The premise of The Black Farm caught my attention—a surreal purgatory reserved for those who take their own lives. It’s a unique and unsettling concept, one that offers a lot of potential for exploring deep philosophical and psychological questions.

While the book wasn’t bad, I often felt it could have been written more effectively. The tone and the protagonist’s shifts in perspective happen quickly and sometimes without much buildup, which made the character arc feel abrupt. More than once, it seemed as though whenever the author ran out of compelling narrative momentum, he defaulted to scenes of body horror and grotesquery. To be clear, a story about eternal purgatory can absolutely benefit from disturbing and horrific elements—but in this case, those moments seemed leaned on a bit too heavily, at the expense of stronger narrative development.

In the end, The Black Farm is an imaginative, original concept that doesn’t fully deliver on its potential. The disturbing imagery will stick with some, but I couldn’t help but wish the author had relied more on thoughtful storytelling rather than shock value.