Another five star book from Andrew Joseph White.

“Compound Fracture” is a poignant portrayal of the complexities within rural conservative states as well as a stomach-turning thriller. AJW intertwines information on poverty, autism, drug addiction, police oppression and other themes, through a gripping, suspenseful plot that you can’t put down (I finished this within 24 hours of starting!). They are heavy handed themes, yes, don’t expect lyrical subtlety in with these topics. They are there and loud and obvious. I felt that the challenges of coming out are addressed in a beautiful way, with parents who don’t quite understand but are trying.

This book is also an important reminder that villainizing conservative towns/states oversimplifies societal issues in these areas, and puts down LGBTQ+ people who live there.

I finished this book with tears in my eyes and ready to re-read it again and again. Thank you AJW.

I received a free ARC via NetGalley for this book. Thank you to NetGalley, publisher and author!

I don’t know how Andrew Joseph White keeps doing it, but each book is better than the last.

I received an ARC of this via NetGalley. This does not affect my review. Thank you PeachTree teen for approving my first ever arc on NetGalley, I am so thankful it can be used on a book as excellent as this.

This book masterfully weaves several storylines and themes: worker's rights and leftism; queer identity (both trans and later aromantic); autism; Appalachia; and a long-standing blood feud. All topics lead into each other and allow complexity and deepening of each one individually. It is a fantastic read and I highly recommend it; if White's previous books were too gore-heavy for you, I find that this one leaned more into the suspense and didn't describe things as graphically.

On that topic of suspense, the book wonderfully split intense moments into short paragraph chapters, which really helped with the pacing and I found fit perfectly.

I also liked that each first page of chapters was black with white text! Small detail but I found it fun.

This is a very heavy book, and there are a lot of warnings for the content that one should be aware of before going in. The author lists it in his Goodreads review, but I'll list them again here (with a few of my own): Graphic violence and gore; politically motivated abuse of power, particularly of law enforcement; transphobia (public outing, misgendering, deadnaming, unaccepting family (resolved)); internalised aphobia, drug dependency and its effects (cigarettes and opioids, main character also undergoes opioid withdrawal after quitting without medical supervision); ableism (internalised and external); vomiting, animal harm (off page harm to a dog, butchering of deer on page); abuse from an intimate partner (physical/emotional); mentions in passing of recordings of a child in the shower by an antagonist (shown as wrong but it made me feel viscerally so I'm warning about it here).

Slight spoilers ahead, if you don't want any don't read the next part!

Early on in the book, our main character, Miles, is beaten up by several boys involved in the blood feud. This injury is described with several chapters like "I don't remember what they did." "Only that there was a lot of blood, and all of it was mine." While this could have been tagged on at the end of the last chapter, having them as two separate chapters really worked for me and is a great example of how the writing in this book was phenomenal.

This book in unashamedly leftist and queer, which is so refreshing to see, especially in YA fiction.

I also really love the end of the book so I will end my review with the final few lines (I hope that's okay :) )

"But while you're here, officer, why don't you hold this railroad spike for me? Hold it in your hand and tell me how heavy it is. Tell me which one of us you'd use it on. See what happens if you try."

Many thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for giving me access to this stellar eBook. This review may contain spoilers.

Most specifically, I would reccomend this to LGBT young adults in Appalachia, the rural American south, and culturally similar areas—but also to adults in a similar position that did not have the opportunity to see themselves in media as a teenager; this is one of the YA books that I can read and not only think “this would have meant a lot to me when I was younger” but also to still find a sense of healing in reading it. The strongest aspect in Compound Fracture is the author’s ability to show the nuance of Appalachia, especially Appalachian politics and the history of the labor movement within West Virginia specifically, with clarity and compassion, and there are no major issues I have with this book. The brevity of some scenes is perhaps the weakest element to me—I think a little more time dedicated to the development of the characters and their dynamics would only make the book that much better. I’m hoping to check out Andrew Joseph White’s backlog going forward, and I’m also hoping to reread Compound Fracture when it’s published in its finalized form and it’s very likely that I may up the rating upon doing so.

Compound Fracture as a work comes across as very confident in what it has to say and how it says it. Its themes and the overall message are very clear and handled effectively; this is not the kind of book that meanders and asks readers to project their own views onto its subtext at every turn. The thematic throughline of literal and metaphorical lineage—blurring the edges between that of queer and trans, familial and even political lineages, branching throughout history and that long-lasting lineage of harm as processed within a community—is something that resonates deeply with me, and stands out as a prominent aspect of Appalachian literature.

I enjoyed the writing style, which is consistent and lends to a storyteller’s voice (which is a narrative element that consistently ranks high for me), where the Appalachian cadence comes naturally and is both accurate and easy to process, especially in comparison to the way the accent is (often) written by people who aren’t intimately familiar with the area. The use of description is very strong; it has moments that are visceral imprinted into the text, but it still feels within the narrator’s depth and doesn’t sacrifice immersion or character voice. The structure is interesting; I like the fast and loose sort of utilization of varying chapter length (some being one page or even just one sentence). It’s fresh and I can always appreciate an author willing to play with conventions in narrative structure and form. In terms of technical elements such as grammar, syntax, and verbiage, the book is consistent, clear, and coherent. Pacing is quick, but ultimately very steady, and consistently maintained.

This book features a well-crafted and cohesive narrative, and is classified as a young adult thriller; personally I would also go so far as to call it an example of a modern Proletarian (or social) novel, targeted towards progressive youth. Exposition is seamlessly woven into the story with the addition of mixed media/modern epistolary narrative tools like wikipedia articles and text messages. Some scenes as they stand in the ARC do feel a bit sudden/short, kind of like the bones of a fuller moment, and I’m curious to see how they compare in the final copy of the book.

The portrayal of teenagers exploring and coming to terms with their identities feels incredibly authentic, especially in the way Miles and Dallas joke about it together. I was a young adult coming to terms with my identity around the time this book is set (this book is set in 2017, the year after I started coming out as transgender to my close friends), and it feels incredibly familiar in the kind of “awkward, youthful, still learning to empower oneself” sort of way. The relationships among the cast ring true to me, and feels very authentic to Appalachian social and family dynamics. I appreciated the arc of Miles’s parents processing his coming out differently and still, ultimately, accepting him despite some very hurtful moments. As I’ve discussed in other reviews of trans literature, complicated experiences in coming out is something I think is important to represent, and it’s one that I relate to quite personally.

Characterization is strong and consistent, and I’m curious as to why people think Cooper’s in particular seems unnuanced; to me, he feels like an earnest take on how people can sour and become radicalized in the wrong direction, something I’ve seen happen time and time again. People who could have done good, instead using the idea of justice to justify their desire to hurt people and to get revenge, unfortunately does happen, and often, it ends badly. Maybe it’s that I’ve seen people in my own life go down similar paths before that makes his a perfectly believable character arc to me.

Compound Fracture is an intense and wild horror/thriller about feuding families in a small Appalachian town. It really comes across as a bit of a love letter to the history and working class people who live in Appalachia, as well as having a focus on trans and autism representation. All of these are good things but together feel like they might only appeal to a very niche market and as I couldn't relate to most of the themes, I didn't ever feel connected to the story.

Miles is a trans, autistic kid in an impossible situation. This is a town that protects it's own but also doesn't get involved in each others business. There has been a feud between the Davies and the Abernathy's for many generations, starting back at protests due to unsafe working conditions in the mines and union disputes. The Davies have held power through law enforcement or political positions while the Abernathy's have upheld the rights of the lower class, working to survive and trying to make things safer for everyone in the town. We follow Miles trying to encourage change but gets caught up in the cycle of history between the two families.

Where this book really falters for me is the pacing and the repeating of information over and over. There was a lot of reliving and experiencing trauma and I just couldn't get myself invested in the characters, who are all really morally grey if not outright bad people (though their situation made them that way and that's also kinda what the book is about)...

TL;DR: It's impossible to really talk about horror/thrillers without a lot of spoilers and I think this is a case of a book being "not meant for me". While I didn't enjoy it, I think that there is an audience out there who will and I hope the book finds it's way to them. I really liked Hell Followed With Us so I will look for more speculative work by the author in the future.

A bloody, angry contemporary where a generational blood feud in rural West Virginia propels a fierce, hopeful demand for community and solidarity. Thoughtful exploration of discovering autistic and aromantic identities.

5 stars!

Thanks to NetGalley for an eARC of this title!

Compound Fracture is Andrew Joseph White's 3rd published novel, and may just be my favorite so far. The way he writes his characters is once again phenomenal, and I was so invested in the story I read 50 pages in a single sitting (a feat for me due to my ADHD, so props for managing to hold my attention that long!).

Miles has just come out as trans and is on the verge of revealing the town sheriff's involvement in an "accident" that disabled his father 5 years prior when the sheriff's son attacks him and leaves him for dead. While recovering, Miles notices the figure of a bloodstained miner that looks eerily like his great great grandfather Saint, a union worker who was killed by his towns sheriff a century ago. He knows that if any justice is to be had, it will have to be by his own hand.
Unlike White's other books, Compound Fracture contains few fantastical elements. This gritty realism does well to highlight the acts of brutality the characters commit against each other. There isn't an apocalypse or magic system that would justify their actions. These are people who are angry and scared trying to protect what they have left. I wanted so badly to know if the characters would make it that I ended up reading long past the time I said I would stop to work on something else (oops).

My favorite part of this book would have to be the discussions around autism. Miles shows many of the symptoms but has muscled through them for his entire life. He has internal monologues where he berates himself for being unable to complete certain tasks or his inability to stop fidgeting. As a neurodivergent person, I felt very seen by this aspect of his character. White never presents autism as a "superpower", but as a disability that can be accommodated for with the proper resources. Miles is autistic, and it affects his character, but it's not who he is. To see such a complex neurodiverse character was amazing, and I hope we see more like Miles in the future.

If you're someone who may see yourself in this trans autistic MC, or if you're just looking for the next big YA thriller, look no further than this absolute materpiece.

An exquisitely horrific gem of a book. Compound Fracture carries White's trademark narrative styles and ability to ask the questions most of society turns away from. I will be thinking about this book for a long time.

Compound Fracture is a contemporary novel about a queer Appalachian teen, Miles Abernathy who's determined to bring down the corrupt Sheriff Davies, while also being haunted by the ghost of his great-grandfather, Saint Abernathy.

This book is *brutal*, not hesitating to pull any punches, providing an insight into Appalachian politics, queerness, and what happens when enough people are tired of the shitty hand being dealt to them, and decide to rise up.

As someone who's kinda in a 'am I neurodivergent or not' camp, Miles felt relatable to me. I don't think I'm neurodivergent, but I found Miles's doubt very, very relatable tbh.

Overall, five stars. This book is for you if you want a book about politics, figuring out your identity and books about horrible people getting their just desserts.

I try to reserve judgement to each individual book that an author writes - but Andrew Joseph White is currently 3 for 3 solid edge of my seat can't stop reading fantastic books. I read this in my least favorite reading format (on my tiny phone screen- it was the format that Netgalley provided) and I still couldn't put it down and devoured it in about a day and a half. I felt my heart racing during certain chapters and I haven't wanted to stay up past my bed time to read a book in actual years and this one had me doing the "just one more chapter" move.

Compound Fracture follows Miles, a trans autistic teenager in a small town in West Virginia, trying to survive a generations old feud while also figuring out who he is and trying to find community among all of it. It hits the ground running in the first few chapters and doesn't stop.

As with his other books I highly highly suggest reading the forward at the beginning and paying attention to the content warnings that are provided. This book is bloody and brutal and doesn't hold back its punches.

This book was brutal and truthful. So much generational trauma is dealt with in this book. Lots of non binary and trans rep, autism rep as well. These characters were so vivid and flew off the pages for me. Andrew Joseph White’s books just keep getting better. Please check trigger warnings as this book does not pull it’s punches.

My man Andrew, you never disappoint.
I got the absolute honor of getting an arc of Hell Followed with Us back in 22'. It was amazing and it's stuck with me all this time. When I saw Compound Fracture I knew I had to request it at least. When I got it I was at work and I nearly lost it shouting HELL YEAH LETS GO, but I kept my cool in front of everyone. So yeah, you can say I was excited about this one.
Mainly because it's so different from HFWU, but it's the same at the same time. They both share common elements like the trans MC, the autistic and neurodivergency representation, the supportive parent/parents, a lot of blood and anger. But still, this is so so different.
I have to say Andrew's style is impecable, like comparing both stories and how different they are but they feel so good because of the way they're written. The characters and their ambitions and fears are so good, I personally felt so drawn to Cooper and his little crooked ways and desires.
It also has a bit of a supernatural elemen with a very important and lovely character who's there but not really. Thing that I loved so much.
There's a general feeling of anger over any AJW book and I love it. Like HFWU is anger at church and religious indoctrination and fanatism, and then on CF there's anger at police brutality, abuse of power and corrupt politics.
Just can't wait to see what Andrew has in store for the future. He's slowly solidifying in my book as one of the greater queer writers of the decade.
Highly recommended!!!

This book may contain things that can trigger sensitive readers like: murder, gore, abuse, abuse of power, graphic violence, mentions of death, mentions of murder, transphobia, dead naming and use of guns and knives

White has an unquestionable knack for writing bad parents convincingly, here he proved that he can also write parents who are actually trying too. The autism representation was also absolutely on point absolutely loved the way White worked in the clear signs of undiagnosed autism in the parents, chef's kiss.

I got strong [book: Ozark Dogs] (different locale similar vibes) meets [book: Depart, Depart!] (different settings but spoiler ahead: another grandfather figure coming back from the dead while a youngster is trying to address generational trauma (and in this case feuds) while trying to survive) vibes from this one.

I liked that Miles' reading habits were worked into the story as semi-subtle "further reading" suggestions, just another thing that made me go "damn I wish I had had access to a literary voice like this guy's when I was a teen"

Miles was an endearing character but his relationships with people outside of his family didn't quite work for me even in that particular lawless small-town setting and that's where things fell a little flat for me.

I loved a lot of what White did with this book and I wonder if I'm not being unfair to it because I loved Hell Followed With Us and The Spirit Bares its Teeth so much and therefore had extremely high expectations.

Wow, I am absolutely obsessed with this author’s writing. This was a bit more graphic than I’m used to and I still enjoyed it so much because Miles as a main character was amazing. I loved his relationship with his family and seeing their growth together throughout the book really stood out to me. Also, Lady is the best animal companion!! I may have seen where this was going, but felt it was great overall. I also loved the poetic justice of the ending. I can’t wait to read more by this author.

Gritty, gripping and raw--but so, so good. Beautifully written and full of heart and soulfire. I loved Miles, his town, his family, and their journey. An absolute triumph.

2.5 stars*

This is a hard review for me to write; I’ve never not enjoyed an Andrew Joseph White novel, so giving Compound Fracture - which I have highly anticipated since it was announced - such a low rating feels like a betrayal of the author.
In short, this book just didn’t work for me…on a few levels.

Hell Followed With Us is a novel that I fell deeply in love with, however recent releases by the same author have made me increasingly frustrated for three main reasons:

The characters never feel markedly different from one another. They seem to be parallel variations of the same person, albeit wearing slightly different skins. I understand that AJW projects a lot of himself into his characters, which isn’t an issue, but I’m just exhausted from reading about teenaged boys with the same interests, traits, quirks etc. Representation and diversity is never lacking in AJW’s novels (which is a very good thing) but the lack of variety - from a personality standpoint - between main characters across his three novels makes it difficult to enjoy them singularly (and distinguish their voices from one another).

Similarly, I’m loathe to admit that of all three novels I’ve read by AJW, this one was by far the most aggressively “us versus them,” with “them,” being anyone not instantly and tangibly supportive of Miles, regardless of their level of understanding or growth throughout the course of the story. I won’t go into it any further than that, but I will say that it makes it very hard to separate the bad characters from the BAD characters, when everyone who isn’t Miles’ immediate ally is instantly the enemy, and someone you’re not supposed to like no matter the context. It’s just exhausting to read wall-to-wall hostility about Everything Miles Doesn’t Like.

Lastly, as in The Spirit Bares its Teeth, pacing continues to be a problem for AJW. The first parts of this book were very slow, the middle saw some action (and a lot of sidetracking) before seemingly ramping up to an explosive finale…only to sputter out very quickly right at its peak. The ending disappointed me the most; it was over in the blink of an eye, and there was no edge-of-your-seat moment where I might have started to consider that the story might be turned on its head after all. What you’re shown is what you get, and there’s not a lot of it to be had.

I am aware that AJW himself has stated that this book is intended to be less in the horror genre, and more a love letter to his own Appalachian roots, experiences and beliefs. It might just be that I can’t relate - to both the setting and the characters - but this was definitely the least enjoyable book I’ve read from the author to date. Compound Fracture felt like a bit of a step back on many levels, and although built on a gripping and relevant premise, the execution of the story itself didn’t hit the mark for me personally.

All in all, there are plenty of people who are going to absolutely devour this book, and I think it will see a great deal of success, as his previous books have done. Despite this not being my favourite book, AJW is evidently a talented writer with some fresh, welcome ideas to contribute to the YA horror genre, and I would not hesitate to pick up whatever he writes next.

- thank you to netgalley and the publisher for an arc to review!

- that’s it, AJW is my favorite author. he wrote another brilliant story filled with authentic trans and autistic rep, gruesome murders, and morally questionable characters you can’t help but love. the complexities of the blood-feud between the Abernathy’s and the Davies were fleshed out extremely well, and it felt like these were real families. i spent half this book with my hand slapped to my mouth because of all the twists and moments that left me flabbergasted, and the other half i spent trying not to cry because i got to see a character express being aromantic in an authentic and realistic way, and that felt so personal to me.

- this story was beautifully done as it was viscerally gory, but that’s a staple of AJW’s work. definitely getting this when it comes out in September!

- content warnings: (taken from AJW himself) animal death (unnamed dog and deer), physical assault, death, gore, blood, misgendering and outing of a trans person, misgendering of a non binary person, vomiting, politically motivated violence, opioid usage and withdrawals, intimate partner using manipulation and physical force, discussions of ableism

I have loved all of Andrew Joseph White's books so far, and Compound Fracture is no exception. If you enjoyed Hell Followed With Us or The Spirit Bares Its Teeth, you'll enjoy Compound Fracture just as much. It's bloody and violent, featuring a trans main character who has become involved in a decades-old struggle between his family and those with power in their rural town. I was invested in Miles and his goals from the first chapter, and I quickly found myself invested in the side characters as well. There are strong themes of family and the importance of community, set against a backdrop of a rural Appalachian town.

This book was brutal and truthful. So much generational trauma is dealt with in this book. Lots of non binary and trans rep, autism rep as well. These characters were so vivid and flew off the pages for me. Andrew Joseph White’s books just keep getting better. Please check trigger warnings as this book does not pull It’s punches.

Thank you so much NetGalley for the ARC!

With all of AJW's books so far, I've wanted to give them five-star ratings solely on the basis of their unmatched (in what I've read) autism representation. As a neurodivergent person, I thought I would never relate to a character as much as I did to Silas in The Spirit Bares Its Teeth, and then I met Miles Abernathy. Given that a component of this book is Miles coming to terms with his autism, Compound Fracture got to spend more time honing in on what it's like to be an autistic person than either of AJW's previous books. My heart would get full to bursting any time Miles described the effort it took for him to interact with people, or having a hard time talking when he's upset, or having a hard time eating outside of his safe foods, because that's me, and I have only ever seen myself so clearly and boldly represented in AJW's books. Even better, this time with Compound Fracture, there are a number of neurodivergent characters--including, as implied, Miles's parents, exploring fascinating dynamics. In spite of AJW's books being mostly not very comforting, being horrors and thrillers and all, the representation they provide makes each of them instant comfort reads for me. I can't thank AJW enough for that.

Aside from representation, reviewing this book feels like a lot to tackle, because there is A LOT going on in this one. Whereas The Spirit Bared Its Teeth felt very isolated in terms of character, world, and plot, Compound Fracture had the same issue as Hell Followed With Us, in that what the story was trying to accomplish felt too big for what it was. The worldbuilding in Compound Fracture was definitely AJW's most intimate--in his author's letter at the beginning he mentions his love of West Virginia, where the story takes place, and that rings true in his writing, rich with details only someone who grew up in a place could think to include. While the setting is written beautifully, the worldbuilding felt more transparent when it came to the people of Twist Creek County outside of the Abernathys and their close-knit circle. Making how smoothly the ending blew over all the less believable.

Hand-in-hand with that issue of the ending's believability is that I feel like we didn't know the story's antagonists that well, either. Noah Davies read like a teenage extension of his father, which perhaps was the point--neither Noah nor his father came off as quite human--but I don't think that did making them embodiments of real-world abusers of power any favors. Their actions translated into that message, but the lack of dimensionality to their characters made them feel like caricatures, whereas they would have been even more terrifying if they read like real people. That being said, their actions throughout this book were monstrous, especially at the story's climax. My jaw was on the floor when Sheriff Davies tried to do *that* to Miles.

I found Miles's exploration of his family history to be the most intriguing part of this book, particularly Saint Abernathy. If I could change one big thing about this book, I would make it so Saint could speak to Miles from the beginning, which sure, would probably change a lot. Saint's ghost mostly serves as a motivator and as a lowkey moral compass for Miles, but what we learn about his life is so fascinating that I wish AJW had done a bit more with him.

All of that being said (along with a few more specific nitpicks I had that I'm leaving out for the sake of spoilers), I'm still giving this book four stars because the deep connection I felt with Miles and his family and LADY (what a good dog), as well as AJW's gorgeous and (wonderfully) visceral writing style. The way he depicts emotions (anger ESPECIALLY) is unmatched.

In conclusion, Andrew Joseph White, if you ever want to write a prequel about Saint Abernathy's life, I would EAT THAT UP.

I'm a big fan of AJ White's writing, however I think this is my least favourite of his books I've read so far. The book is still decent and has familiar aspects of White's writing; the supernatural element, while much smaller here, is still present too.

I found the setting really interesting, however I think that perhaps setting it in such a specifically contemporary time is what worked against this book. It might work for a young queer audience, but I got the impression the very frequent explanations of basic queer and leftist terms and ideas to be almost equal in volume to the actual plot or character explanations (definitely an exaggeration), which I didn't really care for. I

I think this book doesn't work for me personally and I wish it were different, but could work for a younger teen audience. 
And as always be mindful of the triggering topics in the book.