This one was interesting for me. Andrew Joseph White is one of my favorite authors of all time, and I was thrilled when I received an ARC of Compound Fracture. I enjoyed myself a LOT, but I wound up giving this a lower rating than his other two books.

SPOILERS AHEAD!!!





THINGS I ENJOYED:
This book is atmospheric and beautiful, an absolute love letter to Appalachia. I really enjoyed all the nitty gritty political talk- there’s an ugly stereotype I think that people from rural communities don’t understand enough about politics to act in their own interest, and seeing the perspective of an anarcho-socialist with a lot of callbacks and references to theory was very fun

I found Miles’ autism discovery journey to be very relatable and true to life. As someone who has ‘peer reviewed’ friends into realizing that they are also autistic, Miles and Amber’s interactions were really fun to me. As always AJW throws in such specific little references and thoughts that are so relatable as an autistic person and could never come from an outside perspective.

The ambiguity of the supernatural elements. I love a good ghost story where the ghosts are both in and out of the character’s heads. Saint’s manifestation as a metaphor for intergenerational trauma and violence added a wonderful sense of tragedy to the text. Everyone’s fates had already, to some extent, been determined.

Speaking of fates, the deaths of Paul, Eddie, Cooper, and Noah were very well done. Almost the entire younger generation died as a result of factors largely out of their control. A Shakespearean tragedy. All of those kids were insanely traumatized and play acting violence for reasons they didn’t quite understand. In particular Paul’s death hit me very hard. The difficulty of breaking free from a script everyone else is still enacting made it heart wrenching.

The familial relationships in this book are phenomenal. I loved the character of Miles’s mother so much. The ways she is like Miles making her slow to change, even when that change is acceptance of her son. Her autistic coding. Her fierce protectiveness. She’s not perfect but she’s a woman doing what’s necessary to keep her family afloat and I love her for it.

THINGS I DISLIKED:

I felt that the plot didn’t really take off until about 30-40% of the book, and afterwards it kind of shambled forward. I love a slower, more interior novel, but this felt more like a beat to a song. EVENT, rest, EVENT, rest. A little choppy. In places it feels like there’s a lack of autonomy for Miles, which I don’t hate because I think it illustrates themes of these cyclical family feuds, he’s not in these situations because of something HE did, and yet it feels like he comes to a decision to do something and then goes back on it several times throughout the novel. There are multiple points that feel like they’re tipping over into a culmination and then he hesitates, buffers again.

Cooper. To put it shortly, I’ve noticed a pattern in Andrew Joseph White novels. There is always a character that is a cis man who starts off ostensibly supportive of the main character before being revealed as an antagonist through the use of purposefully deadnaming the protagonist. This is true to life, of course. People who purposefully misgender you are usually assholes. But once you catch on to this pattern it becomes quite difficult to be surprised by Cooper’s act and his quote unquote descent into madness. I will say that his death actually made me like this arc a lot better, because I had assumed Miles would end up having to kill him. Having Cooper die via Noah’s dissection adds a layer of nuance to it. He really was genuinely trying to help, he was just overcome by rage and trauma and lashing out and someone who felt safe to attack rather than those in power who destroyed is family. I found Cooper’s actions at the Fourth of July festival to be clumsily characterized and sudden, though knowing he was terrified and about to confront Noah does put a bit of context to it.

All in all this is a VERY fun book. It’s nasty, it’s angry, but more than that I’d say it’s fiercely protective. Protective of youth, of rural communities, of Appalachia, and of hope for a better future. I wish the plot had been just a bit tighter, and we’d gotten some more consistent pacing but a solid 3.75

Andrew Joseph White just always, ALWAYS delivers. I love Miles, I love his family, I especially love his dog, and maybe I now also love Virginia a little. I'm immediately craving more communist queer mining ghosts and class wars and books about community and family, ahhh.
Teeny tiny quarter of a star away from the full five just because the plot was, to my brain at least, kinda predictable? It still managed to be unimaginably tense and gripping the whole time, but, y'know, none of the beats truly surprised me.

Compound Fracture is a love letter to Appalachia and the working class told through a trans and autistic lens. It’s an incredibly brutal, horrific tale of a century-long feud to free the working class from the jaws of the elite who profit off of them. It’s about community and carving out a space for yourself under inhospitable conditions. It’s about fighting for yourself when you’re unwillingly to leave your home. With the use of both sides, White discusses how young people can be moved to violence when facing hopelessness and shows just what some people are willing to do to survive. It’s unsettling and heartbreaking but leaves the reader with a feeling of hope by the end.

{3,5}

To start off, I was very excited to read this book. I have been wanting to pick up other books from this author for some time now, but never really got the chance to buy them, so I was extremely happy I was given the ARC for this book. With this opportunity, I got to see if I would like the author's writing style. I must say that, to no one's surprise, I did like this and I am going to read the other ones as well :)

Compound fracture is an amazing story, about miles Abernathy, a queer trans autistic socialist who is stuck in a blood feud that has been going on for a hundred years. the problem is that the family on the other side of the blood feud is the Davies family, who have been the sheriffs of the town for as long as the feud has been going on. This is a story of not always getting to choose where you end up, and sometimes being forced into horrible circumstances.

I absolutely adored the way family was portrayed in this book. I started caring for every single family member, even if they barely appeared or so. Great note on that.

The writing was also very refreshing and easy to read, and the gore descriptions were just - chef's kiss. Amazing. However, I must say that after some time - and I know this is a personal opinion - the replacing of "isn't" to "ain't" started to bug me. That's the only thing I'd comment on. Other than that, no critiques on the writing.
Off note, but to be honest, I'm not very keen on reading about politics. However, this book made it easier to digest. It actually taught me a lot of new stuff, so I was grateful for that.
I also wanted to add that I really enjoyed the aromantic representation. It was very naturally written.

Thank you so much to NetGalley giving me the opportunity to read this great book in advance!

Ok maybe i do like male authors, cause all of Andrew Joseph Whites books are must reads. This was so good, i loved the setting of the small town in the Appalachian, and the family drama and history. The vibes were also immaculate, as always with his books. I wish we had more explanation for a certain characters switch in personality, it was kind of random, and how the heck was the main character even still alive at the end, but i still loved to death. Pls give me all of Andrew Whites books.

I genuinely don’t even know where to start. I get drawn to a book for one of two things: a memorable plot I need to see through to the conclusion OR characters that make my heart pull. Compound Fracture had both. Miles is an amazing young man overcoming adversity and a disability to prove that he deserves a place in this world even though centuries of trauma plague his family line. I am just jaw on the floor from not only the incredible writing, but the story as a whole. I could barely put it down. I can’t recommend this book enough honestly and will absolutely be purchasing a copy for my bookshelf at release.

Thank you NetGalley for the advanced copy!

Huge thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for the advanced digital copy! This review contains spoilers.

I devoured this book in a day. Not unusual for me when it comes to AJWs books. This one is more of a thriller than horror compared to his previous two books. It's about a trans, autistic teen who survives a very bloody beating and is threatened to stay silent by the town's Sheriff, the generational blood feud between the two families and tragedies that are a result of that. It also has a very great dog called Lady.

Cannot wait to read the author's letter at the beginning when the book officially comes out.

I like how AJW sometimes makes a whole chapter just a single VERY INTENSE line/scene. It makes you take a break and really chew and swallow fully what just happened.

Unlike TSBIT this book is set in modern time USA. It also has a bit less supernatural elements, but, minor spoiler, there is ONE ghost in this book. And I absolutely loved him.

AJW has a knack for writing characters like Theo and Cooper. And God, let me tell you, I love them. Spoilers ahead: the scene at the porch? I so desperately wanted him to survive. I still do. I liked how the book ended, but there will always be a gaping hole in my chest in the shape of his future. His and Paul's. Those are interesting universes to explore.

Some may have enjoyed how on the nose AJW was with his political messages, but I think this book could benefit from less of it. I understand it's YA and I really reduced my expectations coming in, but the book already does a great job at showing you all these different political sides in different aspects in my opinion, and I don't think Miles talking about all the books he's reading was necessary. Nitpick, I know.

I didn't grow up in the Appalachia, I don't know how life in the USA is firsthand, but I know similar situations happen everywhere around the world. My hometown included. And I know every generation suffers for it, but as a young adult I also know how it particularly screws us over and takes away any hope of a better future ever existing. This book gave me hope. This book made me feel fierce and unbeatable for a second. Made me think: “If Miles managed to make a change, my friends and I could do it too”. With a little less violence and blood feuds, hopefully.

Spoilers ahead: It is how Paul said, it's just how things are. Honestly, it's what I hear almost all the time when I'm talking to anyone who has been wronged in my community by the system that, ironically, we uphold because we're told, year after year, decade after decade, that we will benefit from it in banal ways, not realizing that it's not us that will have it better. As AJW said, we give them power for something in return.

And yeah, I liked the whole part where Miles talks about that and at the end decides to let Paul go. “Did they deserve it? I think they did. I think, in the grand scheme of things, they didn't.”

Mandatory paragraph about how great the queer representation was: Miles asking “Is this what it's like to be around other trans people?” YES!!! ALLOARO REP!!! QUEER-PLATONIC RELATIONSHIP!!!! AGENDER REP!!! *slaps phone with the digital copy *THIS BAD BOY CAN FIT SO MUCH GREAT QUEER REP!!!!!

One last thing. Unsocialized dog. We already know AJW is great at autistic rep, it's what he proves again and again in every book he writes, but DAMN is it always a surprise when I relate completely to his autistic character.

In conclusion, I will give up my firstborn to you, AJW. Thank you from the bottom of my heart, dearest author. Compound Fracture was a wild ride, It's a Love letter to all the places we grew up in. To all the people who are part of our larger community, queer and other. All of us who are trying to make a change, who *stayed* despite having a better chance of existing in peace somewhere else. We don't have to leave, we won't leave, and we will fight.

I have to start this off by thanking NetGalley for giving me an e-ARC in exchange for an honest review!

! READ THE BOOK'S CONTENT WARNINGS !

Another amazing book by Andrew Joseph White. Every time I think it can't get any better and yet it does. Compound Fracture has to be my favourite book of his so far. His books are definitely not going to be everyone's cup of tea, due to the gore and heavy topics, but to me they feel somehow refreshing? Call me weird or messed up, but I enjoy my queer books a bit more visceral than most. However, Compound Fracture was easier to get through than The Spirit Bares Its Teeth, less medical descriptions and well, those tend to make me queasy.

I really enjoyed the setting and all of the characters. It was refreshing to see supportive parents, and hell, even grandparents.

I did have one not so positive note, though. At times I got kind of confused with the political terms thrown at me, but that mostly comes from a place of me not being informed enough about how exactly American politics work.

Overall yet another amazing book with amazing queer and neurodivergent characters. I can't wait till I can get a physical copy.

Four and half stars rounded up to five

Compound Fracture is a novel about an undiagnosed autistic kid coming out as a trans man in a very rural town. But it also is about a century long bloody family feud between two families and an accident that changes everything.

Compound Fracture is Andrew Joseph White’s third novel and he once more hits it out of the park. I also think it may be the most accessible of his works. This novel deals a lot less with the supernatural than Hell Follow With Us and The Spirit Bares its Teeth even though it does not shy away from pretty graphic violent scenes. You can expect quite a lot of in details descriptions of bodily injuries.

As always, White’s depiction of transidentities is impressive. The characters feel real and three dimensional. I really liked that in this book the people surrounding Miles all have different reactions to his coming out, and all deal with it in different ways. It felt like what happened with my coming out so it’s always good to be able to relate and to see your experience reflected back to you. It was also refreshing to see Southern rural people be this supportive of queer characters even if they were utterly confused.
As for the autistic representation, I am not autistic myself so take my opinion with a grain of salt, I once again felt that it was a respectul depiction of what an autistic person can be like and I enjoyed seeing Miles come to all his realisations about himself.
The story also deals with what being poor in a rural part of the United States can be like and how isolated you can be from your community because of just your name.

As for the story part, White’s prose is always easy to get into and I enjoyed that the narration was truly in Miles’ voice, with a little bit of an accent and not perfect grammar. I loved the “early” reveal about Saint Abernathy and felt like it came exactly at the right time to be able to enjoy it for the rest of the book. The twists are not mindblowing but really well down and I wanted to gasp sometimes at how brutal things ended up being. The pace of the story is pretty good but really picks up in the last quarter. And the ending was excellent. Also, Papaw is a real one.

My review focuses a lot about the representations in the novel but the main story is gripping and will have you on the edge of your seat. I just don’t want to spoil it. White has a way of writing young-adult fiction that is just unparalleled.

I cannot wait for White’s next book !

Thank you to Netgalley for providing me with an ARC of Compound Fracture. You can find my reviews on Goodreads and The Storygraph

This book really tugs at the heartstrings, covering a lot of ground with its messages. It dives into socialism, communism, coal trade unions, and importantly, the experiences of the trans community. The Abernathy family may not be perfect, but their acceptance towards Miles is heartwarming (especially his dad's). Even though horror isn't usually my thing, this book was just spot on. Definitely a five-star read!

<b><i>Actual Rating: 1.5 Stars<b><i>

First things first:

I am trans, I am autistic, I grew up in the heart of the Deep South, and my family is very stereotypical “white trash.” I feel like I have a right to critique the themes and topics presented in this book as they are very personal to me and I have cared about them for <i>years.</i>

Second:

This book doesn’t ever touch on race and I get why the author did that, but it’s important to understand this is just as much of a racial issue as it is a class one. Rural, working-class white people are still afforded protection simply because of their whiteness that POC (particularly black and brown immigrants) are not. Rural, working-class white people still perpetuate white supremacy by scapegoating the most marginalized in their community. They still perpetuate racial and queerphobic violence. POC are not being “classist” or whatever for wanting to avoid small rural towns. They are looking out for their safety. When discussing white rednecks and where we should stand on them, keep in mind that impoverished POC will almost always, without fail, bear the brunt of oppression from white people of any class.



<b><i>Now Onto The Review!!</b></i>


<b>The Good</b>

-The exploration of Miles’ aromanticism was the only natural and kind of subtle part of the writing. It was very personal while not being made into a Big ThingTM. Quite realistic and was probably one of the best parts of the book.

-On the topic of writing—just from a craft perspective this was a <i>vast</i> improvement from Hell Followed With Us (other than the pacing). The prose is objectively well-constructed and Miles has more of a personality than Benji ever did. The writing is eminently readable, which is why I only finished the thing in a day and a half. Gold star.

-Cooper! Cooper carried the entire book on his back. This baby can fit so much trauma, repression, and class rage in him. Up until the 80% mark when AJW popped a squat all over his character, Cooper’s morally gray vigilante shtick was the best part of Compound Fracture. Admittedly, it is strange that the kind of abusive cis, straight(?) boyfriend of the trans protagonist being the one who gets to have all the moral complexity and intrigue seems to be a trend in AJW’s books. But Cooper’s interactions with Miles were the only parts of the book that had me genuinely pondering. Yeah, they’re killing awful people but they’re also killing other <i>children</i> for what are, at their core, selfish reasons. It’s a good setup! Might force the audience to think for themself! And in a perfect world, this book would be primarily about Cooper and Miles’ fuckass Veronica/JD dynamic but God hates when I have nice things.

-Miles’ family is at the heart of this book and that’s ultimately a good thing. While I do wish that this would have been explored with a lot more subtlety than is afforded, their family dynamic is very bittersweet. I appreciate they’re more left-leaning and their response to Miles’ transness is awkward but ultimately resolved. It reminded me a lot of my family from down South (which did not make me sad! Fuck you!). This sort’ve family dynamic is incredibly important to trans narratives. I’m happy it was here.

-Miles coming to terms with his autism was relatable and refreshing.



<b><i>The Bad (+the Ugly)</b></i>

-On a lesser note, the pacing and plot was sosososososo bad. First draft written on a Monster Energy bender at 3am level of bad. 75% of the book is just dawdling (no, I am not kidding), 20% of it is the boring MacGuffin plot, and 5% actual murder. People are just around for 400 pages. This book probably could’ve been cut in half and almost nothing would change narratively. I guess you could say this is character-driven but again, these characters are uninteresting and about as subtle as an anvil to the face. Also, as much as I like the murder, it built to nothing in the end, didn’t it?

-I don’t know how to say this other than the fact that the way conservatism was portrayed in this book is so…odd. The overwhelmingly conservative politics of Twist Creek are swept under the rug and only mentioned in passing. This, to me, is already a failure to engage properly with your themes. Conservatism and how it evolves into scapegoating amongst the working classes is a HUGE part of this. It would be the first thing I would dissect. It’s a massive oversight to barely acknowledge. It doesn’t help that the people of Twist Creek are victimized in a way that’s honestly dehumanizing (you’re telling me that a politically conservative, America-loving, guns-blazing town would be super cool with working with Communists and trans people in the end? Are you serious?). Yes, rural working-class people are oppressed under capitalism. Yes, they are unfairly stereotyped by mainstream libertarianism. And yes, many of them are probably leftists in <i>deep</i> denial. But they are still autonomous human beings who can do bad things. They still help to uphold the systems that hurt them and especially hurt those who are more marginalized than they are. They still perpetuate racist and queerphobic violence.

Yes, it is important to have empathy for the rural working classes! It is so important and it is something I’ve been trying to convince people of for a very long time. But portraying them as all “secretly agreeing with us all along guys they’re actually progressives” isn’t helpful either and erases the reality. I think AJW did this to make the citizens of Twist Creek more likable but it comes off as silly to me. You can have empathy for a group of people you don’t like/disagree with. It’s called having nuance.

-This connects to the previous point and it’s what I like to call the <b>LET MILES BE WRONG</b> problem. Miles always has to be in the right, all the time, whenever the situation calls for it and this extends to his inner monologue. He has a perfectly woke thought process, is portrayed as correct in any conflict he’s in, he only accidentally killed someone, and the only murder he’s actually responsible for is arguably in self-defense and he killed a guy that was evil to the point of parody, so was it that bad anyways?? The most morally questionable decision he makes is deciding to kill one of the guys who attacked him with Cooper. A decision that he immediately goes back on once he hears the guy’s tragic backstory (in which I audibly yelled out NO) and retroactively removes any complexity he once had. The one thing he maybe actually did wrong was give a burgeoning local Communist party the MacGuffin which he stole from his dad without telling him. This is resolved immediately and never brought up again.

I genuinely hate this. Other people may disagree with this, but I hate it when characters with my identities are moralized to this degree. It is some of the most othering shit. It makes their characters worse too. Like, are you seriously telling me that a trans teenage boy feels <i>no</i> resentment or at least ambivalence toward people who helped get Donald Trump elected into office? His love for West Virginia is just completely uncomplicated? I don’t know a single progressive from “Trump Country” who doesn’t have a complicated relationship with their home state, much less a fucking trans person. Let Miles be complex! Let him be angry in a way that isn’t “reasonable” or palatable! He’s a poor, sixteen-year-old trans teenager from West Virginia. No one is expecting him to be morally or ideologically pure.

-The villains were so obnoxious and exaggerated that they were weirdly fun. The first guy that gets killed is an ugly pedophile, which gets repeated over and over again just so you don’t feel bad for him even though he was a child who died brutally. The sheriff’s son is just a straight-up Satan spawn who is implied to have a gore and violence fetish. The Sheriff is mustache-twirling evil but also his relationship with the town is so archaic it’s almost feudal. Like why is this man the only wealthy person in town? It’s the most literal way to portray the 1% I’ve ever seen. The more I found out he owned the more I started giggling which is not helped when one of the side characters reveals that his family is ultimately the modern-day equivalent of his medieval serfs. Also, not how that works anyway. Usually, there is a wealthy community within a small town that has the police in their pocket. Because that’s what police are for. They uphold state violence and the status quo. They’re not <i>literally</i> the government.

-Why do the Abernathys and the Davieses have a century-long feud? Why are they not regular people? It’s so stupid. Having these be “special” families with a generation-spanning hatred honestly takes away from your theme there, bud.

-I can’t explain why, but every leftist in this book feels like a caricature. This is someone who only knows about anti-capitalism from five tweets and secondhand sources would write a group of communists. It would be funny if it wasn’t so sad.

-This is a pettier point, but during a high-tension scene, AJW drops the book’s entire thesis in like five humongous paragraphs before someone gets shot to death. I mean, RIGHT in the middle of the scene and everything just screeches to a halt. I too wanted to kill a man.


I really want to like AJW’s books. Trans-autistic perspectives are extremely important to me and he always manages to write about topics I care about. But this method of storytelling that cares more about being morally correct in the eyes of Twitter than telling interesting stories is exhausting. Maybe I’ll see how his adult debut goes. Something’s gonna have to change real quick because this extreme overreliance on “tell over show” may fly with YA reader audiences but it won’t with adult sff.

This book was amazing. I picked it up this morning at 8:00 am and throughout my day at school and this after noon, it is 6:18 pm and I have finished it. It was the best book I have ever read. I saw so much of myself in this book. Thank you so much for this book.

I want to add more to this review, as the book deserves it.

I have never read a book where I see so much of myself in it. Not just in the characters, but in the setting, the plot, the entire book. It felt like home. Like someone had finally seen me and then acknowledged me.

This is the fastest I have ever read any novel. It usually takes me at least a month to finish a novel of this length and yet I finished Compound Fracture within 10 hours (in which I had to go to school).

As a trans and queer person who grew up in the Appalachian area, this is truly a book that gets me. It talks about the weirdness of being outed and grandparents finding out and how parents handle being trans and how a trans kid, who doesn't know what to do and is stuck in a community that he loves when it doesn't love him back, survives in the world.

So, AJ White, thank you. Thank you for seeing me and then acknowledging me and writing about me. Even though it was never truly me, thank you for seeing me.

Another INCREDIBLE book from Andrew Joseph White. Nothing makes me feel the way his books do! He has a unique writing style that’s visceral, gritty, and very thoroughly fleshed-out. I haven’t read any of his books without getting a stomachache (or five), and needing to stare at a wall for a while afterward. I admittedly have ADHD, so I’m always chasing a feeling, but these books make me FEEL deeply.

This book genuinely had it all. Queer, trans, aromantic, autistic, Appalachian, anarchist representation in a horror story is everything I never knew to ask for. I hope AJW has many more stories to tell because I’ll read them ALL!

I'm sure some people will really love this, and I appreciated that it had a lot of representation. I also loved the Appalachian setting, and hope we get more Appalachian YA in the future. However, nothing about this was enjoyable for me to read. It was one violent and traumatic event after another, with no time in between to recover. It wasn't a bad book, but it isn't a book to read for entertainment because it is so bleak and gruesome.

While I liked this book, and have so many good things to say about it, This was my least favorite AJ White book so far.

I live in West Virginia, not far from black water falls which is mentioned to be neighboring Twist Creek. Why does Miles have no idea what a vape is ? We’re poor, not from another planet. I kept getting a wv map out and questioning where this was suppose to be happening because it’s felt like it should have been a lottttt more south than it was. Most of my dislikes are honestly little things like that, where I think being from here, it took me out of the story because I was like “that’s not how we are.” I was really excited to see this book set so close to me, but I actually think I might be too close/ sensitive about that and the portrayal of us to give a non bias response to that aspect of the book.

The story was well done, and interesting from start to finish. Especially the second half of the book. It honestly could have been longer and more fleshed out, I would have happily read more detail into what was going on. It took me a few days to read the first half, and then I accidentally stayed up til 3 am reading the second half because I couldn’t put it down. The characters themselves feel pretty real, at least the main ones. The villains are caricatures for sure. I enjoyed the history aspects of it. Practically everyone here is related to someone who was or still is a coal miner.

This book leans a lot more toward thriller and less supernatural than other books by this author, and honestly I’m not mad at it. It did slightly surprise me though.
I will say there was a part in the beginning where it’s mentioned that you shouldn’t look into the Appalachian woods, so I actually expected more of a cryptid/ scary Appalachian woods thing, and less of a friendly ghost helping take down the bad guys.

And this whole book, set in coal country West Virginia, and not a single pepperoni roll??

Jokes aside and overlooking small things that bugged me just because I live here, I do think this was a very good book. If this author knows how to do anything it’s writing realistic trans and autistic representation and that alone makes all of his work worth diving into for me.

This book was a very dark, very fascinating book about a blood feud in rural West Virginia. The main character Miles was great trans representation and while the book itself is very bleak and violent, the story was incredible.

As soon as I saw that Andrew Joseph White had a new novel coming out, I couldn't wait to get into this.
Compound Fracture is:
A queer Appalachian thriller that pulls no punches—following a trans autistic teen who's drawn into the generational struggle between the rural poor and those who exploit them.
Pulls no punches is so right! This story feels so real, with characters who are expertly written and in-depth.
Set in West Virginia in 2017, this book feels like it was pulled from the headlines. The twists were so hidden that more than once I gasped when something was revealed. So often I had to keep saying "One more chapter is ok, I'll just sleep in more". I cannot recommend this book enough! You need to read this!

Thank you @netgallet and @peachtreetean for this ARC

this was a dnf for me, unfortunately. i think the blame’s on me because i feel as though i’ve outgrown ya as a genre, but this felt a little too undercooked for my taste. ajw is a very talented writer and i loved his first two books, and the themes explored in this one are definitely super interesting, but . . . i don’t know. it feels rushed, in a way. i think the book would benefit from some extra editing.

e-arc providedby netgalley in exchange for an honest review.

"you can't reminisce over a scar if it's still an open wound."

once again, an andrew joseph white book had me hooked from the author's note at the very beginning. i don't know how he does it.

'compound fracture' is not entirely unlike his two earlier books - it's bloody and gnarly and angry, and has some supernatural elements to boot. but it's the realest of the bunch so far, in the sense that it follows a situation that might as well be happening right now. the world is not kind to trans people, and to have a century old blood feud hanging over yourself on top of it? oh, i would've snapped.

miles is probably my favourite ajw protagonist so far. i saw so much of myself in him and his journey, his thoughts, his actions. he'll stick with me for a while, as will the rest of the cast. and the very good dog.

Compound Fracture is such a hard book to review because it shows AJW's greatest strengths and flaws. I was an early reviewer for HFWU (one of the earliest GR reviews actually) and TSBIT and I love all AJW has to offer. Compound Fracture is a book that deals heavily with socialism/communism (the book does not make the distinction between the two) in West Virginia especially as it relates to miner strikes in the 19th century. I'm mostly familiar with miner strikes in Europe especially France through Zola's Germinal, a French classic (Miles should read Germinal) but it doesn't surprise me that they were similar movements in the US. This is a topic very close to home for AJW as we understand that some of the family characters are based on his family and likely family history in the region.

I deeply believe that it is a fundamentally important book to publish in the US, especially for a Young Adult audience. This is a book where the protagonist reads the Communist Manifesto and engages with in-text labelled anarchists and fellow radical leftist movements. It is explicitly pro-strike and against the police, especially in the form of the sheriff. That being said I'm not American I've just heard about the Red Scare. For an American audience (who is of course the intended audience, I'd even say the audience is Southern Americans) this is extremely radical, especially for teen literature and I expect it to be banned in some schools. However, as I said I'm not American and where I'm from we have a Communist Party, a Worker's Party and an Anticapitalist Party (those are their names) and while they get pushback especially right now and have been bleeding members for decades but leftist infighting is so proeminent here that it's jarring to see a self-labelled socialist (here the self-named socialists are considered the soft, useless left), despite reading the Manifesto and being called a commie I don't remember Miles labelling himself as a communist, being tight with anarchists (anarcho-communists often just called anarchists in the book) without some kind of ideological fight. That being said it's probably what people should strive for. Like Dallas said (and I'm paraphrasing as to not quote an ARC) : why are we worrying about identity politics in the middle of a class war?

You know what let's talk about it. It was a small issue I had with HFWU that I did not have with TSBIT due to its being historical fiction. Compound Fracture falls into the trap of "preachy" YA. (I don't like the term preachy, I'm not sure what to use instead). You know those YA contemporary books (adult romances can be guilty of it too) that have way too many paragraphs that are just the author lecturing you about what they want you to know and that sounds like Twitter thread. Like Dallas doesn't look androgynous and this is subtly brought up when the mother (endearing character that we see try to understand trans identities and it takes her a few tries but she tries) says they don't look like a they to which Miles is like what does a they look like and end of the conversation. But no we need another conversation between Dallas and Miles where this is explicitly stated by the characters that nonbinary doesn't have a look. And again and again. So many topics are brought up and over-explained with the delicacy of an elephant in a porcelain store. And I know AJW is doing it on purpose because it's aimed at teens but I believe that teens don't always need cringy over explanations. I do think their next adult novel will have a lot less of that.

And you know I do think it's a shame because the plot is great. It's strong and so are the characters. It's threatening although not too much, there is plausible deniability for the supernatural element. It delves into family feuds and history, revenge, and violence and is a fascinating exploration of masculinity among rural southern communities (without telling it to you explicitly, like subtlety is alive and well). Very interestingly the book never really brings up toxic masculinity because it's not a concern, men are harsh in the way they need to be but can get lost in the violence. Toxic masculinity is irrelevant here in the face of class violence (although I can't help but think about the lack of exploration of misogyny in the story experienced by characters who are not Miles besides a few quips, ie Miles' mom is assumed to be the one cooking when it was actually his dad). We know what the cycle of violence can do to people. While writing this review, it has come to me that after his dad's accident Miles is acting as the de-facto father of his family and it's something I relate to a lot. He tries to be a provider, a defender, to bring justice to his family. When we are without a father figure, it is up to us to be the father figure to be better than him. Maybe I see this in Miles' forced sobriety, the desire to be better than his father in this way so he can keep fighting for his family. I do think it's paralleled with Saint's fatherhood; what he did was for his family, he was the father, and he had a family to fight for and avenge (and I guess in a wider way, miners are family in strikes).

For all its ACAB/anti-MAGA messaging, I do think it's easy to see the Sheriff and his family (His family has been harassing and killing Miles' people for decades) as the bad apples terrorising the town. AJW explicitly wants to focus on the good people in the South, the we're not like that people but besides the trio villains (one of them is somehow forced into it) + sheriff, most people we see are Miles' community and therefore good people. The comments are about faceless MAGA neighbours (yet we learn that the only Black family has been driven out of town, that Dallas who has burn scars would have been harassed to hell and back but the school has a gay association with a he/they lesbian). I do think AJW was aiming for something and missed the right balance. ACAB but the police is one man and if we root out the corruption we can elect good people and it will be better. You know.

I was expecting a lot of the book's depiction of an arospec protagonist and I found myself disappointed? I felt like I was expecting more than what I got. Sometimes I was reading a scene and was expecting something that never came. Maybe I found it too surface-level. Miles is uncomfortable in his blossoming relationship with a guy but that is also attributed to said guy's behaviour, then spends some time with Dallas and suddenly there's a QPR at the end because now Miles has figured himself out, off-screen? i guess it makes sense because AJW suggests in the author's notes that it wasn't initially planned but it felt out of nowhere for a book that spoon-feeds you a lot about marginalised identities.

I feel like a harsh critic for a book I enjoyed and will keep thinking about. AJW is an excellent writer who knows how to adapt to various genre conventions. Compound Fracture can be a gruesome but cathartic thriller with an exploration of violence, masculinity and community.