The Compound Critique
     “Eli’s father built the Compound to keep their family safe. Now, they can’t get out. He won’t let them.” Slowly and gradually the reader will get sucked into the suspense of the safe haven called the Compound. Author S.A. Bodeen starts the suspense on the very first page as Eli’s family has nowhere to go but to escape into the compound to survive a fake nuclear bombing that their father arranged to have them go into his safe haven that he build for his own reasons. For fifteen years they are to stay there, but Eli finds out the truth and works against his father to help his family escape. Through much conflict, everyone in the family but the father escapes and the compound explodes. Overall, a very fine read and well worth the time.
     The Compound proves to be an excellent book. The main act starts when Eli stumbles upon a laptop that is connected to internet that his dad has access to. He finds out the truth my talking to his “deceased” brother and starts taking actions to help his family escape. “Before I could make my first move, my instant messaging icon popped up. Welcome TwinYan2! The following buddies are online. With a shaking hand, I scrolled down. Twinyan1. Eddy?” The details prove to be great there are many cliffhangers which add excitement to the reader. That continues to make the reader want to go further into the book but, there are flaws.
     While the story interests the reader easily, I feel that the speed in which how the story progress continues to be slow for a bit. Maybe it was just because of my thought process, but I think there was too much information that was not relevant to the story. However, this did not occur to me throughout the entire novel. It was just from the beginning to the middle and not much at all. The mystery and suspense takes over that extra information and takes over it completely which makes the book so good. It makes the audience want to read more and by doing that, they encounter a lot of surprises as they go further into the story.
     The Compound turns out to succeed as a very good read and is well worth your time. If the family did not find out about their father’s lies, maybe they would be living a joyful life after the fifteen years. Their father planned this for them and he wanted to keep them happy. I do not know how I feel about this alternate ending but I would be interested to read into it if I could. Whatever the end may be, I am happy that I read this book and would definitely recommend it to other people as well!