Cherish Farrah
Ratings3
Average rating3
15
Ratings3
Average rating3
Named a Most Anticipated Book of 2022 by PopSugar, Ms. magazine, Medium, Book Riot, BookPage, CrimeReads, Tor Nightfire, Bookshop, Book Talk, BiblioLifestyle, and more! AN APRIL 2022 BELLETRIST BOOK CLUB PICK “Morrow uses her heroine’s warped perspective to examine painful truths about race and class in America, but this isn’t a book intended to teach anyone a lesson, except maybe: Be careful. You never know who’s really in control.”—Los Angeles Times From bestselling author Bethany C. Morrow comes a new adult social horror novel in the vein of Get Out meets My Sister, the Serial Killer, about Farrah, a young, calculating Black girl who manipulates her way into the lives of her Black best friend’s white, wealthy, adoptive family but soon suspects she may not be the only one with ulterior motives. . . . Seventeen-year-old Farrah Turner is one of two Black girls in her country club community, and the only one with Black parents. Her best friend, Cherish Whitman, adopted by a white, wealthy family, is something Farrah likes to call WGS—White Girl Spoiled. With Brianne and Jerry Whitman as parents, Cherish is given the kind of adoration and coddling that even upper-class Black parents can’t seem to afford—and it creates a dissonance in her best friend that Farrah can exploit. When her own family is unexpectedly confronted with foreclosure, the calculating Farrah is determined to reassert the control she’s convinced she’s always had over her life by staying with Cherish, the only person she loves—even when she hates her. As troubled Farrah manipulates her way further into the Whitman family, the longer she stays, the more her own parents suggest that something is wrong in the Whitman house. She might trust them—if they didn’t think something was wrong with Farrah, too. When strange things start happening at the Whitman household—debilitating illnesses, upsetting fever dreams, an inexplicable tension with Cherish’s hotheaded boyfriend, and a mysterious journal that seems to keep track of what is happening to Farrah—it’s nothing she can’t handle. But soon everything begins to unravel when the Whitmans invite Farrah closer, and it’s anyone’s guess who is really in control. Told in Farrah’s chilling, unforgettable voice and weaving in searing commentary on race and class, this slow-burn social horror will keep you on the edge of your seat until the last page.
Reviews with the most likes.
THE PLOT
CHERISH FARRAH follows Cherish and Farrah who are the only two black girls in their upper-class community. They are best friends. Cherish is the adopted daughter of white parents. Farrah's parents have lost their home to foreclosure and she has been living with her best friend Cherish while her parents try to figure everything out. As troubled Farrah manipulates her way further into the Whitman family, the longer she stays, the more her own parents suggest that something is wrong in the Whitman house. Soon everything begins to unravel when the Whitmans invite Farrah closer, and it's anyone's guess who is really in control.
MY OPINION
DNF at 10%. For the life of me, I could not get into this book. I honestly did not like the writing at all. I struggled so much with actually trying to read this. I struggle with ADHD and sometimes I physically can not read a book because the words are not making sense. Most of the time when this happens I am able to continue reading and the words start to make sense, but with this book that did not happen. I had to read over the sentences multiple times to try to understand them. Honestly, this is my problem but I think their writing style did not help me.
Thank you to Penguin Group Dutton and NetGalley for an ARC in exchange for an honest review.
Being inside of Farrah's skewed and disturbed thoughts the whole way through was incredibly irritating and distressing in a bad way to the point where it's kind of hard to tell what's even actually going on. I would have stopped reading this but I wanted to figure out what was happening. And it's a shame cause I probably would have really liked this story had it been told in any other way. Even adding another perspective would have helped.
My first book by Ms Morrow, even though I intended to read Mem. I'm definitely going to read that now.
Cherish Farrah is about the (basically toxic) friendship between Farrah (our titular narrator, who is also probably clinically psychopathic) and her bestie Cherish (the other titular character, who is White Girl Spoiled by her white parents, though she is Black). Their relationship is incredibly intense, so intense that it comes off as a bit queer, though both girls are either crushing on or involved with boys; they also don't have sexual tension, so much as romantic.
Farrah's parents are upper middle class and end up losing their house. Farrah ends up staying with Cherish, as the former's parents move into a smaller place that she want nothing to do with. So, mind full of machinations, overthinking, paranoia, and obsession over Cherish, Farrah plots ways to stay with Cherish and her family.
A very mild spoiler
Farrah has mother issues and is convinced her mother is just like her. She's obsessive when it comes to Cherish and only really loves Cherish. You might think this will be about a girl trying to supplant another girl in the affections of rich parents, but it isn't. By the time one character was giving another character a very specific gift, I knew things were going very badly indeed.
I found this book interesting not just for the social horror aspect, but because of our heroine. She's not likeable. She's sinister and functions on a completely different level than Cherish. Farrah is incredibly intelligent. She lacks empathy for most people. She's downright awful sometimes. She's obsessed with Cherish; the feelings are apparently mutual, even though Farrah often hurts Cherish's feelings. Farrah is dangerous but functional and uses Cherish to learn how to gauge people. She's endlessly fascinating.
In all, I plowed through this book. I enjoyed it immensely, flaws and all. And Farrah is one of the more fascinating anti-heroes I've read in a while. I didn't like her, but I loved her.
