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A review by meshell
Compound Fracture by Andrew Joseph White
challenging
dark
tense
medium-paced
5.0
I recently read Compound Fracture by Andrew Joseph White, (courtesy of netgalley & the publisher) and thought it was brilliant. I think his books are all great, in different ways. Thus far, every time I pick one up I just can't put it down again, or if I do, I keep thinking about it.
This one is queer trans autistic west Virginian teenager vs murderous decades long power imbalanced family feud vs the worst of small town energy. There is radical redneck history. There is violence, and intrigue, and mystery. There is satisfaction. I found this book had a bit more education for the uninitiated, and I don't know how that will land for other people - but I didn't think any of it was particularly heavy handed, just I felt like the authour was making an explicit point about certain aspects vs just having it be part of the story for stories sake.
I liked the pacing in the first half, and wanted more from the second half, but what was there was good enough for me. This felt more like a thriller than horror - there are some supernatural elements it was generally softer than his other two books, and wasn't as violent despite still containing some pretty serious violence.
I think this would be a great book for anyone interested in reading some righteous vengeance against mostly unambiguous villains, mixed with some coming of age and self-acceptance/self-understanding themes. You will probably also appreciate it if you were a queer anarchisty-leaning kid growing up in a conservative area (like me) but that might be too on the nose.
This one is queer trans autistic west Virginian teenager vs murderous decades long power imbalanced family feud vs the worst of small town energy. There is radical redneck history. There is violence, and intrigue, and mystery. There is satisfaction. I found this book had a bit more education for the uninitiated, and I don't know how that will land for other people - but I didn't think any of it was particularly heavy handed, just I felt like the authour was making an explicit point about certain aspects vs just having it be part of the story for stories sake.
I liked the pacing in the first half, and wanted more from the second half, but what was there was good enough for me. This felt more like a thriller than horror - there are some supernatural elements it was generally softer than his other two books, and wasn't as violent despite still containing some pretty serious violence.
I think this would be a great book for anyone interested in reading some righteous vengeance against mostly unambiguous villains, mixed with some coming of age and self-acceptance/self-understanding themes. You will probably also appreciate it if you were a queer anarchisty-leaning kid growing up in a conservative area (like me) but that might be too on the nose.