Tag / One Perfect Couple

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Book 63 (of 52) – The Compound

The Compound – Aisling Rawle

A group of twenty young and beautiful contestants find themselves in the compound, competing in a reality show where they complete tasks, both communal and personal, to get the things they need to survive and to thrive.  As the numbers dwindle, the remaining players start to crack under the pressure, some wanting to leave and go home and some looking to go all the way.

Aisling Rawle’s debut novel, The Compound, was the winner of the 2025 Goodreads Choice Award for Best Science Fiction.  Outside of some hints of taking place in a dystopian world, there isn’t much (or as much as I would have liked) in the way of science fiction.  Covering a similar ground as Ruth Ware’s One Perfect Couple, Rawle goes deeper into the psychology of why the contestants are participating in the show and what they hope, or had hoped at the outset, to get out of it.  This was a pretty good debut, and I look forward to more from her in the future.

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Book 48 (of 52) – One Perfect Couple

Ruth Ware – One Perfect Couple

After hitting a dead end in her research, Lyla agrees to join her boyfriend, an aspiring actor, as contestants on a new reality show.  Planning to treat the show as a vacation, Lyla assumes she will be booted in the first two weeks.  Unfortunately, an unexpected tropical storm after the first challenge, which Lyla one but which booted her boyfriend from the show, left the remaining contestants stranded and injured.  The longer they remain on the island, their numbers, and their food and water supply, keep dwindling.  As tensions start to run high, can Lyla and her fellow contestants manage to take control of their situation until help arrives?

Released in 2024, One Perfect Couple brings Ruth Ware back to my attention for the first time in nearly two years.  While the bones of the plot date back to Agatha Christie and the classic And Then There Were None, Ware wraps it in a contemporary setting to breathe in some new life.  I hope it won’t be another two years before I circle back to Ware’s work again.