The Compound is a dystopian take on a dating/reality show, and a smooth, enjoyable read that may nevertheless leave you with some questions.
Lily is our beautiful narrator and one of the first women to wake up at the compound. She’s excited for the boys to arrive, and for the games to begin. Once everyone’s in, they can start doing tasks that display on screens – winning everything from materials (including doors), to food and trinkets. Many essentials aren’t provided until they start winning tasks, which adds an air of tension to the whole thing. Plus the little fact that if you get to the final five, you’re allowed to hurt one another if you so desire… The powers that be that run the show are never in the foreground, and never fully explained.
The dystopian nature of it all is implied rather than explicit. There’s a cruelty in what the audience is clearly looking for, and the contestants aren’t always protected. There are hints of war in the background, but nothing too specific about why the world is so grim – why anyone would need to do a show like this.
Lily is a passive character for the majority of the book. I enjoyed the journey with her, but did sometimes wish she could ask a few more questions, fight a bit more against the system. But if she wasn’t Lily, this would be an entirely different book.
And its current form, the book does give you a lot to think about – why these shows exist (even in the less extreme versions we see today), and why we find them enjoyable (or not). How much can we really get to know someone in an entirely artificial setting – and does it matter?
I enjoyed my time with Lily and think this is a worthwhile new look at what reality TV is or can become.
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