A heart-pounding, gut-wrenching story of survival, found family, and what it means to live your truth in the face of evil.

From the Publisher:

On the night Miles Abernathy—sixteen-year-old socialist and proud West Virginian—comes out as trans to his parents, he sneaks off to a party, carrying evidence that may finally turn the tide of the blood feud plaguing Twist Creek.

The feud began a hundred years ago when Miles’s great-great-grandfather, Saint Abernathy, incited a miners’ rebellion that ended with a public execution at the hands of law enforcement. Now, Miles becomes the feud’s latest victim as the sheriff’s son and his friends follow him through the woods, and beat him nearly to death.

In the hospital, the ghost of a soot-covered man hovers over Miles’s bedside while Sheriff Davies threatens Miles into silence. But when Miles accidentally kills one of the boys who hurt him, he learns of other folks in Twist Creek who want out from under the sheriff’s heel. To free their families from this cycle of cruelty, they’re willing to put everything on the line—is Miles?

A timely novel full of vibrant, three dimensional characters, Andrew Joseph White knocks it out of the park with Compound Fracture. We follow Miles, a trans teen who happens to be Autistic (he just doesn’t know that yet).

I connected deeply with Miles: his struggles with stimming and sensory overload, difficulty making friends and struggling with his identity, all hit close to home.

I don’t do parties. Simple as that. Deer don’t do hunting season, rats don’t do traps, and I don’t do parties.

People are too much work, and I don’t like most of them.

I’ve always preferred writing things to saying them out loud.

Even if I don’t like people, you know, it’s hard not to give a shit about people as a whole.

This is a story of survival in the face of systemic oppression and generational poverty. A clarion call for all persons to live their truth, stand up for what’s right, and protect one another during these troubling and dangerous times.

We’re reminded what the term “redneck” originally stood for: those miners in WV fighting for their union rights, their HUMAN rights, donning red bandanas around their necks to show solidarity; to let their comrades know not to shoot them on Blair Mountain.

For a glorious moment, it meant a union man, wearing red around his neck to show loyalty to the people. It didn’t matter who you were; if you wore red, you were one of us.

I love how Andrew paints a picture of rural West Virginia so well that I feel I’m standing there in fictional Twist Creek County with the characters: Amber and her no-nonsense attitude, showing Miles true compassion and kindness without questions. Dallas and their humor, full of life and hope despite tragedy. Cooper and his simple, kind acceptance (and…well…oof that character arc). Paul and his pain and sorrow. And Noah…that bastard!

I truly loved this book. Andrew Joseph White is permanently on my auto-buy list now (and I may have bought two more of his books and pre-ordered a third…shh!). You should run to buy this book. Seriously! Go, what are you waiting for?!

P.S. John Brown did nothing wrong.

Trigger Warnings and Themes: Transphobia, homophobia, racism, hate crime, dog killing, gun death, descriptions of gore, allusions to SA. Autism, Queer identity, found family, socialism, redneck, Appalachia.

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