The Compound brings everything that you'd expect from a Love Island-esque reality TV show full of young, beautiful people - vanity, selfishness, fakeness, rivalry etc, but underpins it with a sense of eerieness and discomfort. Little hints are given about the state of the world outside the Compound as the activity inside the Compound ramps up. Tasks quickly become more cruel, reminiscent of the more degrading Big Brother tasks.

The narrator of The Compound did a fantastic job at embodying the FMC, Lily. In the first chapter, Lily describes herself as a passive person, and that is reflected so well in the narration. She has a particular intonation or style to the narration - it's not to the point of monotony, but it has a slow and passive style to it that both sums up the main character and also brings like a creepiness to the book, which increases the tension.

I enjoyed the story and genuinely didn't know who was going to be evicted/banished next, or how it would end. However, the ending was quite abrupt and I would have loved an epilogue. Without an epilogue picking up after the events inside the compound, it's hard to know whether there was much impact on Lily in the end. Did she undergo any character development? Did she find happiness after the show? I like definitive endings rather than ones open to interpretation or left completely open, so that's something that I would have preferred to see on page.

Disclaimer: I received an Advance Listener Copy from Harper Collins UK Audio and NetGalley but this is my voluntary and honest review.

The description, “Lord of the Flies meets Love Island” is spot on!

10 men and 10 women arrive in a compound where they will have to meet challenges for rewards and be judged by each other, and by a TV audience. And it’s brutal.

The rewards are initially almost worthless and the group have no food and very little in terms of other useable resources. As the game progresses and the number of contestants reduce, the rewards change and human nature towards material things is a key factor.

It has a dystopian feel and there are references to events in the outside world that indicate it is set a little into the future.

The book started brilliantly, but was a bit too slow in pace for my preference and then the ending was a real let down for me. It just…. ended. I felt I wanted more clarity and a reaction from the outside world.

Lucy Boynton‘s narration of the audiobook was excellent.

3 ⭐️ Thanks to Netgalley, the author and the publisher for an ARC of this book.