book, but yet again I have left it a few weeks to write this as I have been busy, so I can’t remember everything I thought about it at the time.
Despite all of its flaws the book was still enjoyable and I definitely cared a lot about the characters. I just think the author overcomplicated the whole thing. 7 out of 10.
Sorry I haven't posted recently by the way, I've been really busy! I just checked on goodreads though and I've realised that I have read twenty books since this one - I don't know how I'm going to catch up with my reviews! I'm definitely going to try to post more often anyway :)
