Synopsis:
Natalie has no skills or ambitions. The clock ticks away at the call centre where she works, while she tries to ignore the pain in her jaw. She has no dental insurance.
Then, a mysterious flyer leads her to The Company. Natalie turns out to be the perfect candidate for their in-house surrogacy program. The job: deliver seven healthy babies in ten years.
Suddenly, her every need is met. And during what Natalie comes to call her ‘fallow’ periods, she enjoys uncomplicated hedonism. For the first time in her life, she is good at her job; for the first time, she feels free.
But as Natalie nears the end of her contract, she meets Jackie, who isn’t like the other mothers. And soon Natalie finds herself in another kind of social experiment altogether.
Review:
What if The Handmaid’s Tale was repurposed for the modern age, rife with satire and corporate ‘feminism’ (yes, I mean that in a derogatory sense)?
This read like an answering call to Yesteryear.
Natalie is debt-burdened and sick of trying to balance life and work, health and the grind. She takes a job as an in-house corporate surrogate for a company that advocates that this is for the best of their women employees – reducing maternity leave and everything that comes with pregnancy.
To Natalie, it is a non-brainer: she must deliver seven babies over ten years in exchange for generous compensation. She lives in a luxury condo stocked with healthy meals, around-the-clock medical care, and fitness experts.
If you have read Vanishing World by Sayaka Murata, this reminded me of the absurd take on a prevalent topic. Where well-meaning interference results in further restrictions.
Natalie is a pretty unlikable character, but who we all harbour aspects of: lazy, selfish, judging. That’s what made this so fascinating. We all want to be able to relax, to not worry about future, to be taken care of. However, this book makes us interrogate capitalistic culture that has forced us to think of a decent work/life balance and compensation as a ‘dream’.
I loved the first two parts, but the latter end changed tone and didn’t quite work for me. It served as a contrast – dystopian (importantly: seemingly utopian until challenged), then communal. However, the change was too abrupt and the switch up felt even more bizarre than the rest of the book.
The audiobook is well-performed and the narrator nailed Natalie’s voice. I just realised both Yesteryear and Fallow have protagonists called Natalie!
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