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.

Incredibly unsettling, but in the best way! I loved getting perspective from a neurodivergent main character, and the story kept me invested (and stressed) the whole time!

*3.5 but rounding up to 4*
I've read all of AJW's book, and will definitely be continuing to auto-buying all his work! That being said Compound Fracture didn't work for me in the same way as the others mainly I think because of pacing and without spoiling the book the slightly too neat resolution. AJW has said that the ending of his YA stories will never be too grim because he wants trans youth to have hopeful stories which I think is really admirable! But some of the book is incredibly grim in a way that I couldn't buy the ending. I do think there's a certain level of simplification that has to be done for a YA story and there are some complex issues brought up in a way that I think teenagers will be able to digest and further research, the ending in itself could be part of this simplification. Also read the trigger warnings, I found this one much more graphic than his other work.

I read Andrew Joseph White's previous novel, Hell Followed with Us, in February and loved it. So when he posted on social media that the ARC for his upcoming novel was available, I jumped at the opportunity to read it. While no one would call Hell Followed with Us a light read, Compound Fracture is unquestionably heavy. I spent the last 100 pages teary-eyed. I say this admittedly having not yet read White's first novel, but I believe this to be his finest achievement thus far. I don't want to say too much because I think that this story should be experienced, but I hope that Miles is as inspiring to other readers (especially young trans people) as he is to me.

4.5/5 (rounded down)

I absolutely love all of Andrew Joseph White's books. They all feed the undiagnosed autistic, very out as trans twelve year old version of me who lives in my body to this day. And because of this I'm going to start with the one thing that bothered me and then talk about how much I love this book because I want this to end on a good note.

Cooper's arc felt, as a reader, unsatisfying, and deeply so. It felt very flat including the ending. I think I understand from a narrative perspective why it happened this way, but it still didn't sit right with me. It made me feel a little hollow, not in a sad way, but it an "okay, that happened" sort of way.

Despite Cooper's arc, I do love this book. I love Miles for all of his black and white thinking and anxious habits because that's who I was when I was his age. I love Miles hopelessness and anger, because that's also who teenage me was. I love Dallas and all the pieces of myself Dallas also represents. I love Lady because I think so many of us want a dog like that. I love the relationship to the police everyone has and the supernatural element of the ghost following Miles. I love the black pages and the chapters where there's only a sentence before we move on. All of Miles' family felt real in the way they needed to feel real.

I could keep going, picking tiny details until there's nothing left of the book to pull out, but I'll just say this. "Compound Fracture" was worth the read and it makes me wish I had stories like this when I was younger.

Thank you NetGalley and Peachtree Teen for allowing me access to this book early and for the experience of reading my first ever ARC.