The tag line, Love Island meets Lord of the Flies, is the thing that drew me to this novel. I mean Love Island is vacuous entertainment that remains in shallow waters, whilst Lord of the Flies is darkly horrific. Yet surprisingly, the author manages to bring these two things together in a wildly entertaining novel that I might describe as Big Brother on acid.

A reality show that could, technically, never end and yet it always does. The focus of this story is Lily, a beautiful and not unintelligent girl who wants something from life she can't quite grasp. She is an intriguing character to follow and the group dynamic is riveting. There is a message here too if you care to find it.

I really enjoyed it and thought it was very very clever. Recommended.

Ten men and ten women take part in a reality show set in a compound in a dessert. Anyone not part of a couple by sunrise is banished. The participants do tasks to earn rewards but the ultimate prize is to live in the compound while the rest of the world appears to be at war. Lily is desperate not to go back to her old life but others are equally determined to stay. I liked the concept of this although I was expecting it to be more of a fast-paced thriller. Instead there is more of an underlying, unknown threat. The contestants are never sure who they can trust, which is great for building tension. I found their obsession with household furnishings a bit irritating.
Thanks to NetGalley and Harper Collins for the ARC.

I went into The Compound without knowing what to expect, but it grabbed me from the start with this unsettling, slightly off-kilter tone. I read it quickly because I just had to see where it was going.

What really stood out to me was how much it packs in beneath the surface. There’s so much layered social commentary — on consumerism, racial inequality, gender roles, and how society treats (and exploits) people for entertainment. It’s sharp without being preachy, and I found myself thinking about it even when I wasn’t reading.

The story feels very grounded in the characters’ reality, yet slightly surreal, which works well given the subject matter. The pacing is tight, and while I occasionally wanted a bit more emotional depth from Lily, I think the detachment was intentional — and in a way, it makes the critique hit harder.

It’s a fast, thought-provoking read that lingers after you finish. A really strong debut, and I’ll definitely be keeping an eye out for what Aisling Rawle does next.

Thanks NetGalley and the publisher for this ARC.

The Compound by Aisling Rawle is a gripping and addictive debut book that brilliantly blends dystopian themes with dark social commentary. Set in a desolate desert compound, the story follows ten young women who have been chosen to participate in a reality TV show like no other. Desperate to escape the harsh realities of a world ravaged by poverty, political unrest, and environmental collapse, they are placed in a compound where their every move is watched by millions of viewers.

As the women quickly realise, they are not only contestants in a televised game, but they are also the prize for ten men who will soon arrive on foot, facing dangers and challenges of their own. What follows is a high-stakes battle for survival, where the women must navigate the cruelty of the game, the manipulations of their fellow competitors, and the dark truths lurking behind the show's facade. The question remains: what will they have to do to win? And what happens to the losers?

Rawle's writing is as bingeable as the best reality TV, drawing readers in with its fast-paced, suspenseful plot. The book captures the allure and dangers of fame, consumerism, and the manipulation of people for entertainment. While the surface story of the competition is thrilling, it’s the deeper undercurrents of dystopian society and the exploitation of human lives that truly make The Compound a thought-provoking read.

With elements of satire, The Compound delves into the perils of modern-day consumerism and the ways in which entertainment can dehumanise those involved. The book provides a chilling commentary on how far people are willing to go to escape the bleak realities of their lives—and what they lose in the process.

Rawle’s debut book is both chilling and captivating, leaving readers with a lot to think about long after finishing the last page. A perfect read for fans of dark, thought-provoking dystopian fiction, The Compound is a stark reminder of the dangers lurking behind the glittering facade of reality television.

Read more at The Secret Book Review.

Big Brother meets The Hunger Games.

This is dark, Claustrophobic, completely immersive and mildly sadistic....

It did take a while to get into but once you did and stayed up late to finish it!

Strangers thrown together after choosing to enter a TV show which promises rewards. For Lily it's a chance to escape them drudgery of her life and the war that hangs at the periphery of her world where she waits to hear news of her dad. For others it's a new adventure, the promise of riches or the chance to escape life.

They must work together to complete communal tasks to get rewards as a group, as well as personal tasks to get their own tailored rewards all whilst under the ever present scrutiny of the hidden TV cameras, watched at home by unknown viewers, bending to their whims.

Big brotheresque, this book delves into human nature, drives and capitalism with unnerving results. Who will be the winner, who truly decides and at what price?!

The Compound by Aisling Rawle

Publishing date 03/07/2025

ARC special thanks to @netgalley and @boroughpress 💛

“LORD OF THE FLIES meets LOVE ISLAND in this explosive, addictive debut novel, as bingeable as the best reality TV, with dark undercurrents of literary dystopia and consumerist satire.”

Follow Lily as she wakes in the compound to find disarray and slowly meet the other girls. They know how the show goes, they go in immediately after the previous contestants have left. Now they must wait for the boys to journey the desert to the compound and begin the coupling. Once settled contestants can win prizes, by completing group/individual tasks, of varying benefit but be warned the producers don’t always play fair. The only way to stay in the compound is to ensure you’re sharing a bed with a person of the opposite sex by sunrise to secure your position.


This was definitely a slow psych thriller x literary fiction.
It would be the kind of film that would have like a slowly increasing chord in the background to build suspense and leave you feeling more and more on edge as it progressed, but actually there was only a couple moments of real drama and danger late in the second half.

World building felt limited, but also ominous and cleverly reduced by the fact that contestants weren’t allowed to speak about the outside world or past life. A war is mentioned and the increasing decline of the life and environment, I wish maybe a little bit more was revealed near the end - why was being in the compound better than normal life? Was everyone scrambling to participate or just the shallow and materialistic?

I’ve never watched Love Island but this did have a bit of addictive pull that you wanted to see who might screw one another over to get closer to the end.

Being written in first person I felt that gave away the ending to a degree as you could predict from your progress in the book who was going to win, but you still wanted to see the drama unfold. I could definitely feel and see that some contestants were changing and losing their grip on reality a bit but I thought it might’ve been pushed a bit further than it was. I thought there might’ve been a tad more “social experiment gone wrong”.

Overall I can see the inspiration for this books and did enjoy the read, and maybe it’ll appeal to more readers that don’t fully delve into dark thrillers but more thrilling literary fiction.

6.5 / 10 ⭐️

#netgalley #arc #reading #kindle #advancedreadercopy #bookish #reading #literaryfiction #thriller #psychthriller #loveisland #bigbrother

Lily wakes up to find herself in compound, with nine other women, awaiting ten men who are to be their companions for the foreseeable future. This book was an interesting look at reality shows that focus heavily on relationships, and how they showcase life to the outside world.

This book was different to what I first expected, with a focus on an dystopian setting, I was expecting to see more of the world outside the compound but it was interesting learn about the world from Lily’s point of view. I thought the development of the plot was interesting, there was a lot of characters to keep track of at first, but you really get to know them as the book moves. The tasks the characters were faced with allowed you to see where they were at but also get to know them in a different level.

It was so interesting to read the way consumerism was shown in this world - that itself felt very dystopian (but very similar to what you can observe on social media). I wish we got to see the outside world but I think that adds to the element of interest to the story.

The story was very well written, and the plot well thought through. It really had you gripped and eager to see what happened next as the character began to face more obscure and challenging tasks.

Unsettling and strange this pokes fun at all we enjoy in reality tv showing us for what it really is utterly ridiculous and toxic. Compulsive reading

The Compound is a superb satire of materialism and an examination of the different ways in which men and women cope under pressure. Men behave like the boys in Lord Of The Flies. Women are much more complex, and they give too much of their power up to the men.
It's set on a brutal reality tv show in a house in the middle of the desert. It's more Survivor, than Love Island. My favourite thing was the author's highlighting of how seriously men take themselves when they're actually being foolish. The best example of this is a character called Andrew. He's extremely controlling, but constantly uses the wrong words in an attempt to sound clever. The central character, Lily, is a lot smarter than she gives herself credit for, which is true of all the women in this book. CW. There is some pretty nasty and gratuitous violence in this story.

Firstly, Rawle's writing is immersive and engaging.
Secondly, the premise is interesting, and entertaining.
Overall, 3.5 stars from me. It is a better fit for reality TV lovers who also enjoy romance, and passive main characters.
The themes are 5/5
I liked the first half more than the rest, but I must say I came in mostly for the thrill and the stakes to find a bit of a detached MC, Lily.
Plot 3/5
Characterisation 3/5

In the desert, there's a compound. Ten women are there, waiting for ten men to arrive. When the men arrive (late and less one of their number), the game is afoot. Every person who is not sharing a bed with a member of the opposite sex when the sun rises is banished.
Everything is filmed, everything must be earned through tasks (communal or personal), and the contestants are punished for breaking any of the rules.
The Compound really doesn't read like a debut novel. It's assured and propulsive, and uses its premise to examine all kinds of social issues without losing any of its pace or bite.
The contestants are mostly interesting and well drawn, Lily especially so. She's hyperaware of how she looks, how she'll look on camera, the effect she's having on the men, and initially seems pretty shallow. Another blonde who lives and dies by her fashion magazines, who likes to be dolled up to the nines, and wants shiny things. She's not just that, though - people seldom really are what they seem on the surface.
Most of the contestants are morally grey and are nudged one way or another by the unseen producers. It's fun to see the manipulation, until it suddenly isn't and the tension ratchets up several gears.
The last third of the book is genuinely scary in places - it earns its comparison to Lord of the Flies.
I stayed up way too late (on a school night!) to finish this, and had trouble sleeping afterwards (complimentary). By rights, The Compound should be one of the buzziest books of the summer.

Thanks to Harper Collins and Net Galley for the ARC in exchange for my honest review.

I feel like there was SO MUCH potential from the initial tagline of the book as a lord of the flies love island esque novel. While it was heavily immersive in the destabilising nature of time and the constant twisting and turning of heads in the formation of relationships I found parts to be extremely slow and uneventful (possible down to immersing the reader into the mundane passage of time the contestants experienced themselves though nonetheless and little demotivating). I did enjoy getting to know each of the characters and the surprising revelations that were interspersed throughout but again some fell partially flat - however admittedly I cannot recall reading a book set in the same setting throughout so that may be a personal flaw of mine/something I'm just not used to experiencing. Overall I think the book was an interesting palate cleanser though nothing to write, or rather phone, home about (and the potential for more dystopian world-building!! Even a prologue would have intrigued me).

Incredible.
Love Island meets Big Brother with a dystopian back drop.
Such a page turner, I couldn’t put it down. An incredible insight into the minds of those that feel trapped in their own lives who then choose to be ‘trapped’ in a virtual reality show. What is reality even when you’re just living your best life,

Fantastic.

Suitable for lovers of reality tv, if you love a behind the scenes look with suspense abound, this is for you.

I absolutely inhaled this. What a read.
There was a large cast but they were so well written I quickly got to grips with them.
Some people may well find the lack of ‘outside detail’ and ambiguous ending frustrating but there was so much to unpick in this incredibly rich story. Materialism, wealth, love…. Wow. So original and well written

Reality tv is as irritating as it is compulsive. This novel follows that narrative.

Set in a "Big Brother House" aka The Compound we are in the middle of a desert in a post-war modern world. A mix of the beautiful and the damned peppered with the angry, the brutal, the self-obsessed, leaders, followers and the pragmatic.

Whilst I was propelled along fairly easily, there was little I liked about either the characters or the denouement. I think it was a relatively interesting look at human nature and survival instincts yet it felt overlong and too repetitive for me.

With thanks to #NetGalley and #HarperCollinsUK for the opportunity to read and review

A dystopian big brother.

Ten girls wake up in The Compound. In a few days time ten boys will join them.

Don't break the rules, the punishments are severe and far reaching. Don't trust everyone, even the ones you do!
There must be a winner and some will stop at nothing to be that winner.

A quick read, some surprises.

This was compulsively readable. I read most of it on a single train journey between Edinburgh and Leeds on one of the warmest days of the year so far and didn't feel a single minute of the three hour journey. My only real complaint is the vocabulary of the narrator. We're repeatedly told by her own inner monologue and her actions that she is not a particularly intelligent person, but then uses terms that I wouldn't expect someone of this intelligence level, so there were moments where her word choices really took me out of the story. This only seemed to be a problem for me in the first half of the book, and once I got used to it I just kind of accepted that this would be the style of the writer and it wasn't going away. I really did enjoy this though. There were no hints left undeveloped, or ideas that I wished had been fleshed out more. It all felt very believable and even nuanced in places which surprised me for what this was marketed as. Would be a fantastic beach read for the girlies who love a bit of a thriller but get scared easily but also love The Hunger Games and Love Island and Survivor with a tiny sprinkling of 1984/Animal Farm (but very tiny).

I'm one of those rare beings who has never watched a single episode of Love Island, but that was the type of setting and people that I envisioned when reading the premise of this book. The beautiful villa and matching beautiful contestants.

Set in a dystopian future, 10 young women awaken, separately, in a villa, without any memory of how they got there. They don't know how long they have to get to know each other before 10 men are due to arrive, walking in from the desert surrounding them. Will they all survive?

Having to 'couple' up with the opposite sex, the men always seem to have the advantage. If you're not sharing a bed with the opposite sex by sunrise, you will be banished.

Daily communal tasks are set to earn everything they need to survive, and personal tasks are given for all the things you think you need.

Told from the POV of Lily, a beautiful girl who knows she's beautiful but also has a naivety about her. She knows herself she doesn't have much else to contribute but is happy to observe the other contestants. She has a plan to make it to the end, but plans never go smoothly, do they?

There are some books that are just extremely addictive, completely unputdownable, and this is one of them. I literally carried it around with me! I'm not sure if it was the concept, the writing style, or the characters, but it had me solidly gripped from beginning to end.

A plot that not only highlights today's generation of wanting fame and fortune, the daily dose of reality stars and reality tv but also the over consumption of absolutely EVERYTHING. The fact that at the touch of a button, you can find out the most minor details of someone's lives or purchase something to arrive near on immediately (believe me, im guilty of this also).

I do wish that we got to learn more about the personalities outside of the show, we were fed tit bits, but I personally would have liked more. Even though Lily was the narrator and main character, we never truly learnt much about her. It would have been nice to have seen a little growth in her character.

It was a fantastic read that had me hooked, but I'll admit I wanted more from the ending, I'm not sure what, but it felt like quite an abrupt, empty ending.

Huge thanks to Netgalley and Harper Collins UK for the ARC.

I felt this really only came into its own at about 70% through. It was only then that I found it quite propulsive and difficult to put aside. Up until that point I felt it was dragging because it seemed like a description of day after day after day on a reality show where I was just waiting for people to disappear so that there would be a few enough to actually develop as characters.

It’s pretty bleak as a view of society today largely because it’s so believable - I can absolutely imagine that people in their late teens/early 20s would find very little more appealing than being given the opportunity to earn free stuff by doing trivial and pointless tasks, given the state of the world and the future on offer to them.