The Compound by Aisling Rawle is a 292 page standalone novel published by Random House in 2025.

Genre:

Dystopian Fiction, Suspense

Synopsis:

Nothing to lose. Everything to gain. Winner takes all.

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?

Addictive and prescient, The Compound is an explosive debut from a major new voice in fiction and will linger in your mind long after the game ends.

Opening Line:

I woke up first.

My Thoughts:

Well, I simply devoured this suspenseful dystopian tale!

The overall message is a condemnation of consumerism and late-stage capitalism. Sure, there’s the sexy story of a bunch of young people living in a compound together, forced to pair up with a member of the opposite sex at night if they want to avoid banishment from the reality TV show, alternately cooperating to complete challenges and scheming to oust one another in order to earn ever more desirable rewards (these are often luxury items, but sometimes things necessary for their survival, isolated as they are out in the desert).

But this story isn’t just trashy fun – where it really sings is in the creeping dread it steeps the reader in as it continues to hint at how bleak things are in the outside world without ever describing things explicitly (peep the fires outside of the compounds boundaries on the cover – such a good detail!) What exactly are these people trying to escape that has them so willing to put themselves through this absolutely bonkers experience?

As more contestants get eliminated, the tension ratchets up as the remaining characters lose themselves more and more to the idea of “winning” the chance to continue putting off real life. Ultimately the main character (and the reader) must decide which is more important in an imperfect world: luxury, or meaningful human connection?

I admit I was expecting a bit more of a bang at the end, which was rather more of a whimper. But I still loved this story, which was bananas in all the best ways!