#73 in Dystopian
The Compound
- 336
- Pages
- about 6 h
- Reading time
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Our view
“The Compound” is a dark, tense dystopian debut that uses the logic of reality television to ask who is pulling the strings. Rawle’s characters are moved about by forces they cannot see, and the book is at its best as a study of how extreme behaviour is manufactured for an audience. Some readers find it more thought-provoking than enjoyable, and feel the story fades at the end without a larger point.
The view of the BookRank editors, written from readers’ ratings and comments. It does not affect the score or the book’s place in a ranking.
About the book
The Compound is a 2025 dystopian novel by Irish author Aisling Rawle. It was published by The Borough Press on 3 July 2025. It won a Goodreads Choice Award in the Readers' Favorite Science Fiction category. It is Rawle's debut novel.
Where the score comes from
The sources average 6.8 across 194 ratings — not yet many, so the reader vote carries 57% of the weight and the rest pulls toward the Dystopian average of 7.7. That is how 7.2 comes out.
| Source | Average | Ratings | Weight |
|---|---|---|---|
| Hardcover | 6.8 | 194 | 100% |
Frequently asked
How long is The Compound?
It has 336 pages — shorter than 68% of the ranked books in Dystopian.
In this book
Themes this book shares with others — each leads to the best books on it.
If you liked this
Same shelf — Dystopian — with scores between 6.8 and 7.6, closest to this book.
