The Compound by Aisling Rawle
on June 24, 2025
Genres: Fiction / Dystopian, Fiction / Literary, Fiction / Psychological
Pages: 304
Format: Hardcover
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Lily, a bored, beautiful twentysomething, wakes up on a remote desert compound alongside nineteen other contestants on a popular reality TV show. To win, she must outlast her housemates while competing in challenges for luxury rewards, such as champagne and lipstick, and communal necessities to outfit their new home, like food, appliances, and a front door. The cameras are catching all her angles, good and bad, but Lily has no desire to leave: Why would she, when the world outside is falling apart? As the competition intensifies, intimacy between the players deepens, and it becomes increasingly difficult to distinguish between desire and desperation. When the producers raise the stakes, forcing contestants into upsetting, even dangerous situations, the line between playing the game and surviving it begins to blur. If Lily makes it to the end, she’ll receive prizes beyond her wildest dreams, but what will she have to do to win?
How to describe this book? Hmmm… how about if Bachelor in Paradise and Big Brother had a baby. I was not really sure what I was getting into with reading this, but was surprisingly excited about how much I enjoyed it. This book will absolutely mess with your head, in the best way. It’s weird, eerie, biting, and absolutely perfect for fans of psychological thrillers that make you squirm while also forcing you to think. I couldn’t stop reading, and when it was over, I just sat there stunned, asking myself what I’d just experienced. I could not put this book down and at the same time, I kept getting WTF moments on what I was actually reading!
I rated this novel 3.5 stars. I was hooked from the very beginning!! The ONLY reason this wasn’t a 5 star for me was because I felt like the climax that we were leading up to wasn’t as crazy as it seemed it was going to be. While the plot was not very strong, it was fascinating for me to see the characters slowly fall apart. The writing itself is very simple and feels very detached, but it’s one of those books that triggers your brain to turn on and read outside of the page in a way.
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