Reviews - The Compound | The StoryGraph

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2.65k reviews for:

The Compound

Aisling Rawle, Aisling Rawle

3.8 AVERAGE

saddknee's review against another edition

3.5

dark mysterious reflective sad tense medium-paced

Plot or Character Driven: A mix

Strong character development: Complicated

Loveable characters: No

Diverse cast of characters: Yes

Flaws of characters a main focus: Yes

mundleecat's review against another edition

4.0

dark tense fast-paced

Plot or Character Driven: A mix

Strong character development: Yes

Loveable characters: Yes

Diverse cast of characters: Yes

Flaws of characters a main focus: Yes

Even though I felt like this book was pure fluff in the way that I could consume it so so quickly, I also felt that it was really good commentary that had a lot of depth too. It made me think both about the way we societally consume reality tv and the way that desire and materialism functions in our culture. Would I be in the same boat as Lily? Doesn’t the concept sound desirable to me too?

Coming off of the Materialists boom this summer, I found the commentary on our societal obsession with “ideas@ of things to be so prominent. I’ll keep eating up this type of fiction for a while because I love the way it makes me think!

When it comes to cons, I think that the only qualm I have is that it is still lacking some significant depth and symbolism. Everything is so obvious and said so very obviously. This is great because it leaves less room for readers to get lost in metaphors, but it makes the reading experience very straightforward (in a negative way). Still awesome!!

becshrader's review against another edition

3.5

dark tense medium-paced

Plot or Character Driven: Plot

Strong character development: No

Loveable characters: No

Diverse cast of characters: Yes

Flaws of characters a main focus: Yes

Content Warnings

erinlindys's review against another edition

5.0

adventurous dark mysterious reflective medium-paced

mlange1432's review against another edition

4.0

adventurous challenging dark tense medium-paced

Plot or Character Driven: Character

Strong character development: No

Loveable characters: No

Diverse cast of characters: Yes

Flaws of characters a main focus: Yes

akmanwell's review against another edition

4.0

adventurous mysterious reflective fast-paced

jem18's review against another edition

4.25

dark mysterious reflective medium-paced

Plot or Character Driven: A mix

Strong character development: Complicated

Loveable characters: No

Flaws of characters a main focus: Yes

The concept of this novel was excellent, it felt like a mixture of tv shows like Big Brother, Love Island spliced with a touch of Lord of the Flies, completely dystopian and bleak at times. Many of the characters were completely unlikable (but thats one of the points of the book I think). I did wish we knew more about the outside world and what was truly so bad about it that drove Lily to want to stay in the compound.

I also did not love that in the end there really was no character growth, it was clear that the show would continue with or without Lily, and no one on the outside questioned the cruelty of The Compound and even when Lily did so, she did nothing to combat such things. Lily was vapid and meek but made for a great storyteller.