Likely Stories - The Compound by Aisling Rawle

Welcome to Likely Stories, everyone. I’m Paige Connell, English teacher at Midway High School, with a review that topped my short list of last year and had me stopping to think about our culture of consumption and the unreality of reality TV.

Through the lens of our beautiful yet basic main character, we examine the concepts of voyeurism and consumer culture and the depths to which a person will go to attain what they believe they "need".

Lily, by her own admission, is really just a pretty vessel. She is one of 10 women plus 10 men who live in The Compound, a house featured on reality show where contestants complete personal and group challenges (some simple, some humiliating, some risky) to get things like lip balm, bread, a front door for the house, or towels for the bathroom. Everything is done with the faceless viewers and producers in mind, all for the purposes of providing entertainment to the masses. Coupling up is part of the expectation because sometimes the challenges will be better accomplished or more interesting to watch if two people are involved, but sharing personal details is forbidden, leading to a continuance of surface-level vapidity in all the relationships.

As the challenges become harder, food and water become scarce, and thus the psychological temperaments of the houseguests become more tenuous, so it's easy for them - and for the reader - to forget that an audience is still watching. The goal is for the contestants to consume more and more goods and prizes and be one of the last ones remaining, yet THEY are being consumed by those watching for their entertainment. When all is stripped away, what is it that they truly need to survive?

The Compound gripped me in a way that I haven’t been compelled by a book in a
long time. It reminds us that, in the realm of reality TV, we are both the consumer
and the product. It perpetuates the never-ending cycle of want, that there may be
something new and shiny just behind door #2, and that even if we think we are
happy with what we have, something else is always out there, or someone else always has something better that could make us unhappy with what we previously thought was great.

By fictionalizing this cycle and portraying it as a character study, the author’s modern take and acerbic commentary about performative and consumer culture will have you thinking for quite awhile after you finish. I flew through this on audio
in just over 24 hours and still felt the need to sit with my thoughts for a few more days afterwards. The Compound by Aisling Rawle is perfect for fans of reality TV—just don’t let yourself become the prize at the end.

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