Review of The Compound by Aisling Rawle

If you’re new here, and stumbled upon this blog through the mythical powers of the Internet, welcome! I know a lot of visitors to my website are people who randomly come upon this website through search engines like Google, but I also do have a lot of visitors who come back. Regardless: my name is Ashley, and I started this blog in order to keep track of everything I’m coming across in the world.

I recently fell into a spell of unemployment probably during the worst time to be unemployed, as it was very hard to find a job. I was applying to hundreds of jobs, getting interviews, but no offer was manifesting for me in the near future. So during this time, I had a lot of free time, and spent a good chunk of it chipping away at the blog.

I’ve always and forever been a library girl from the bottom of my heart. When I was a child my mother would always take us to the library and I’d pick out a ridiculous amount of books, and I’ve continued that tradition when I moved home from New York City, after college, in order to keep picking my brain for new stories out there in the world.

During this time while unemployed, in-between applying to jobs, I’ve been spending a lot of time just catching up on my advance copy collection. I’ve been running this blog for about four years now, and I get direct emails from publishers along with advance copies through NetGalley. I typically prefer NetGalley though because I only have so much room in my childhood bedroom, as I live with my parents, and I don’t like to waste physical copies of books if I don’t plan on keeping them.

Anyways, I had an extensive backlog on NetGalley during this time and vowed to get through it while I could. Who knows what my life was going to look like when I have a 9-5 again, and I’ll probably feel dead inside and not want to read like I usually do. So I’ve been hitting up the digital files on my Kindle to crank through these, give them enough time they need, and then write the reviews before the books hit shelves.

Today’s review is dedicated to a book I was sent by a publisher directly: The Compound. I don’t watch reality television at all, so I don’t get the Love Island comparisons when I probably should, but regardless I read all of this book in one sitting.

Let’s get into the review!

A young, beautiful woman named Lily finds everything she wanted and so much more on a reality television show.

This novel takes place in an alternate world where the outside seems to creep in every so often, but is barely addressed outside of cryptic statements here and there. There was a war going on with a lot of men drafted, and once the characters are allowed to address certain things about themselves, we see they’re impacted by it in various ways.

Our protagonist is Lily, who, after a while, we learn sells makeup at a department store and has hit a dead end in her life. She wakes up one day in The Compound, which is out in the middle of the desert, with ten other girls. They’ve all opted into a reality television show where each night, until five are left, everyone has to have someone of the opposite sex in their bed or they’re banished/sent home.

Along the way, they have to complete group and personal tasks in order to get rewards. The group tasks often involve something they need, as the house they’re in isn’t furnished and they are about to run out of food after a certain amount of time. The personal tasks are more in the realm of vanity, which is pushed to the extreme around the midway point of the novel. Something to point out about these tasks, too, is that they often lead to sponsorships and the participants have to acknowledge the brand on camera.

Anyways, back to the main plot: the girls clean the house and surrounding area from the previous occupants and wait for the boys to show up. Turns out they were all dropped off in the desert and had to find their way there, leading to some trauma for individuals like Tom. But right from the beginning, everyone is eyeing each other up to figure out who’s going to sleep with who.

A good chunk of the novel is about the dynamics between the guys and girls, which leans catty in so many ways, but also they’re very clearly using each other at the same time. What happens after the guys arrive, missing one who was lost in the desert, is one for the legends involving the show. When Lily finds herself nabbing one of the most attractive guys on the show, it creates an awkward dynamic for her when her affections might actually lay with the quiet, but intelligent Sam.

This is a book that pushes the boundaries of what one would do for fame and consumerism. We see how Lily, especially, becomes consumed by the thought of getting nicer things than what she could ever get at home, and participants don’t see this as a reality television show anymore. They fear what lays beyond the walls of the house, in the desert, and they begin referring to the compound as their home.

As a result, they do some really awful things to protect their earnings and what they see as their territory. The final half of this book is darker and heavy with these themes, which is a harsh pivot from the airheaded way of living inside of a reality television show with strict rules and parameters.

Overall Thoughts

The way I felt about this novel was conflict. I think it was a critical novel that shows the vapid nature of reality television shows, and depicts something really twisted in order to prove a point about the culture and society that could create something happening. When it stops being entertaining, people stop watching, creating a different kind of rupture for the participants who get too deep into it.

I devoured this novel from 1 to 3 AM on a Wednesday morning. I kept telling myself “only one more chapter” but then kept going in a way that was slightly unsustainable, but I finished it. The writing was smooth and clear so I got through it fairly quickly, although I was stopping to mull the themes over here and there.

In the end though, I don’t know if I really liked this novel, but I enjoyed the process of reading it. It feels like other novels I’ve read lately, like Julie Chan is Dead (also reviewed on the blog), which I was also very lukewarm about. I also think some of the messages (like race on the show) are glossed over because we’re seeing it from Lily’s perspective.

I think this one might be divisive among readers, but if you’re interested in the synopsis, give it a chance. I think it’s worth trying to read at least once if it seems up your alley. For me, I’m not sure if I would return to this, but I’m happy I read it.

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