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Fable for the End of the World
The Last of Us meets The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes in this standalone dystopian romance about survival, sacrifice, and love that risks everything.
By encouraging massive accumulations of debt from its underclass, a single corporation, Caerus, controls all aspects of society.
Inesa lives with her brother in a half-sunken town where they scrape by running a taxidermy shop. Unbeknownst to Inesa, their cruel and indolent mother has accrued an enormous debt—enough to qualify one of her children for Caerus’s livestreamed assassination spectacle: the Lamb’s Gauntlet.
Melinoë is a Caerus assassin, trained to track and kill the sacrificial Lambs. The product of neural reconditioning and physiological alteration, she is a living weapon, known for her cold brutality and deadly beauty. She has never failed to assassinate one of her marks.
When Inesa learns that her mother has offered her as a sacrifice, at first she despairs—the Gauntlet is always a bloodbath for the impoverished debtors. But she’s had years of practice surviving in the apocalyptic wastes, and with the help of her hunter brother, she might stand a chance of staying alive.
For Melinoë, this is a game she can’t afford to lose. Despite her reputation for mercilessness, she is haunted by painful flashbacks. After her last Gauntlet, where she broke down on livestream, she desperately needs redemption.
As Mel pursues Inesa across the wasteland, both girls begin to question everything: Inesa wonders if there’s more to life than survival, while Mel wonders if she’s capable of more than killing.
And both wonder if, against all odds, they might be falling in love.
By encouraging massive accumulations of debt from its underclass, a single corporation, Caerus, controls all aspects of society.
Inesa lives with her brother in a half-sunken town where they scrape by running a taxidermy shop. Unbeknownst to Inesa, their cruel and indolent mother has accrued an enormous debt—enough to qualify one of her children for Caerus’s livestreamed assassination spectacle: the Lamb’s Gauntlet.
Melinoë is a Caerus assassin, trained to track and kill the sacrificial Lambs. The product of neural reconditioning and physiological alteration, she is a living weapon, known for her cold brutality and deadly beauty. She has never failed to assassinate one of her marks.
When Inesa learns that her mother has offered her as a sacrifice, at first she despairs—the Gauntlet is always a bloodbath for the impoverished debtors. But she’s had years of practice surviving in the apocalyptic wastes, and with the help of her hunter brother, she might stand a chance of staying alive.
For Melinoë, this is a game she can’t afford to lose. Despite her reputation for mercilessness, she is haunted by painful flashbacks. After her last Gauntlet, where she broke down on livestream, she desperately needs redemption.
As Mel pursues Inesa across the wasteland, both girls begin to question everything: Inesa wonders if there’s more to life than survival, while Mel wonders if she’s capable of more than killing.
And both wonder if, against all odds, they might be falling in love.
384 pages, Hardcover
First published March 4, 2025
555 people are currently reading
41.6k people want to read
About the author
Ava Reid
7books6,451followersAva Reid is the #1 New York Times bestselling author of gothic fantasies, including A Study in Drowning, Juniper & Thorn, and Lady Macbeth. She lives in California.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 1,364 reviews
March 2, 2025
"We all do what we have to in order to survive." ... The law that governs all of nature. The law that can be used to justify anything, if you can twist and warp the words to fit.
4.5 Stars. Every time Ava Reid puts pen to paper they find a way to shake me right to my very heart, and they’ve done it again here with Fable for the End of the World, a fantastic return to YA dystopia that's fresh and modern in its storytelling, with Reid's signature sharp prose and hands down one of the best utilizations of dual POV I’ve ever read. I’m so serious, I could do a whole thinkpiece on the dual POV writing in this book alone. When you read it, I hope you’ll get what I mean. The use of language itself on a technical level as a vehicle for the development of connections between characters is amazing.
First, let me say that I desperately hope that the young queer kids who need this story find their way to it. For those who are scared of what’s happening and what may be coming, something like Fable, wherein these girls are both in some way saved by their open, queer love and that they’re entirely unwilling to let go of that even when all outward signs point to that they should…that feels immeasurably important right now.
And speaking of things that feel important right now, one of my favorite recurring themes of Ava’s work is that there is strength in feeling “too much.� There is a strength in softness and a bravery in continuing to seek hope and love and kindness in a world that is bound and determined to beat you down. And here in Fable - a story about a very physical danger in this assassination Gauntlet - Inesa is no different. A literal lamb to the slaughter, there’s no training montage where she learns to pick up a gun and meet the assassin sent to kill her for a debt she never incurred in a moonlit showdown, but rather her true strength lies in her empathy.
Fable is also, of course, a YA dystopian and a clear love letter to The Hunger Games and Reid’s roots in THG fandom spaces. It’s genuinely such a delightful part of getting older to see - in real time - how our formative media is actually, truly formative. Reid shows how Suzanne Collins� story shaped them and their worldview and their own art and then grows up to say here is how your work contributed to the artist I am today and here is the art it inspired me to create, which I just think is SO COOL now that I’m 30 and no longer just studying art and its inspirations, but seeing it in real time with the things that were formative for me too. All of which I suppose is to say, my fellow fandom people - of any fandom - this is for us too.
That is not to say, however, that it is a clone, a copy, etc. of The Hunger Games. The Gauntlet in Fable and the Games in THG operate in fundamentally different ways and for vastly different reasons. Fable is about how a world rooted in debt and corporate oligarchies can fundamentally change the way we see the world and interact with our communities and in fact how it destroys our sense of community altogether; it’s about climate change and the crossover between economic and geographic inequality; it’s about online and streaming culture, the sort of desperate reaching for a cure to loneliness and the lack of privacy it creates, the dehumanizing nature of content and the feeling of entitlement people have to every single piece of a person they view as Content; it’s about our societal obsession with violence as entertainment, the commodification of women’s bodies, and the ways that we adultify certain children to inure ourselves to their suffering. Ava Reid has a lot to say about a lot of things and this standalone book packs a punch.
And as a dystopia, the best dystopian stories make you look in their pages and say “wow, that’s bleak,� and then look up at the world around you and think “oh…shit.�
Taking the things we can already see happening all around us and pushing them to extremes, Fable shows us a young woman who routinely travels through her town by rowing a boat up and down flooded streets and the literal geographic inequality it creates between those who can afford to live upstream of the flooding and those who can’t in a world ravaged by climate change; another who is groomed and hand-crafted to the level of perfection demanded by the ruling class, and yet whose biggest flaw remains that despite this she is still human; a corporation headed by the richest people in the world that is so all-consuming and all-controlling you’re not quite sure what counts as corporation and what counts as government; a society so transactional that it is seen as a kindness to ignore our neighbors in need of help, lest they become indebted to us.
There are a dozen and a half other things I’d love to touch on in what would amount to an essay at this point (Dystopia as satire! The etymology of character names! The long history of cyborgs as a vehicle for genderqueer storytelling, as explained to me by my friend while we read this book together and which she discusses in her review! The way women and girls are overlooked in their own stories for more palettable men! The double sided coin of hope!), but for now I will leave you with this:
I am not one to typically be so deeply affected by stories with a core theme of The Saving Power Of Love - or at least for that theme in particular to be what touches me - but something about the way Ava writes them hits me right in my soul every time and manages to speak to me in a way others don’t.
Ava Reid remains one of my favorite authors and someone I am so excited to continue to see publishing for a long time to come.
4.5 Stars. Every time Ava Reid puts pen to paper they find a way to shake me right to my very heart, and they’ve done it again here with Fable for the End of the World, a fantastic return to YA dystopia that's fresh and modern in its storytelling, with Reid's signature sharp prose and hands down one of the best utilizations of dual POV I’ve ever read. I’m so serious, I could do a whole thinkpiece on the dual POV writing in this book alone. When you read it, I hope you’ll get what I mean. The use of language itself on a technical level as a vehicle for the development of connections between characters is amazing.
First, let me say that I desperately hope that the young queer kids who need this story find their way to it. For those who are scared of what’s happening and what may be coming, something like Fable, wherein these girls are both in some way saved by their open, queer love and that they’re entirely unwilling to let go of that even when all outward signs point to that they should…that feels immeasurably important right now.
And speaking of things that feel important right now, one of my favorite recurring themes of Ava’s work is that there is strength in feeling “too much.� There is a strength in softness and a bravery in continuing to seek hope and love and kindness in a world that is bound and determined to beat you down. And here in Fable - a story about a very physical danger in this assassination Gauntlet - Inesa is no different. A literal lamb to the slaughter, there’s no training montage where she learns to pick up a gun and meet the assassin sent to kill her for a debt she never incurred in a moonlit showdown, but rather her true strength lies in her empathy.
Fable is also, of course, a YA dystopian and a clear love letter to The Hunger Games and Reid’s roots in THG fandom spaces. It’s genuinely such a delightful part of getting older to see - in real time - how our formative media is actually, truly formative. Reid shows how Suzanne Collins� story shaped them and their worldview and their own art and then grows up to say here is how your work contributed to the artist I am today and here is the art it inspired me to create, which I just think is SO COOL now that I’m 30 and no longer just studying art and its inspirations, but seeing it in real time with the things that were formative for me too. All of which I suppose is to say, my fellow fandom people - of any fandom - this is for us too.
That is not to say, however, that it is a clone, a copy, etc. of The Hunger Games. The Gauntlet in Fable and the Games in THG operate in fundamentally different ways and for vastly different reasons. Fable is about how a world rooted in debt and corporate oligarchies can fundamentally change the way we see the world and interact with our communities and in fact how it destroys our sense of community altogether; it’s about climate change and the crossover between economic and geographic inequality; it’s about online and streaming culture, the sort of desperate reaching for a cure to loneliness and the lack of privacy it creates, the dehumanizing nature of content and the feeling of entitlement people have to every single piece of a person they view as Content; it’s about our societal obsession with violence as entertainment, the commodification of women’s bodies, and the ways that we adultify certain children to inure ourselves to their suffering. Ava Reid has a lot to say about a lot of things and this standalone book packs a punch.
And as a dystopia, the best dystopian stories make you look in their pages and say “wow, that’s bleak,� and then look up at the world around you and think “oh…shit.�
Taking the things we can already see happening all around us and pushing them to extremes, Fable shows us a young woman who routinely travels through her town by rowing a boat up and down flooded streets and the literal geographic inequality it creates between those who can afford to live upstream of the flooding and those who can’t in a world ravaged by climate change; another who is groomed and hand-crafted to the level of perfection demanded by the ruling class, and yet whose biggest flaw remains that despite this she is still human; a corporation headed by the richest people in the world that is so all-consuming and all-controlling you’re not quite sure what counts as corporation and what counts as government; a society so transactional that it is seen as a kindness to ignore our neighbors in need of help, lest they become indebted to us.
There are a dozen and a half other things I’d love to touch on in what would amount to an essay at this point (Dystopia as satire! The etymology of character names! The long history of cyborgs as a vehicle for genderqueer storytelling, as explained to me by my friend while we read this book together and which she discusses in her review! The way women and girls are overlooked in their own stories for more palettable men! The double sided coin of hope!), but for now I will leave you with this:
I am not one to typically be so deeply affected by stories with a core theme of The Saving Power Of Love - or at least for that theme in particular to be what touches me - but something about the way Ava writes them hits me right in my soul every time and manages to speak to me in a way others don’t.
Ava Reid remains one of my favorite authors and someone I am so excited to continue to see publishing for a long time to come.
August 28, 2024
LESBIAN HUNGER GAMES. everyone say thank you ava reid
thank you to the publisher for providing the arc (and to rachel the literal loml for the physical copy)
thank you to the publisher for providing the arc (and to rachel the literal loml for the physical copy)
December 6, 2024
“And maybe that’s all it takes—at least at the beginning. Just a few people who care. And that caring matters, even if it can’t cool the earth or lower sea levels or turn back time to before a nuclear blast.�
rating: 3.75�
a love letter to dystopians (esp hunger games), reid has imagined us a (not-so-distant, more likely than not) future fully disrupted and firmly altered by climate change and oppressed by the staggering debt to the monopoly corporation, saerus. flooding storms are a regular occurrence, so have your raft on hand!
within the first 15% i was getting some minor but noticeable hints of terminator, blade runner, even ghost in the shell, handmaid's tale. animals have been disfigured and mutated by the chemical pollution in the air, land, and water. evil seagulls!!!
“When we see flowers blooming or hear birds singing, we think it’s beautiful. But when people need each other, it seems so ugly.�
“Caerus has poisoned everything.�
capitalism destroys the idea of community, bc it needs us to rely on IT (buying things) rather than each other. it also allows more control to government/authority bc ppl are divided.
there's also a major theme of the dehumanizing voyeurism of trauma and entertainment brutality. the lamb's gauntlet itself is an apathetic bloodsport twitch/tiktok live, complete with watcher comments. people livestream their own reactions and cameras film 24/7.
there is definitely major commentary on women in media, the expectations of beauty, and objectifying commodification of them in online spaces.
slight spoilers:
so, the set up and concept were very strong and intriguing to me, with clear parallels to what is currently happening rn and a cautionary tale of what could happen to us all.
however, i did feel the overall story execution was a bit underwhelming for me, as well as the ending. i thought the relationship between inesa and melinoë was well constructed for a YA, but i wanted more from the other characters and subplots/hints.
“Sometimes love isn’t enough.�
“I think it is. I think it has to be. Otherwise, it’s not really love. If the world can break it...�
the way this ends feels more open-ended then not with some loose ends. i v much suspect a sequel and hope for it bc there are many questions that i would like the answers to.
I’ll always be able to find my way back to her.
an honest arc review �
rating: 3.75�
a love letter to dystopians (esp hunger games), reid has imagined us a (not-so-distant, more likely than not) future fully disrupted and firmly altered by climate change and oppressed by the staggering debt to the monopoly corporation, saerus. flooding storms are a regular occurrence, so have your raft on hand!
within the first 15% i was getting some minor but noticeable hints of terminator, blade runner, even ghost in the shell, handmaid's tale. animals have been disfigured and mutated by the chemical pollution in the air, land, and water. evil seagulls!!!
“When we see flowers blooming or hear birds singing, we think it’s beautiful. But when people need each other, it seems so ugly.�
“Caerus has poisoned everything.�
capitalism destroys the idea of community, bc it needs us to rely on IT (buying things) rather than each other. it also allows more control to government/authority bc ppl are divided.
there's also a major theme of the dehumanizing voyeurism of trauma and entertainment brutality. the lamb's gauntlet itself is an apathetic bloodsport twitch/tiktok live, complete with watcher comments. people livestream their own reactions and cameras film 24/7.
there is definitely major commentary on women in media, the expectations of beauty, and objectifying commodification of them in online spaces.
slight spoilers:
so, the set up and concept were very strong and intriguing to me, with clear parallels to what is currently happening rn and a cautionary tale of what could happen to us all.
however, i did feel the overall story execution was a bit underwhelming for me, as well as the ending. i thought the relationship between inesa and melinoë was well constructed for a YA, but i wanted more from the other characters and subplots/hints.
“Sometimes love isn’t enough.�
“I think it is. I think it has to be. Otherwise, it’s not really love. If the world can break it...�
the way this ends feels more open-ended then not with some loose ends. i v much suspect a sequel and hope for it bc there are many questions that i would like the answers to.
I’ll always be able to find my way back to her.
an honest arc review �
Read
November 30, 2024ava reid sapphic enemies-to-lovers might be the end of me actually
�
update post-read:
"But that's the same reason pretty much anyone kills anything. So they can survive. If it's all survival, who am I to judge what someone does? We're all the same, deep down."
Crier’s War meets The Hunger Games in this tender and hopeful dystopian.
I am not a dystopian guy, and unfortunately even Ava Reid can’t seem to change that immutable fact about me, which kept this book from really blowing me away. It also keeps me from being able to speak too much to the success of the story. But if you are a dystopian fan and are interested in a close-dystopian with a sapphic enemies-to-lovers romance driving the characters� arcs (Ava is so goddamn good at making a romance integral to character development and narrative when they write enemies-to-lovers, it’s unreal), definitely pick this one up.
CW: violence, animal death, death of child, adult/minor relationship, sexual harassment, blood & gore, injury detail, dead body, abusive parent, medical content, gun violence, fire/fire injury, drug use, alcoholism (past), emesis
Thank you to the publisher for an ARC in exchange for an honest review!
�
update post-read:
"But that's the same reason pretty much anyone kills anything. So they can survive. If it's all survival, who am I to judge what someone does? We're all the same, deep down."
Crier’s War meets The Hunger Games in this tender and hopeful dystopian.
I am not a dystopian guy, and unfortunately even Ava Reid can’t seem to change that immutable fact about me, which kept this book from really blowing me away. It also keeps me from being able to speak too much to the success of the story. But if you are a dystopian fan and are interested in a close-dystopian with a sapphic enemies-to-lovers romance driving the characters� arcs (Ava is so goddamn good at making a romance integral to character development and narrative when they write enemies-to-lovers, it’s unreal), definitely pick this one up.
CW: violence, animal death, death of child, adult/minor relationship, sexual harassment, blood & gore, injury detail, dead body, abusive parent, medical content, gun violence, fire/fire injury, drug use, alcoholism (past), emesis
Thank you to the publisher for an ARC in exchange for an honest review!
February 22, 2025
3.5 stars 💫
I cannot write this review without spoilers, because I need to rant, I need to vent out what I read here. Because what the hell was that ENDING?! I'M UPSET. This was one of my most anticipated reads, and to say the least, it disappointed me so much. All that pent-up tension, that chemistry between Inesa & Melinoe, ALL OF IT The ending was rushed, there could've been more to the story. The pacing was slow, the story's direction was lacking. All I know is that ending left me hanging. I don't know if I will ever write a full review later after this book gets published, but for now, these are the only things I can say, or rather I could manage to say about this book.
what to expect:
🍃 Dual-POV
🍃 Dystopian
🍃 Enemies-to-Lovers
🍃 Sapphic romance
🍃 Forced Proximity
🍃 Hunger Games-inspired
🍃 Live streamed deadly game
Thank you to the Author, the Publisher, and Netgalley for providing me this ARC in exchange for an honest review!
ˏˋ°�*⁶➷・❥・𝓟𝓻𝓮𝓿𝓲𝓮・❥・ˏˋ°�*⁶�
⤿�22/02/25
rating & rtc. my thoughts are conflicted, I need time to process the whole book, that ending and whatever I read here.
⤿�20/02/25
I heard this is more like The Hunger Games, idk if it's real tho. Also, I didn't know this is a sapphic genre while applying for the arc (it's a new genre for me). All I do know is it's either going to be a hit or a miss for me 😌💙
I cannot write this review without spoilers, because I need to rant, I need to vent out what I read here. Because what the hell was that ENDING?! I'M UPSET. This was one of my most anticipated reads, and to say the least, it disappointed me so much. All that pent-up tension, that chemistry between Inesa & Melinoe, ALL OF IT The ending was rushed, there could've been more to the story. The pacing was slow, the story's direction was lacking. All I know is that ending left me hanging. I don't know if I will ever write a full review later after this book gets published, but for now, these are the only things I can say, or rather I could manage to say about this book.
what to expect:
🍃 Dual-POV
🍃 Dystopian
🍃 Enemies-to-Lovers
🍃 Sapphic romance
🍃 Forced Proximity
🍃 Hunger Games-inspired
🍃 Live streamed deadly game
Thank you to the Author, the Publisher, and Netgalley for providing me this ARC in exchange for an honest review!
ˏˋ°�*⁶➷・❥・𝓟𝓻𝓮𝓿𝓲𝓮・❥・ˏˋ°�*⁶�
⤿�22/02/25
rating & rtc. my thoughts are conflicted, I need time to process the whole book, that ending and whatever I read here.
⤿�20/02/25
I heard this is more like The Hunger Games, idk if it's real tho. Also, I didn't know this is a sapphic genre while applying for the arc (it's a new genre for me). All I do know is it's either going to be a hit or a miss for me 😌💙
December 4, 2024
FULL REVIEW FINALLY 😂 I’ve finished it and it’s bleak and sad and hopeful and romantic.
Rating: 4 ⭐️
Fable for the End of the World did it's inspiration , and the 2010s dystopian genre, justice. It tells the story of Inesa, who is thrust into a Gauntlet by an uncaring mother to pay off her debts and Melinoë, who will be the one to kill her on live television.
This book is, at times, dark. Especially Melinoë's story. She is a Caerus assassin who has been conditioned and altered since she was a child to be the perfect weapon. Part of her conditioning is that she is regularly Wiped, where certain memories are taken away. This was one of the most heartbreaking and darkest parts of the book. She doesn't know who she is or how many memories she's lost and, consequently, her body is not her own.
For anyone wondering about my previous reading updates, I stick to what I said: Melinoë reminds me of Finnick.
Her story is so similar to Finnick's - a person who, from an outside perspective, has it all. They are gorgeous, rich, ruthless, and arrogant. The "darling of the Capitol." Or so it seems. But they are maybe the biggest victims of them all.
Inesa is the sacrificial Lamb, forced to flee for her life with only the slightest hope that she might survive. Only one of them will make it out alive. So, of course, not the greatest circumstances to start a relationship.
It did take me a bit to get fully invested in the story. The second half was where it really shined. As with many books, the first half was an introduction to the world and the characters. It wasn't until the second half that the characters interacted and grew in meaningful ways. That's where all the most interesting parts of the story occurred.
If you grew up during the 2010s dystopian era and wanted to see a sapphic romance at the forefront, this book is for you ❤️
Tropes/Genre
� Sapphic romance
� Enemies to Lovers
� Dual-POV
� Dystopian
� Hunger Games-inspired
── ⋆⋅☆⋅� ───── ⋆⋅☆⋅� ───── ⋆⋅☆⋅� ──
Reading updates:
I've started reading it!!!!!
I'm at 20% and I think this is gonna get reallllyyyy dark. There are a couple little one-off scenes that have made me go oh nooo. It's a totally different world but I can very much see the Hunger Games/dystopian 2010s influences. It's kinda like a Hunger Games retelling if Katniss and Prim were switched. And Melinoë is kinda remining me of Finnick 👀
Pre-read:
Someone said this is lesbian Hunger Games and I’m all for it!!!! Just got approved!
Rating: 4 ⭐️
"Maybe I’ve survived this long so I could know how it feels to hold her. Maybe all my life has been one long gauntlet, running, fighting, searching for her.�
Fable for the End of the World did it's inspiration , and the 2010s dystopian genre, justice. It tells the story of Inesa, who is thrust into a Gauntlet by an uncaring mother to pay off her debts and Melinoë, who will be the one to kill her on live television.
This book is, at times, dark. Especially Melinoë's story. She is a Caerus assassin who has been conditioned and altered since she was a child to be the perfect weapon. Part of her conditioning is that she is regularly Wiped, where certain memories are taken away. This was one of the most heartbreaking and darkest parts of the book. She doesn't know who she is or how many memories she's lost and, consequently, her body is not her own.
For anyone wondering about my previous reading updates, I stick to what I said: Melinoë reminds me of Finnick.
Her story is so similar to Finnick's - a person who, from an outside perspective, has it all. They are gorgeous, rich, ruthless, and arrogant. The "darling of the Capitol." Or so it seems. But they are maybe the biggest victims of them all.
Inesa is the sacrificial Lamb, forced to flee for her life with only the slightest hope that she might survive. Only one of them will make it out alive. So, of course, not the greatest circumstances to start a relationship.
It did take me a bit to get fully invested in the story. The second half was where it really shined. As with many books, the first half was an introduction to the world and the characters. It wasn't until the second half that the characters interacted and grew in meaningful ways. That's where all the most interesting parts of the story occurred.
If you grew up during the 2010s dystopian era and wanted to see a sapphic romance at the forefront, this book is for you ❤️
Tropes/Genre
� Sapphic romance
� Enemies to Lovers
� Dual-POV
� Dystopian
� Hunger Games-inspired
Thank you to Netgalley and HarperCollins Books for providing me early access to Fable for the End of the World in exchange for an honest review. All opinions are my own.
── ⋆⋅☆⋅� ───── ⋆⋅☆⋅� ───── ⋆⋅☆⋅� ──
Reading updates:
I've started reading it!!!!!
I'm at 20% and I think this is gonna get reallllyyyy dark. There are a couple little one-off scenes that have made me go oh nooo. It's a totally different world but I can very much see the Hunger Games/dystopian 2010s influences. It's kinda like a Hunger Games retelling if Katniss and Prim were switched. And Melinoë is kinda remining me of Finnick 👀
Pre-read:
Someone said this is lesbian Hunger Games and I’m all for it!!!! Just got approved!
February 12, 2025
The only reason that this book isn’t a 1-star is because I’ve read worse.
Can’t believe this book made me hate 2 (supposedly) strong female MCs.
RTC!
-
100%: Yup, ending sucked.
90%: There is absolutely NO WAY this book will end in a way that will satisfy me.
60%: Every few pages I catch myself thinking, man, I wish I was reading The Hunger Games instead bc this book lowkey sucks.
30%: *gulps* So far, not a fan. I think this is Reid’s first dystopian, so I’m hoping this is just a rough start and that it’ll get better. 🥲
-
First time reading Ava Reid! 🤞
Can’t believe this book made me hate 2 (supposedly) strong female MCs.
RTC!
-
100%: Yup, ending sucked.
90%: There is absolutely NO WAY this book will end in a way that will satisfy me.
60%: Every few pages I catch myself thinking, man, I wish I was reading The Hunger Games instead bc this book lowkey sucks.
30%: *gulps* So far, not a fan. I think this is Reid’s first dystopian, so I’m hoping this is just a rough start and that it’ll get better. 🥲
-
First time reading Ava Reid! 🤞
March 20, 2025
What in the Hunger Games meets Terminator meets Black Widow??
This was mid, but at least it wasn't Lady Macbeth level mid. And it wasn't weirdly offensive like A Study in Drowning, so there's that.
Very generic though. At least I didn't outright hate it. It's the little things, I guess.
This was mid, but at least it wasn't Lady Macbeth level mid. And it wasn't weirdly offensive like A Study in Drowning, so there's that.
Very generic though. At least I didn't outright hate it. It's the little things, I guess.
October 5, 2024
The Hunger Games meets a climate-ravaged watery corporate-capitalist nightmare world.
A love letter to the 2010s YA dystopians I grew up on.
I have to say I am kind of disappointed. I wasn’t a huge fan of Lady Macbeth and was hoping this would return to Reid’s earlier works - a dark study of characters and society. Instead, this felt so familiar in a mediocre way.
Inesa lives in a half-sunken town trying to keep afloat (figuratively and literally) alongside her brother. However, everything changes when her mother enters her into the Gauntlet to pay off her debts. She is to be hunted down by Caerus’s Angels - weapons created by the corporation that controls everything through their credit system.
Melinoë is a Caerus assassin, trained to track and kill the sacrificial Lambs. She is a living weapon, human parts, hormones, and reconditioning. She will do anything to avoid the being decommissioned and Wiped to become a corporate concubine.
This is very different to what Reid has written previously. Less horror and folklore dark, and more dystopian trauma.
This is blatantly a story about the horrors of climate change, wealth inequality, corporatocracy, and technology; made all the more scary by the reality.
"The world can break anything," she says.
"Then maybe no one has ever really been in love," I suggest dryly. "Maybe you have too much faith in people."
Caerus uses the Gauntlets to keep New Amsterdam both riveted and cowed. Entertained and subjugated. They promise advancement, but through restriction and subjugation.
I think the blurb basically tells you the entire story. What is on the package is what you get, so there wasn’t as much tension and stress which is what you want with a story like this.
This sounds all negative - it shouldn’t be. I binged this in under 3 hours and I think Reid made very valiant points about humanity’s future and our attitude. It was just very guessable. More young adult than I had thought it would be. It also lacks Reid’s also usual beautiful, stunning prose.
Thank you to the publisher for providing me an arc in exchange for a review.
A love letter to the 2010s YA dystopians I grew up on.
I have to say I am kind of disappointed. I wasn’t a huge fan of Lady Macbeth and was hoping this would return to Reid’s earlier works - a dark study of characters and society. Instead, this felt so familiar in a mediocre way.
Inesa lives in a half-sunken town trying to keep afloat (figuratively and literally) alongside her brother. However, everything changes when her mother enters her into the Gauntlet to pay off her debts. She is to be hunted down by Caerus’s Angels - weapons created by the corporation that controls everything through their credit system.
Melinoë is a Caerus assassin, trained to track and kill the sacrificial Lambs. She is a living weapon, human parts, hormones, and reconditioning. She will do anything to avoid the being decommissioned and Wiped to become a corporate concubine.
This is very different to what Reid has written previously. Less horror and folklore dark, and more dystopian trauma.
This is blatantly a story about the horrors of climate change, wealth inequality, corporatocracy, and technology; made all the more scary by the reality.
"The world can break anything," she says.
"Then maybe no one has ever really been in love," I suggest dryly. "Maybe you have too much faith in people."
Caerus uses the Gauntlets to keep New Amsterdam both riveted and cowed. Entertained and subjugated. They promise advancement, but through restriction and subjugation.
I think the blurb basically tells you the entire story. What is on the package is what you get, so there wasn’t as much tension and stress which is what you want with a story like this.
This sounds all negative - it shouldn’t be. I binged this in under 3 hours and I think Reid made very valiant points about humanity’s future and our attitude. It was just very guessable. More young adult than I had thought it would be. It also lacks Reid’s also usual beautiful, stunning prose.
Thank you to the publisher for providing me an arc in exchange for a review.
March 10, 2025
4.5⭐️ | | |
Fable for the End of the World is sapphic dystopian love story, with capitalist overlord villains, a live-streamed assassination gauntlet, epic family dynamics, and a post rising sea-level setting! I ate this up! Ava Reid does it again with a novel that leaves your brain reeling!
What I loved
- Sapphic love story
- enemies to lovers
- hunger games vibes
- crazy, yet somehow not that farfetched dystopian world
- family/mommy/daddy trauma
- top-notch brotherly-sisterly love
- epic social commentary presented in that signature Ava Reid style, subtle yet clear to all that pay attention
What I didn’t love�
- the relationship between the two FMCs felt a little hollow at times for my personal taste but as a relationship in a YA novel it gets the job done.
- It terms of atmosphere and vibes that Ava Reid’s work is known for this felt a bit lacking as well. Still fantastic atmosphere but comparatively speaking (to her other books), this was a little flat
Thank you NetGalley and HarperCollins Children’s for sending this book (eARC) for review consideration. All opinions are my own.
Fable for the End of the World is sapphic dystopian love story, with capitalist overlord villains, a live-streamed assassination gauntlet, epic family dynamics, and a post rising sea-level setting! I ate this up! Ava Reid does it again with a novel that leaves your brain reeling!
What I loved
- Sapphic love story
- enemies to lovers
- hunger games vibes
- crazy, yet somehow not that farfetched dystopian world
- family/mommy/daddy trauma
- top-notch brotherly-sisterly love
- epic social commentary presented in that signature Ava Reid style, subtle yet clear to all that pay attention
What I didn’t love�
- the relationship between the two FMCs felt a little hollow at times for my personal taste but as a relationship in a YA novel it gets the job done.
- It terms of atmosphere and vibes that Ava Reid’s work is known for this felt a bit lacking as well. Still fantastic atmosphere but comparatively speaking (to her other books), this was a little flat
Thank you NetGalley and HarperCollins Children’s for sending this book (eARC) for review consideration. All opinions are my own.
March 2, 2025
“I’m sorry,� she says. Her voice low and distant, like an echo of itself. “It was just instinct.�
4.5/5
It is no secret that I am an Ava Reid fan, and I have been since their debut novel. They are an author that writes with intension—an author that doesn’t fit neatly into a genre niche. They are an author that writes books that have something to say, and even better, an author that asks questions that do not have simple answers. You can read the synopsis for Fable for the End of the World above, it’s incredibly compelling, but aside from the plot, allow me some time to talk about what I saw in this book.
Before I jump in, I think it is important to acknowledge that this book is going to get smacked upside the head with loud voices complaining that it is either too much like The Hunger Games or not enough like The Hunger Games. Reid has on multiple occasions stated that this book was written from their love of The Hunger Games. It is a book that acknowledges its predecessors (not unlike Eragon/LotR or Sanderson/Pratchett) so I do hope to see more nuanced considerations when comparing the books—or better yet see reviews that discuss the book on its own merits because I think Ava Reid has built enough trust among their readers for us to think about the book as both a love letter and a serious piece of art that is considering similar and different topics/themes/complexities in a vastly different sociopolitical landscape.
But whatever, I know there are going to be reviews crying about it being derivative or something. How ironically unoriginal.
Things I Liked:
Where to begin. As a reader that doesn’t particularly enjoy YA novels much these days, I was happy to see the book consider multiple layers of the ways that dystopian novels allow authors to explore the current state of the world. The book does a pretty good job of building a scenario (plot) that asks the reader to consider the lives of victims of oppression from a corporate oligarchy. The book switches between two main character POVs. Inesa is a poverty-stricken citizen that lives in the flooding outskirts of the community in which the book takes place. She is also the subject of The Gauntlet, a live-streamed game that allows participants to pay off debt in exchange for a game of life-or-death cat and mouse that happens over the course of 10 days. The other is Melinoë, another victim that serves as a tool of the oppressor who struggles with their role as a hunter (“Angel�) in The Gauntlet. Both of the characters voices were incredibly distinct from one another on the line level. Inesa was more purple and Mel more clinical. The diction they used was very exclusive to their own voices. I hate POV switching where the voices of first-person character voice feel the same, and thankfully Reid used the form to the book’s benefit.
I mostly enjoyed the set-up of the world as well. It’s a world that suffers greatly from the aforementioned oligarchy. The poor suffer, the less poor suffer, and it has split people a part from their neighbors. Everything revolves around money and even among communities� folks have isolated themselves to their own immediate families. Betrayal is expected, children are not safe from their own parents. It is incredibly bleak and yet the book drags hope to the forefront. This is a book that show strength in softness, in the individual. It is not a book that challenges the deconstruction of corruption, the people in this story are not there yet and not ever dystopian story need to or should do that. The tone matches the construction of the world well. I never think the book misses the proverbial dystopian mark because it’s setting its own marks.
Also, the romance is cute as fuck.
God there really are so many things I can talk about here, but I sort of want to sing praises about one thing in particular that stood out to me in a way I haven’t seen in YA lit often (again, I do not read too extensively anymore so I may be missing something obvious). One of the main characters of this story, Melinoë, the tool of the game that is played has very few memories of her past. She was given to the program as a child and is a victim of forced body augmentation, memory oppression, and manipulation of a man who holds a significant amount of power over her. She is a cyborg, a human with machine parts. Mel often voices that she doesn’t feel attached to reality, that her body is difficult to feel grounded in, that she is ashamed of her scars. All of these details are so intentionally included by Reid who invites the reader to read cyborg theory operating in the dystopian ya space.
For those that may not know, cyborg theory comes from Donna Haraway’s “A Cyborg Manifesto� that suggests the cyborg character/imagery challenges western gender essentialism. In other words, the cyborg is an image that is often used in queer theory amongst scholars that study gender.
(Side note, I think Franny Choi’s Soft Science would be very fun to read in conjunction with Fable for the End of the World if you want a poetry fix.) (There is also great research also being done with cyborg theory and how it applies to colonialism and the dehumanization of Asian bodies, so read more in that branch of the study if you are further interested.)
There have been decades of responses to this manifesto, and I cannot help but put on my WGSS hat when I think about Mel, a character who is so central to how The Gauntlet and the government in the world of FftEotW operate. They depend on her, they benefit from her image, but when she overstays her “usefulness� she in harmed in calculated ways that are damaging to her physical and mental health. I think this is consistent with the more overt assertions of Mel as “influencer� or “celebrity.� Ava Reid is poignant in her critique of how young women are exploited by media and entertainment industries all the time. But the deeper layer here, the considerations of the harm of gender essentialism to young people in conversation with media exploitation are more interesting and well done to me. I thought this was such a tender and powerful way to construct Mel. She is both a victim of this world and complicit at times in implementing its structure. She is a character that has done bad things. She is a character capable (despite being told she is not) of deep love. She is a sharp character, a tragic character, a beautiful character. She is multi-layered and multi-faceted; she is never one thing despite the entire world wanting to view her that way. She is not a monolith. She is character that deeply craves connection, who wants to be understood. I love Mel. I love Reid for giving us such a complexly constructed queer character for her audience to hold so close to their hearts. I said this with Reid’s other YA novel, and I’ll say it with this one as well, I wish to god I had this book when I was a teenager.
This is over a thousand words, and I haven’t talked about Inesa as a character that finds strength in softness, or her brother Luka that because of his advantages as a male character is set up to be the fan favorite (to both the audience of The Gauntlet and the audience reading the book). I haven’t touched on the implications of environmentalism or the generational stories of the world that have shaped complicity in atrocity over years and years of systematic manipulation by billionaires that make people reliant on convenience and instant-dopamine hits. Sounds scary huh? I’ll leave it. This is 1100 words already. Hey, can you tell I like the book and really want people to think about this with their brains on? Sorry if that’s mean, but I wonder who will get to this part of the review anyway�
Things I Think Could Have Been Better:
I am not going to mince words; I do think the pacing of the book was a bit quick and there were world building details I found missing or misplaced. There is a lot of information about the government and the operation of the world that is withheld until the end of the novel that I think is supposed to lead to an “a-ha� moment that doesn’t particularly pan out for me. I wanted the information on page 5. I feel like the “in a nutshell� story of this book, meaning the unfolding of events, to be sort of choppy and I craved for scenes and time to connect a bit more seamlessly. I wanted 50 more pages. But that really all I have to critique.
Ava Reid is an author of intention. I love this about them, I love that genre is a suggestion, a singular flavor in a cocktail of layered contemplation. I am waiting impatiently for their next book, and their next, and their next. As long as Ava Reid wants to write, I want to read.
4.5/5
4.5/5
It is no secret that I am an Ava Reid fan, and I have been since their debut novel. They are an author that writes with intension—an author that doesn’t fit neatly into a genre niche. They are an author that writes books that have something to say, and even better, an author that asks questions that do not have simple answers. You can read the synopsis for Fable for the End of the World above, it’s incredibly compelling, but aside from the plot, allow me some time to talk about what I saw in this book.
Before I jump in, I think it is important to acknowledge that this book is going to get smacked upside the head with loud voices complaining that it is either too much like The Hunger Games or not enough like The Hunger Games. Reid has on multiple occasions stated that this book was written from their love of The Hunger Games. It is a book that acknowledges its predecessors (not unlike Eragon/LotR or Sanderson/Pratchett) so I do hope to see more nuanced considerations when comparing the books—or better yet see reviews that discuss the book on its own merits because I think Ava Reid has built enough trust among their readers for us to think about the book as both a love letter and a serious piece of art that is considering similar and different topics/themes/complexities in a vastly different sociopolitical landscape.
But whatever, I know there are going to be reviews crying about it being derivative or something. How ironically unoriginal.
Things I Liked:
Where to begin. As a reader that doesn’t particularly enjoy YA novels much these days, I was happy to see the book consider multiple layers of the ways that dystopian novels allow authors to explore the current state of the world. The book does a pretty good job of building a scenario (plot) that asks the reader to consider the lives of victims of oppression from a corporate oligarchy. The book switches between two main character POVs. Inesa is a poverty-stricken citizen that lives in the flooding outskirts of the community in which the book takes place. She is also the subject of The Gauntlet, a live-streamed game that allows participants to pay off debt in exchange for a game of life-or-death cat and mouse that happens over the course of 10 days. The other is Melinoë, another victim that serves as a tool of the oppressor who struggles with their role as a hunter (“Angel�) in The Gauntlet. Both of the characters voices were incredibly distinct from one another on the line level. Inesa was more purple and Mel more clinical. The diction they used was very exclusive to their own voices. I hate POV switching where the voices of first-person character voice feel the same, and thankfully Reid used the form to the book’s benefit.
I mostly enjoyed the set-up of the world as well. It’s a world that suffers greatly from the aforementioned oligarchy. The poor suffer, the less poor suffer, and it has split people a part from their neighbors. Everything revolves around money and even among communities� folks have isolated themselves to their own immediate families. Betrayal is expected, children are not safe from their own parents. It is incredibly bleak and yet the book drags hope to the forefront. This is a book that show strength in softness, in the individual. It is not a book that challenges the deconstruction of corruption, the people in this story are not there yet and not ever dystopian story need to or should do that. The tone matches the construction of the world well. I never think the book misses the proverbial dystopian mark because it’s setting its own marks.
Also, the romance is cute as fuck.
God there really are so many things I can talk about here, but I sort of want to sing praises about one thing in particular that stood out to me in a way I haven’t seen in YA lit often (again, I do not read too extensively anymore so I may be missing something obvious). One of the main characters of this story, Melinoë, the tool of the game that is played has very few memories of her past. She was given to the program as a child and is a victim of forced body augmentation, memory oppression, and manipulation of a man who holds a significant amount of power over her. She is a cyborg, a human with machine parts. Mel often voices that she doesn’t feel attached to reality, that her body is difficult to feel grounded in, that she is ashamed of her scars. All of these details are so intentionally included by Reid who invites the reader to read cyborg theory operating in the dystopian ya space.
For those that may not know, cyborg theory comes from Donna Haraway’s “A Cyborg Manifesto� that suggests the cyborg character/imagery challenges western gender essentialism. In other words, the cyborg is an image that is often used in queer theory amongst scholars that study gender.
(Side note, I think Franny Choi’s Soft Science would be very fun to read in conjunction with Fable for the End of the World if you want a poetry fix.) (There is also great research also being done with cyborg theory and how it applies to colonialism and the dehumanization of Asian bodies, so read more in that branch of the study if you are further interested.)
There have been decades of responses to this manifesto, and I cannot help but put on my WGSS hat when I think about Mel, a character who is so central to how The Gauntlet and the government in the world of FftEotW operate. They depend on her, they benefit from her image, but when she overstays her “usefulness� she in harmed in calculated ways that are damaging to her physical and mental health. I think this is consistent with the more overt assertions of Mel as “influencer� or “celebrity.� Ava Reid is poignant in her critique of how young women are exploited by media and entertainment industries all the time. But the deeper layer here, the considerations of the harm of gender essentialism to young people in conversation with media exploitation are more interesting and well done to me. I thought this was such a tender and powerful way to construct Mel. She is both a victim of this world and complicit at times in implementing its structure. She is a character that has done bad things. She is a character capable (despite being told she is not) of deep love. She is a sharp character, a tragic character, a beautiful character. She is multi-layered and multi-faceted; she is never one thing despite the entire world wanting to view her that way. She is not a monolith. She is character that deeply craves connection, who wants to be understood. I love Mel. I love Reid for giving us such a complexly constructed queer character for her audience to hold so close to their hearts. I said this with Reid’s other YA novel, and I’ll say it with this one as well, I wish to god I had this book when I was a teenager.
This is over a thousand words, and I haven’t talked about Inesa as a character that finds strength in softness, or her brother Luka that because of his advantages as a male character is set up to be the fan favorite (to both the audience of The Gauntlet and the audience reading the book). I haven’t touched on the implications of environmentalism or the generational stories of the world that have shaped complicity in atrocity over years and years of systematic manipulation by billionaires that make people reliant on convenience and instant-dopamine hits. Sounds scary huh? I’ll leave it. This is 1100 words already. Hey, can you tell I like the book and really want people to think about this with their brains on? Sorry if that’s mean, but I wonder who will get to this part of the review anyway�
Things I Think Could Have Been Better:
I am not going to mince words; I do think the pacing of the book was a bit quick and there were world building details I found missing or misplaced. There is a lot of information about the government and the operation of the world that is withheld until the end of the novel that I think is supposed to lead to an “a-ha� moment that doesn’t particularly pan out for me. I wanted the information on page 5. I feel like the “in a nutshell� story of this book, meaning the unfolding of events, to be sort of choppy and I craved for scenes and time to connect a bit more seamlessly. I wanted 50 more pages. But that really all I have to critique.
Ava Reid is an author of intention. I love this about them, I love that genre is a suggestion, a singular flavor in a cocktail of layered contemplation. I am waiting impatiently for their next book, and their next, and their next. As long as Ava Reid wants to write, I want to read.
4.5/5
Want to read
March 20, 2024� ˚. � �
languishing in agony as i wait: 20/03/24
exactly one year to go for ava reid's next serve!!!! saw a lot of ava reid slander after a study in drowning came out. never speak on effypreston and reid's writing again :3
exactly one year to go for ava reid's next serve!!!! saw a lot of ava reid slander after a study in drowning came out. never speak on effypreston and reid's writing again :3
March 13, 2025
This truly reads like a love letter to The Hunger Games and the dystopian genre I know and love back in the early 2010s. It taps into that nostalgic vibe, the bleakness, the rebellion, the desperate clinging to hope in a world that’s crumbling. At the same time, it blends in real world issues we’re grappling with today such as climate change, capitalism, debt, inequality, and violence. That grounding in reality made for a compelling and thought provoking narrative..
One of my favorite things about this book was the worldbuilding, this world is desolate, bleak, and terrifyingly believable. The stark depiction of our potential future was chilling, but through it all, there’s this fragile thread of hope that keeps the characters moving forward. That glimmer, no matter how faint, was something I really appreciated. Hope against all odds? Yes, please.
That said, while I liked several elements, there were a few things that left me wanting more or expecting more. Some plotlines felt underdeveloped or unresolved, and the few plot holes that popped up along the way.
The biggest letdown, though, was the characters. The plot was great, sure, but I never felt fully connected to anyone. I wanted to root for them, to feel something deep and visceral, especially with the romance, but it just didn’t land. The romance, in particular, felt incomplete like it needed more time or development to feel something.
And then there’s the ending. I keep seeing people call this a standalone, but it didn’t feel finished to me. The ending left me unsatisfied, and unless Ava Reid has a secret sequel planned (please?!), I’m a bit disappointed. T_T
This captures the spirit of dystopian fiction I grew up loving while exploring themes of today, but it didn’t quite hit the mark I was hoping for. If you’re craving that classic dystopian vibe with modern relevance, it’s worth picking up but maybe lower your expectations?
Thank you HarperCollins for this ARC in exchange for my review!
One of my favorite things about this book was the worldbuilding, this world is desolate, bleak, and terrifyingly believable. The stark depiction of our potential future was chilling, but through it all, there’s this fragile thread of hope that keeps the characters moving forward. That glimmer, no matter how faint, was something I really appreciated. Hope against all odds? Yes, please.
That said, while I liked several elements, there were a few things that left me wanting more or expecting more. Some plotlines felt underdeveloped or unresolved, and the few plot holes that popped up along the way.
The biggest letdown, though, was the characters. The plot was great, sure, but I never felt fully connected to anyone. I wanted to root for them, to feel something deep and visceral, especially with the romance, but it just didn’t land. The romance, in particular, felt incomplete like it needed more time or development to feel something.
And then there’s the ending. I keep seeing people call this a standalone, but it didn’t feel finished to me. The ending left me unsatisfied, and unless Ava Reid has a secret sequel planned (please?!), I’m a bit disappointed. T_T
This captures the spirit of dystopian fiction I grew up loving while exploring themes of today, but it didn’t quite hit the mark I was hoping for. If you’re craving that classic dystopian vibe with modern relevance, it’s worth picking up but maybe lower your expectations?
Thank you HarperCollins for this ARC in exchange for my review!
January 28, 2025
4/5
We all do what we have to do in order to survive.
I really enjoyed this book. It is so vastly innovative, I adored everything about the world and the themes it explored. It's a brilliant ode to dystopian books like The Hunger Games, whilst still undoubtedly being its own unique story.
Slowly, we uncover the threads that make up the society of New Amsterdam. The threads that enable and direct the dreaded Gauntlet—a livestreamed game where people are encouraged to offer up a life in exchange for their debts, a game where the surgically-altered assassins hunt down and kill the sacrificial Lambs.
This is a world ravaged by the after effects of nuclear war, struggling to survive an irradiated landscape and the rising sea levels. It is a world that is drowning, and where Caerus—the corporation in charge—gets to decide who will sink and who will swim.
Caerus have offered the citizens a system in which they can spend whilst accumulating massive amounts of debt, a system that encourages them to dig themselves deeper and deeper until they have no options left. It is a system utilised to divert blame. How can it be Caerus' fault that you've spent yourself to death? How can it be their fault if you go hungry, refusing to indebt yourself? Either way, the fault cannot lie with them. It is the false appearance of a choice. And if you are the one making the decision, how can the blame be put on another? It is an incredibly clever system that is only steps removed from a reality we recognise.
When this debt builds and builds and eventually reaches its limits, there are ways to make it go away. Another false choice is presented to you. A life for a debt. A pretence given of a chance of surviving the Gauntlet, another system Caerus have expertly crafted in order to control.
Caerus choose the Lambs, the sacrificed debtors, and they choose the Angels, the merciless killers. They construct and delicately place the bricks of the narrative, and let the citizens of New Amsterdam watch as it all plays out. It's a fair chance, they say, a hunter and a hunted. But Caerus has altered their Angels to become the perfect creations, the most ruthless killing machines.
In these robes, we meet our main characters. Inesa—the Lamb, and Melinoë—the Angel.
Inesa has lived in Lower Esopus her entire life, making a living off of preserving a memory of the past in her taxidermy shop. Her brother, Luka, hunts the animals—the ones that spark comfort and remind people of the world before, the deer with only two eyes and no webbed feet—and Inesa stuffs them. Together they work for food and for warmth, desperate never to accumulate debt, fighting to survive every day in a world that would drown them. But their mother has no such qualms, she amounts more and more debt every day, and she offers up Inesa to clear it.
Melinoë is an Angel, a Caerus assassin. She has been outfitted with machine parts, enhanced to become the perfect weapon, and altered aesthetically to look exactly how they want. She was made to be remorseless, but the last time she was sent out to kill a Lamb something went wrong. The memory stuck and no amount of Caerus' Wipes could erase it. The sound of the rain, the feeling of water on her skin, all of it brings her back to that moment. The one she cannot forget. But this Gauntlet will be different, this Gauntlet she will prove herself, she won't falter and then she won't be made empty of who she is. She won't be decommissioned.
Melinoë is the hunter and Inesa is the hunted. Caerus want the audience to believe Inesa has a chance. Melinoë knows she must perform well. All Inesa wants is to survive. But there are more things out there in the wild than just the two of them. There is pain and grief, there is endless fear, but there is also hope.
He said that Caerus has created the conditions that allow some organisms to thrive and others to die. That we're land animals in a drowning world and they're sea creatures. But if the lakes and the rivers dried up and the sea level fell, we would survive, and they would die.
I adored learning everything about this world, it holds so many amazing concepts and ideas. I loved every morsel of worldbuilding we were fed, I only wished we could've seen more of it. Because of this personal preference, the beginning of the book was my favourite part as I wanted to do nothing but soak in all the different elements of this society and this dilapidating world. It was so well constructed and I hope we get to see more of it in another book, if possible!
I enjoyed watching the character's relationships as they developed, although I think I needed more time to grow properly attached to them and to the romance.
The ending is another matter. (Don't worry, no spoilers!) I'm very conflicted about how I feel about the ending and I think it might make for some quite polarising opinions. I'm at once a little underwhelmed, as I think it's a tad anticlimactic, yet I also understand the messaging behind it and entirely adore what it's trying to say.
I think it is an important thing to remember that change does not happen all at once and that even small revolutions mean something. Change is difficult and it is slow, but it is worth fighting for, over and over again. It does not take only one spark to rewrite the world as we know it, not in actuality. It starts with the smallest of revolutions, inside one person and then another. It grows and it shifts and it builds until those sparks become a flame, until each individual has felt those embers and has let it change them. There is no easy, utopian solution to our dystopia. Change is difficult and maybe we won't change the world, but it is a place to start.
But I think individuals are capable of compassion. Actually, I know they are. And maybe that's all it takes—at least in the beginning. Just a few people who care. And that caring matters, even if it can't cool the earth or lower sea levels or turn back time to before a nuclear blast.
I think this is a very fresh and intriguing take on a subgenre that most will have experienced before. It is born of a love of fandom and of the dystopian genre, and I'm very happy to have read it. I immensely enjoyed it and I think that so many others will as well.
Thank you Del Rey for providing me with an arc in exchange for an honest review.
There would be no Gauntlet without an audience.
We all do what we have to do in order to survive.
I really enjoyed this book. It is so vastly innovative, I adored everything about the world and the themes it explored. It's a brilliant ode to dystopian books like The Hunger Games, whilst still undoubtedly being its own unique story.
Slowly, we uncover the threads that make up the society of New Amsterdam. The threads that enable and direct the dreaded Gauntlet—a livestreamed game where people are encouraged to offer up a life in exchange for their debts, a game where the surgically-altered assassins hunt down and kill the sacrificial Lambs.
This is a world ravaged by the after effects of nuclear war, struggling to survive an irradiated landscape and the rising sea levels. It is a world that is drowning, and where Caerus—the corporation in charge—gets to decide who will sink and who will swim.
Caerus have offered the citizens a system in which they can spend whilst accumulating massive amounts of debt, a system that encourages them to dig themselves deeper and deeper until they have no options left. It is a system utilised to divert blame. How can it be Caerus' fault that you've spent yourself to death? How can it be their fault if you go hungry, refusing to indebt yourself? Either way, the fault cannot lie with them. It is the false appearance of a choice. And if you are the one making the decision, how can the blame be put on another? It is an incredibly clever system that is only steps removed from a reality we recognise.
When this debt builds and builds and eventually reaches its limits, there are ways to make it go away. Another false choice is presented to you. A life for a debt. A pretence given of a chance of surviving the Gauntlet, another system Caerus have expertly crafted in order to control.
Caerus choose the Lambs, the sacrificed debtors, and they choose the Angels, the merciless killers. They construct and delicately place the bricks of the narrative, and let the citizens of New Amsterdam watch as it all plays out. It's a fair chance, they say, a hunter and a hunted. But Caerus has altered their Angels to become the perfect creations, the most ruthless killing machines.
In these robes, we meet our main characters. Inesa—the Lamb, and Melinoë—the Angel.
Inesa has lived in Lower Esopus her entire life, making a living off of preserving a memory of the past in her taxidermy shop. Her brother, Luka, hunts the animals—the ones that spark comfort and remind people of the world before, the deer with only two eyes and no webbed feet—and Inesa stuffs them. Together they work for food and for warmth, desperate never to accumulate debt, fighting to survive every day in a world that would drown them. But their mother has no such qualms, she amounts more and more debt every day, and she offers up Inesa to clear it.
Melinoë is an Angel, a Caerus assassin. She has been outfitted with machine parts, enhanced to become the perfect weapon, and altered aesthetically to look exactly how they want. She was made to be remorseless, but the last time she was sent out to kill a Lamb something went wrong. The memory stuck and no amount of Caerus' Wipes could erase it. The sound of the rain, the feeling of water on her skin, all of it brings her back to that moment. The one she cannot forget. But this Gauntlet will be different, this Gauntlet she will prove herself, she won't falter and then she won't be made empty of who she is. She won't be decommissioned.
Melinoë is the hunter and Inesa is the hunted. Caerus want the audience to believe Inesa has a chance. Melinoë knows she must perform well. All Inesa wants is to survive. But there are more things out there in the wild than just the two of them. There is pain and grief, there is endless fear, but there is also hope.
He said that Caerus has created the conditions that allow some organisms to thrive and others to die. That we're land animals in a drowning world and they're sea creatures. But if the lakes and the rivers dried up and the sea level fell, we would survive, and they would die.
I adored learning everything about this world, it holds so many amazing concepts and ideas. I loved every morsel of worldbuilding we were fed, I only wished we could've seen more of it. Because of this personal preference, the beginning of the book was my favourite part as I wanted to do nothing but soak in all the different elements of this society and this dilapidating world. It was so well constructed and I hope we get to see more of it in another book, if possible!
I enjoyed watching the character's relationships as they developed, although I think I needed more time to grow properly attached to them and to the romance.
The ending is another matter. (Don't worry, no spoilers!) I'm very conflicted about how I feel about the ending and I think it might make for some quite polarising opinions. I'm at once a little underwhelmed, as I think it's a tad anticlimactic, yet I also understand the messaging behind it and entirely adore what it's trying to say.
I think it is an important thing to remember that change does not happen all at once and that even small revolutions mean something. Change is difficult and it is slow, but it is worth fighting for, over and over again. It does not take only one spark to rewrite the world as we know it, not in actuality. It starts with the smallest of revolutions, inside one person and then another. It grows and it shifts and it builds until those sparks become a flame, until each individual has felt those embers and has let it change them. There is no easy, utopian solution to our dystopia. Change is difficult and maybe we won't change the world, but it is a place to start.
But I think individuals are capable of compassion. Actually, I know they are. And maybe that's all it takes—at least in the beginning. Just a few people who care. And that caring matters, even if it can't cool the earth or lower sea levels or turn back time to before a nuclear blast.
I think this is a very fresh and intriguing take on a subgenre that most will have experienced before. It is born of a love of fandom and of the dystopian genre, and I'm very happy to have read it. I immensely enjoyed it and I think that so many others will as well.
Thank you Del Rey for providing me with an arc in exchange for an honest review.
There would be no Gauntlet without an audience.
December 5, 2024
Fable for the End of the World is a standalone dystopian romance about survival, sacrifice, and love that risks everything. As soon as I saw Ava's post about her newest novel, I knew I had to get my read it. Thank you SO much, Harper Collins, for providing me with this ARC.
What to expect:
� Dual-POV
� Dystopian
� Hunger Games-inspired yet still pretty unique
� Sapphic romance
� Enemies to Lovers
The title, the plot, the cover, the characters, and the twists have all the makings of a masterpiece! I was easily transported into this world and felt a deep connection to the characters. I loved Ava's writing style and her storytelling abilities. The action was subtle, yet gripping enough to keep me flipping through the pages. I was completely hooked.
This is very close to a five-star book. One of the only reasons I'm keeping it at four stars is that a part of me yearned for more. Simply put, I just wanted more!!! Some authors and readers enjoy ambiguity while reading, but I'm a fan of closure. Certain pieces of the puzzle along the way are never fully resolved, and although it didn't disrupt the storyline, I can't help but crave those answers. I will say the ending being a little open ended does make sense due to the nature of the storyline.
If you haven't preordered this book, I highly recommend it. Be sure to add this to your TBR. The expected publication date is March 04, 2025. I already plan on giving this one a reread.
As always, all thoughts are my own. ✨�
What to expect:
� Dual-POV
� Dystopian
� Hunger Games-inspired yet still pretty unique
� Sapphic romance
� Enemies to Lovers
The title, the plot, the cover, the characters, and the twists have all the makings of a masterpiece! I was easily transported into this world and felt a deep connection to the characters. I loved Ava's writing style and her storytelling abilities. The action was subtle, yet gripping enough to keep me flipping through the pages. I was completely hooked.
This is very close to a five-star book. One of the only reasons I'm keeping it at four stars is that a part of me yearned for more. Simply put, I just wanted more!!! Some authors and readers enjoy ambiguity while reading, but I'm a fan of closure. Certain pieces of the puzzle along the way are never fully resolved, and although it didn't disrupt the storyline, I can't help but crave those answers. I will say the ending being a little open ended does make sense due to the nature of the storyline.
If you haven't preordered this book, I highly recommend it. Be sure to add this to your TBR. The expected publication date is March 04, 2025. I already plan on giving this one a reread.
As always, all thoughts are my own. ✨�
March 26, 2025
˖ � ⟡� 4.25 stars ˚� � ˖
the hunger games + a sapphic love story = this beautiful book.
truly immaculate. Ava Reid really is that girl.
the hunger games + a sapphic love story = this beautiful book.
truly immaculate. Ava Reid really is that girl.
March 7, 2025
sapphic !!! dystopia is back !!!!
i was hoping for a little more commentary about the systems that put the world into a dystopian society, but overall a very solid dystopian book.
Ava Reid creates a world where AI and capitalism has ruined the air and led to places being underwater. and pollution has harmed the bodily systems of people and animals. and there is some mentions of class divides.
I wish it was explored a little more. And critiqued more. But it is YA sooo...
It's clear to me that Ava Reid is a hasanabi and qtcinderella watcher with how they talk about how streaming is used to put characters on display (as am i)
i was hoping for a little more commentary about the systems that put the world into a dystopian society, but overall a very solid dystopian book.
Ava Reid creates a world where AI and capitalism has ruined the air and led to places being underwater. and pollution has harmed the bodily systems of people and animals. and there is some mentions of class divides.
I wish it was explored a little more. And critiqued more. But it is YA sooo...
It's clear to me that Ava Reid is a hasanabi and qtcinderella watcher with how they talk about how streaming is used to put characters on display (as am i)
February 2, 2025
Let's get this out of the way: the premise of this book is exquisite. I'm not arguing about that. The bad part for me was the execution of the premise.
Plot holes. So many plot holes. It was incredibly difficult to enjoy this book when every few pages I was asking myself, "Why don't they just do..." or "But that doesn't fit in with the established worldbuilding..."
The romance was fairly mediocre. I like an enemies-to-lovers (and in fact, I have really loved it in Ava Reid's other book, The Wolf and the Woodsman). But neither of the "enemies" at any point actually hate/want to hurt the other, then they quickly fall into lust. It's disappointing, and I really struggled to root for them.
The ending. I'm not sure if it was trying to be "We're leaving this open for a sequel," or, "We're leaving this open to be tragically mysterious," but either way I didn't like it.
Thanks to Netgalley and HarperCollins for a copy of this book. All opinions are my own.
Plot holes. So many plot holes. It was incredibly difficult to enjoy this book when every few pages I was asking myself, "Why don't they just do..." or "But that doesn't fit in with the established worldbuilding..."
The romance was fairly mediocre. I like an enemies-to-lovers (and in fact, I have really loved it in Ava Reid's other book, The Wolf and the Woodsman). But neither of the "enemies" at any point actually hate/want to hurt the other, then they quickly fall into lust. It's disappointing, and I really struggled to root for them.
The ending. I'm not sure if it was trying to be "We're leaving this open for a sequel," or, "We're leaving this open to be tragically mysterious," but either way I didn't like it.
Thanks to Netgalley and HarperCollins for a copy of this book. All opinions are my own.
February 10, 2025
E-ARC generously provided by HarperCollins in exchange for an honest review. Thank you so much!
4 star. Containing a high-stakes game of cat-and-mouse with a surprisingly sweet sapphic love story, Fable for the End of the World is yet another compelling speculative tale from Ava Reid that examines similar topics to her previous work in a deft, appropriate for YA way.
4 star. Containing a high-stakes game of cat-and-mouse with a surprisingly sweet sapphic love story, Fable for the End of the World is yet another compelling speculative tale from Ava Reid that examines similar topics to her previous work in a deft, appropriate for YA way.
March 11, 2025
The way the ending of this book had me running to google “is there a sequel to Fable for the End of the World�? It needs a sequel. I need a sequel biblically.
THE PREMISE: In a climate change dystopian future, a country run by a corporation lets citizens sink into debt then collects by having them nominate a family member to be hunted for sport on a live broadcast by their genetically enhanced Angels. This YA sapphic enemies to lovers is between one of those Angels and her target, the Lamb.
TROPES & VIBES:
- Hunter vs. Hunted
- Grimly beautiful commentary on humanity, exploring themes of capitalism, debt and kindness, climate change and hope
- ‘So oligarchies are bad�
- Shades of The Hunger Games & Dark Angel
I adored this book. It was so poignant and stressful, and I loved the main characters and their relationship. It was just the open ending that had me rage-dropping a star.
Arc gifted by Penguin NZ in return for an honest review
THE PREMISE: In a climate change dystopian future, a country run by a corporation lets citizens sink into debt then collects by having them nominate a family member to be hunted for sport on a live broadcast by their genetically enhanced Angels. This YA sapphic enemies to lovers is between one of those Angels and her target, the Lamb.
TROPES & VIBES:
- Hunter vs. Hunted
- Grimly beautiful commentary on humanity, exploring themes of capitalism, debt and kindness, climate change and hope
- ‘So oligarchies are bad�
- Shades of The Hunger Games & Dark Angel
I adored this book. It was so poignant and stressful, and I loved the main characters and their relationship. It was just the open ending that had me rage-dropping a star.
Arc gifted by Penguin NZ in return for an honest review
January 6, 2025
Dystopia girlies we are so back!!! As always, I'm in awe of Ava Reid's writing. The bleak, grim, dystopian setting was very different from her other books, but it was still written just as vividly. I loved the themes of this book and how they were handled, the plot, and of course the characters.
Mel is an Angel, a state sanctioned hunter to take down a sacrificial "lamb" for entertainment. Angels are taken away from their families at a young age and horrifically modified, physically and emotionally to turn into the most entertaining hunters possible. Enter lamb, Inessa. She lives in the part of New Amsterdam that's poverty stricken, with limited resources, a terrible awful mother, and a brother who she would die for (but as all siblings do, never verbalize that or any sort of affection ofc). Unsurprisingly, her trash mom nominates her as a Lamb for The Gauntlet, a reality show of sorts where an Angel (Mel) will hunt her down, purely for entertainment but also monetary gain for her terrible mom. Her brother Luka (who I absolutely loved) is furious and tries his best to help her as the hunt almost immediately kicks off. As the hunt takes an unexpected turn, Mel and Inessa end up having to work together for survival.
I will say, the reason it's not a 5 star read for me is that the pacing, while quick, was almost TOO quick. I felt like I just sat down to read it and somehow I was already more than halfway done, and then a few more blinks and the book was over. Things were moving at breakneck speed lol and while I do like a fast paced book, I actually would have liked if things slowed down a bit. The plot and romance both felt super quick.
Also, with they way it ended I really hope there's a sequel! I think it's near impossible to write a satisfying dystopian standalone, and there seems to be much more to explore with this world!
Thank you HarperCollins Canada for the ARC!
Mel is an Angel, a state sanctioned hunter to take down a sacrificial "lamb" for entertainment. Angels are taken away from their families at a young age and horrifically modified, physically and emotionally to turn into the most entertaining hunters possible. Enter lamb, Inessa. She lives in the part of New Amsterdam that's poverty stricken, with limited resources, a terrible awful mother, and a brother who she would die for (but as all siblings do, never verbalize that or any sort of affection ofc). Unsurprisingly, her trash mom nominates her as a Lamb for The Gauntlet, a reality show of sorts where an Angel (Mel) will hunt her down, purely for entertainment but also monetary gain for her terrible mom. Her brother Luka (who I absolutely loved) is furious and tries his best to help her as the hunt almost immediately kicks off. As the hunt takes an unexpected turn, Mel and Inessa end up having to work together for survival.
I will say, the reason it's not a 5 star read for me is that the pacing, while quick, was almost TOO quick. I felt like I just sat down to read it and somehow I was already more than halfway done, and then a few more blinks and the book was over. Things were moving at breakneck speed lol and while I do like a fast paced book, I actually would have liked if things slowed down a bit. The plot and romance both felt super quick.
Also, with they way it ended I really hope there's a sequel! I think it's near impossible to write a satisfying dystopian standalone, and there seems to be much more to explore with this world!
Thank you HarperCollins Canada for the ARC!
February 14, 2025
Sapphic Hunger Games? Say less
This was such an interesting read. It had a lot of familiar concepts (it is very clearly inspired by The Hunger Games--as the author's note even states), however with a fresh spin that I had never seen before. I really enjoyed the sci-fi elements of this. I specifically found Melinoë to be an extremely interesting main character, and the politics and details of her android-adjacent life intrigued me from the start. I wish this book had spent more time diving into these topics, as it was by far the most interesting part, in my opinion.
I found Inesa's family dynamic to be very interesting as well. I specifically loved seeing the brother/sister dynamic--it was a sweet reprieve from the otherwise tense story, while also adding some stakes.
Unfortunately, while I understood enough to get by what was going on with the Gauntlet, I needed a lot more details on this tournament than this provided. I was left with a lot of questions that I never really got the answer to. For example--contestants are allowed to enlist outside help. I feel like this begs the question of why people as a whole do not rally around a contestant. The answer seemingly is that people like the entertainment of being able to watch this on TV. However, you cannot convince me that Inesa is the only person in this whole society that sees a problem with this. It's very clear that many do. So why? The corporation leading the Gauntlet did not seem powerful enough to rule over this entire society. I have a lot of political questions that I wish this answered, as I was left feeling like things were kind of glossed over/many plot-holes were left for the sake of a quicker pace for the story. Similarly, there were multiple things that were mentioned once, never to be mentioned or become relevant again. For example, Inesa being a streamer at the start of the novel? Never relevant again--why did we have a whole scene of her streaming to followers we never heard of again?
I also have to say, while I enjoyed the love story (who doesn't love a good sapphic, against-all-odds love story), I don't fully understand why they liked each other so much. It seems like they developed feelings because the other was nice to them, and that's pretty much it. And let's be real here: I ate it up, I don't need it to make logical sense to enjoy a fun romance. But I feel like if all it takes to fall in love and throw your career and potentially life away is for someone to be nice to you... the bar is in hell.
All of that said though, I still flew through this, and never once did I find myself bored, so credit where credit is due. It won't stand out among favorites in my mind, but it was still a good time and I do still recommend it, especially if you love Ava Reid's writing or if you love a tournament/trials storyline.
3.75 stars rounded up
Thanks so much to HarperCollins and Netgalley for the ARC in exchange for an honest review!
This was such an interesting read. It had a lot of familiar concepts (it is very clearly inspired by The Hunger Games--as the author's note even states), however with a fresh spin that I had never seen before. I really enjoyed the sci-fi elements of this. I specifically found Melinoë to be an extremely interesting main character, and the politics and details of her android-adjacent life intrigued me from the start. I wish this book had spent more time diving into these topics, as it was by far the most interesting part, in my opinion.
I found Inesa's family dynamic to be very interesting as well. I specifically loved seeing the brother/sister dynamic--it was a sweet reprieve from the otherwise tense story, while also adding some stakes.
Unfortunately, while I understood enough to get by what was going on with the Gauntlet, I needed a lot more details on this tournament than this provided. I was left with a lot of questions that I never really got the answer to. For example--contestants are allowed to enlist outside help. I feel like this begs the question of why people as a whole do not rally around a contestant. The answer seemingly is that people like the entertainment of being able to watch this on TV. However, you cannot convince me that Inesa is the only person in this whole society that sees a problem with this. It's very clear that many do. So why? The corporation leading the Gauntlet did not seem powerful enough to rule over this entire society. I have a lot of political questions that I wish this answered, as I was left feeling like things were kind of glossed over/many plot-holes were left for the sake of a quicker pace for the story. Similarly, there were multiple things that were mentioned once, never to be mentioned or become relevant again. For example, Inesa being a streamer at the start of the novel? Never relevant again--why did we have a whole scene of her streaming to followers we never heard of again?
I also have to say, while I enjoyed the love story (who doesn't love a good sapphic, against-all-odds love story), I don't fully understand why they liked each other so much. It seems like they developed feelings because the other was nice to them, and that's pretty much it. And let's be real here: I ate it up, I don't need it to make logical sense to enjoy a fun romance. But I feel like if all it takes to fall in love and throw your career and potentially life away is for someone to be nice to you... the bar is in hell.
All of that said though, I still flew through this, and never once did I find myself bored, so credit where credit is due. It won't stand out among favorites in my mind, but it was still a good time and I do still recommend it, especially if you love Ava Reid's writing or if you love a tournament/trials storyline.
3.75 stars rounded up
Thanks so much to HarperCollins and Netgalley for the ARC in exchange for an honest review!
February 22, 2025
firstly, thank you to the publisher for an arc!
this is by far my favorite read from ava reid, without a doubt!!
fable for the end of the world is a sapphic dystopian novel that is most certainly heavily influenced by the hunger games, although in this dystopian world, people are nominated into the gauntlet by those closest to them to repay their debts. these people are called the lambs, and they are hunted by beautiful assassins called angels who have been surgically and hormonally enhanced to put on a show for those streaming the gauntlet.
if you don’t know me, just know i am obsessed with the hunger games, and reid has done a phenomenal job with the “bread and circus� theme with the angle of people being allowed to go so far into debt before they must nominate a family member to be murdered on a live stream for the debt to be repaid. there is a lot of commentary about consumerism, both materialistically and with online content, and how perhaps we’ve become alarmingly desensitized about what we allow our government to do to its citizens. not to mention, i really found the “wiping� interesting, as it reminded me of when the capitol hijacked peeta and tried to rewrite his memories of katniss.
also, i found a specific line to be VERY twilight coded, for all the twilight girlies out there: “…they are very interested in the narrative you’ve created. the angel who fell in love with the lamb.� UGH like hellooooo edward and bella anyone? ate it up.
overall, 10/10 world-building and character development. again, i personally feel this is reid’s best work, and i hope she explores the sapphic genre again!
this is by far my favorite read from ava reid, without a doubt!!
fable for the end of the world is a sapphic dystopian novel that is most certainly heavily influenced by the hunger games, although in this dystopian world, people are nominated into the gauntlet by those closest to them to repay their debts. these people are called the lambs, and they are hunted by beautiful assassins called angels who have been surgically and hormonally enhanced to put on a show for those streaming the gauntlet.
if you don’t know me, just know i am obsessed with the hunger games, and reid has done a phenomenal job with the “bread and circus� theme with the angle of people being allowed to go so far into debt before they must nominate a family member to be murdered on a live stream for the debt to be repaid. there is a lot of commentary about consumerism, both materialistically and with online content, and how perhaps we’ve become alarmingly desensitized about what we allow our government to do to its citizens. not to mention, i really found the “wiping� interesting, as it reminded me of when the capitol hijacked peeta and tried to rewrite his memories of katniss.
also, i found a specific line to be VERY twilight coded, for all the twilight girlies out there: “…they are very interested in the narrative you’ve created. the angel who fell in love with the lamb.� UGH like hellooooo edward and bella anyone? ate it up.
overall, 10/10 world-building and character development. again, i personally feel this is reid’s best work, and i hope she explores the sapphic genre again!
Want to read
March 27, 2025It says enemies to lovers.
what can I say.
I am a simple woman.
what can I say.
I am a simple woman.
October 29, 2024
Thank you HarperCollins Children's Books and NetGalley for providing the ARC.
A sapphic dystopian story about two girls pitted against each other for the entertainment of their society. It seems interesting on paper but as a standalone story could not achieve the depth of its predecessor.
I need to stop reading author's notes because they set up a precedence that is hard to ignore. In her note, Reid states her inspirations which include her experience in the aftermath of Hurricane Sandy, pros and cons of growing up in the internet, and the profound influence of The Hunger Games on her writing journey. Fable acts as a "love letter to dystopian YA fiction I grew up with in the 2010s". Unfortunately, because of this, I kept comparing the story to THG and that made for an unsatisfying reading experience.
Fable was a decent read until it wasn't. There were a few fragments I did like but the execution with lack of tension made for a very unfulfilling read. There were alot of frustrating issues brought up that felt more like they were brought just for the sake of pointing them out with no motion to undue these systematic oppressions that pitted these girls and others against each other.
As a standalone book, there was not enough time to do that which is disappointing because I think the setup and characters actually had potential to be truly great. I wanted to root for these girls. I wanted to see more of their journey. Despite liking the characters, I didnt like their relationship. It happened so quickly, at the flip of a dime.
They were together for less than two weeks and half that time they weren't in the agreement to not kill each other. Nah. It was so unconvincing. But I could see them falling for each other, just not with how it was executed in this book.
Honestly it may have made for a novella or something shorter than what it was because it gets repetitive and muddled in the middle.
Also there are wendigos in this story. They are called Wends and instead of them partaking in human flesh they come to be from consuming enough mutated animals. Which.. I hated. For a good bit I thought there was going to be a reveal that the mutated animals were actually people. But the Wends didnt really go anywhere except to show what people outside of the current society could potentially fall into because of lack of resources. But they were only there to cause some trouble and then never showed up again lmao
Something about using a creature/spirit/being from indigenous folklore (in this case from the Algonquian tribe) in this way felt odd. I wish I could express why this rubs me the wrong way but at the moment I cannot.
I liked the ending (I think)... But because everything leading up to it was lackluster, it didn't leave a very strong overall impression.
I didn't like A Study in Drowning or Lady Macbeth. So this one was my last try with this author. I think I could have liked it if it didn't rely so much on THG nostalgia and had the opportunity to be more fleshed out.
The cover is cool though as most of her covers tend to be
A sapphic dystopian story about two girls pitted against each other for the entertainment of their society. It seems interesting on paper but as a standalone story could not achieve the depth of its predecessor.
I need to stop reading author's notes because they set up a precedence that is hard to ignore. In her note, Reid states her inspirations which include her experience in the aftermath of Hurricane Sandy, pros and cons of growing up in the internet, and the profound influence of The Hunger Games on her writing journey. Fable acts as a "love letter to dystopian YA fiction I grew up with in the 2010s". Unfortunately, because of this, I kept comparing the story to THG and that made for an unsatisfying reading experience.
Fable was a decent read until it wasn't. There were a few fragments I did like but the execution with lack of tension made for a very unfulfilling read. There were alot of frustrating issues brought up that felt more like they were brought just for the sake of pointing them out with no motion to undue these systematic oppressions that pitted these girls and others against each other.
As a standalone book, there was not enough time to do that which is disappointing because I think the setup and characters actually had potential to be truly great. I wanted to root for these girls. I wanted to see more of their journey. Despite liking the characters, I didnt like their relationship. It happened so quickly, at the flip of a dime.
They were together for less than two weeks and half that time they weren't in the agreement to not kill each other. Nah. It was so unconvincing. But I could see them falling for each other, just not with how it was executed in this book.
Honestly it may have made for a novella or something shorter than what it was because it gets repetitive and muddled in the middle.
Also there are wendigos in this story. They are called Wends and instead of them partaking in human flesh they come to be from consuming enough mutated animals. Which.. I hated. For a good bit I thought there was going to be a reveal that the mutated animals were actually people. But the Wends didnt really go anywhere except to show what people outside of the current society could potentially fall into because of lack of resources. But they were only there to cause some trouble and then never showed up again lmao
Something about using a creature/spirit/being from indigenous folklore (in this case from the Algonquian tribe) in this way felt odd. I wish I could express why this rubs me the wrong way but at the moment I cannot.
I liked the ending (I think)... But because everything leading up to it was lackluster, it didn't leave a very strong overall impression.
I didn't like A Study in Drowning or Lady Macbeth. So this one was my last try with this author. I think I could have liked it if it didn't rely so much on THG nostalgia and had the opportunity to be more fleshed out.
The cover is cool though as most of her covers tend to be
February 19, 2025
I realise this review will potentially sound harsher than I mean it to be but that’s because there was soooo much potential here. The parts are all there, I don’t know how it messed up so spectacularly. Writing this hurts me a little, Juniper and Thorn is one of my favourite books of all time, and I’m generally a fan of Reid’s work.
For the first 150+ pages I flew through it, convinced this would be my next 5 star read. Introducing both main characters Inesa (living in The Hunger Games equivalent of the districts, taxidermy-ing animals and streaming to keep her head above water) and Melinoë (living in the capitol equivalent, raised to be a ruthless assassin and currently dealing with ptsd over strangling a young girl to death in a previous gauntlet) was really well done. The initial setup was really seamless and so engaging and the early conversations around survival and community were promising.
This started to fall apart after Mel’s first attempt on Inesa’s life. Inesa’s brother (Luka) finally shoots at her - after sooo much time it’s crazy she hasn’t killed her already - and then Mel’s next chapter is all about how she ‘underestimated the brother.� You’re a trained, engineered assassin?? ‘Lambs� (as the gauntlet sacrifices are called) are allowed to bring whatever they want to defend themselves. You’ve never faced someone with a gun before?? After the second attempt Mel is left unconscious. When she wakes up because her comms are off she assumes the cameras have no idea where she is� she’s literally in the same spot where they had a big showdown, why wouldn’t the cameras have just stayed on her?? Then after Luka and Inesa are separated she only mentions trying to find him once! ONCE?! In several whole days after?? Her brother who came to help her survive?? It felt like Reid knew the world she wanted, and the ending, and everything else in between got lost trying to achieve that end.
The romance does not work if you have to sacrifice every other plot point and character development to make it work !!!
Unfortunately the romance also didn’t work for me. I think Reid really struggles to write romance between the oppressed and a member of the ruling class. And, yes, obviously, there is nuance here as the angels are essentially engineered from birth for this purpose and have little choice in the matter. But that’s precisely the issue; trying to cover the nuance is so clunky that it makes the romance utterly unbelievable. The time frame and development of their conversations isn’t enough to undo their preconceived ideas of one another to justify the love they suddenly feel within a few days. It was weak and flimsy, and I cringed reading most of their tender moments.
I have more plot issues later on but them I’m giving full spoilers so I’ll leave it there. Truly devastated about this one.
For the first 150+ pages I flew through it, convinced this would be my next 5 star read. Introducing both main characters Inesa (living in The Hunger Games equivalent of the districts, taxidermy-ing animals and streaming to keep her head above water) and Melinoë (living in the capitol equivalent, raised to be a ruthless assassin and currently dealing with ptsd over strangling a young girl to death in a previous gauntlet) was really well done. The initial setup was really seamless and so engaging and the early conversations around survival and community were promising.
This started to fall apart after Mel’s first attempt on Inesa’s life. Inesa’s brother (Luka) finally shoots at her - after sooo much time it’s crazy she hasn’t killed her already - and then Mel’s next chapter is all about how she ‘underestimated the brother.� You’re a trained, engineered assassin?? ‘Lambs� (as the gauntlet sacrifices are called) are allowed to bring whatever they want to defend themselves. You’ve never faced someone with a gun before?? After the second attempt Mel is left unconscious. When she wakes up because her comms are off she assumes the cameras have no idea where she is� she’s literally in the same spot where they had a big showdown, why wouldn’t the cameras have just stayed on her?? Then after Luka and Inesa are separated she only mentions trying to find him once! ONCE?! In several whole days after?? Her brother who came to help her survive?? It felt like Reid knew the world she wanted, and the ending, and everything else in between got lost trying to achieve that end.
The romance does not work if you have to sacrifice every other plot point and character development to make it work !!!
Unfortunately the romance also didn’t work for me. I think Reid really struggles to write romance between the oppressed and a member of the ruling class. And, yes, obviously, there is nuance here as the angels are essentially engineered from birth for this purpose and have little choice in the matter. But that’s precisely the issue; trying to cover the nuance is so clunky that it makes the romance utterly unbelievable. The time frame and development of their conversations isn’t enough to undo their preconceived ideas of one another to justify the love they suddenly feel within a few days. It was weak and flimsy, and I cringed reading most of their tender moments.
I have more plot issues later on but them I’m giving full spoilers so I’ll leave it there. Truly devastated about this one.
Shelved as 'anti-tbr'
March 4, 2025this author is so mid I have to add all her new releases to my ‘don’t read� list just to remind myself to avoid her books.
she picks the most interesting premise & has gorgeous cover art to trick you � but then manages to ruin the topic (I still haven’t forgiven her for the poor attempt she did at tackling Hungarian folklore in the 😭)
like babes, maybe instead of churning out 1-2 books per year go and spend a few years just focusing on one and actually make it, you know, …gǴǻ?
she picks the most interesting premise & has gorgeous cover art to trick you � but then manages to ruin the topic (I still haven’t forgiven her for the poor attempt she did at tackling Hungarian folklore in the 😭)
like babes, maybe instead of churning out 1-2 books per year go and spend a few years just focusing on one and actually make it, you know, …gǴǻ?
November 23, 2024
unpopular opinion by someone who read too many 2014 YA dystopian, but please can i have one original worldbuilding element and meaningful theme please? boredom and predictability all around me
guess I expected more out of this one? Ava Reid is known for her gothic stories and I have enjoyed Juniper & Thorn so the shift to dystopian for her first sapphic story was unexpected (and maybe disappointing on my end). Her gothic writing is very atmospheric and while Fable is well-written (better than other YA if you'll allow me this one) it's not a marvel of atmosphere, worldbuilding, or romance. It was, unfortunately, boring.
Fable gives off strong 2014YA dystopian clearly inspired by the Young Adult stories I read when I (and likely Ava Reid) too was a teenager. The problem with me having read so many of them back when it was popular was that it made Fable seem uninspired and predictable. So you've got an Hunger Games-like class division with televised suffering of the poors without the thoughtful exploration of the Hunger Games because here it's just set dressing. You've got an emotionless android assassin who feels things and can't kill her target (I guess Crier's War and then a mix of other older titles).
I am going to be fair and say that I really enjoyed Inesa's brother helping her out and being a strong figure in her life even though that fizzles out very quickly.
It is not a book that captured my interest, I was bored and i didn't like the characters that felt like clichés of the genre. The romance was only interesting in the originality of the ending and that's all. It's not a very good book or even a good dystopian. What are we exploring? The government streams the deaths of people in exchange for debts. Okay, capitalism and television, is there anything original or well-explored? I'll say it, Inesa's mother was the most complex part of the book and the only thing that made me feel for this book.
Overall, this book is written like the first in a duology or trilogy, and if it is, I am going to be mad that we live in a world where we no longer announce those things. However, I'm not interested. I'm tired of surprise duologies.
guess I expected more out of this one? Ava Reid is known for her gothic stories and I have enjoyed Juniper & Thorn so the shift to dystopian for her first sapphic story was unexpected (and maybe disappointing on my end). Her gothic writing is very atmospheric and while Fable is well-written (better than other YA if you'll allow me this one) it's not a marvel of atmosphere, worldbuilding, or romance. It was, unfortunately, boring.
Fable gives off strong 2014YA dystopian clearly inspired by the Young Adult stories I read when I (and likely Ava Reid) too was a teenager. The problem with me having read so many of them back when it was popular was that it made Fable seem uninspired and predictable. So you've got an Hunger Games-like class division with televised suffering of the poors without the thoughtful exploration of the Hunger Games because here it's just set dressing. You've got an emotionless android assassin who feels things and can't kill her target (I guess Crier's War and then a mix of other older titles).
I am going to be fair and say that I really enjoyed Inesa's brother helping her out and being a strong figure in her life even though that fizzles out very quickly.
It is not a book that captured my interest, I was bored and i didn't like the characters that felt like clichés of the genre. The romance was only interesting in the originality of the ending and that's all. It's not a very good book or even a good dystopian. What are we exploring? The government streams the deaths of people in exchange for debts. Okay, capitalism and television, is there anything original or well-explored? I'll say it, Inesa's mother was the most complex part of the book and the only thing that made me feel for this book.
Overall, this book is written like the first in a duology or trilogy, and if it is, I am going to be mad that we live in a world where we no longer announce those things. However, I'm not interested. I'm tired of surprise duologies.
January 22, 2025
Pitching this as Hunger Games x Annihilation x West World. In dystopian, drowning Upstate NY, a cute, doe-eyed girl named Inesa is making ends meet by selling taxidermied animals that will go extinct. Inesa gets put into the a 1 on 1 Hunger Games by her Munchausen’s afflicted, QVC addicted mother and must survive an arbitrary number of days to win ~the Gauntlet~. If she wins, her loans will be forgiven, which as a post-grad student, I can get on board with.
Melinoe is a cold-hearted, part-tech, part-human killer Angel who is sent to hunt Inesa to prove that she’s still got it because at the ripe of 17, she’s old news and is up to get decommissioned and sold as a tech mogul concubine. Will Melinoe be able to break that cold, hard exterior to make sparks fly with Inesa? Hopefully. If they can get away from the cannibalistic mutant humans and other horrors of the wasteland!!
Ava Reid is amazing at writing character-driven novels, with interesting fleshed out characters who have intriguing backstories. For an action focused dystopian fantasy novel, I wish the world was more fleshed out and we got more information on how everything worked. The things we did find out didn’t necessarily add up. Like why are Inesa & Luka killing endangered animals, someone call WWF. Or why is the world set so far in the future that animals and climates dramatically evolved, but we're still relying on Amazon Prime (albeit via helicopter)?!? There are issues like the objectification and violence against women, the harm of social media, climate change and government institutions that the novel didn’t take the pages to explore. There were beginnings of so many great ideas that needed more page time to truly shine and make a statement. Overall, an interesting and solid read and I'm interested in seeing whether there will be sequels!
Thank you to NetGalley and HarperCollins for providing an advanced copy in exchange for an honest review.
Melinoe is a cold-hearted, part-tech, part-human killer Angel who is sent to hunt Inesa to prove that she’s still got it because at the ripe of 17, she’s old news and is up to get decommissioned and sold as a tech mogul concubine. Will Melinoe be able to break that cold, hard exterior to make sparks fly with Inesa? Hopefully. If they can get away from the cannibalistic mutant humans and other horrors of the wasteland!!
Ava Reid is amazing at writing character-driven novels, with interesting fleshed out characters who have intriguing backstories. For an action focused dystopian fantasy novel, I wish the world was more fleshed out and we got more information on how everything worked. The things we did find out didn’t necessarily add up. Like why are Inesa & Luka killing endangered animals, someone call WWF. Or why is the world set so far in the future that animals and climates dramatically evolved, but we're still relying on Amazon Prime (albeit via helicopter)?!? There are issues like the objectification and violence against women, the harm of social media, climate change and government institutions that the novel didn’t take the pages to explore. There were beginnings of so many great ideas that needed more page time to truly shine and make a statement. Overall, an interesting and solid read and I'm interested in seeing whether there will be sequels!
Thank you to NetGalley and HarperCollins for providing an advanced copy in exchange for an honest review.
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