Thank you to HarperCollins and NetGalley for sending me an ARC of Fable for the End of the World by Ava Reid in exchange for review.

4.25 stars

Not only was this book delivering on some Hunger Games but also a bit of Repo! The Genetic Opera which I LOVED.

What’s a little bit of debt? Definitely worth losing yourself or a family member over. This book hit deep on toxicity and family drama, from a mysterious disappearance to mentally ill cruelties.

I also love the dystopian setting, we’re somewhere in the future where the government owns all and the rich live in peace away from pollution meanwhile you average everyday person has a pod or shack in a flooding wasteland with mutated animals.

The kinship between our FMC Inesa and her brother Luka was so wholesome and heartfelt. He really stepped up, though they’re both used to doing so for their family. Luka took on Inesa’s problems as his own in order to help his sister. They were both extremely likable characters.

Melinoe. An angel. A cyborg? Partially robotic super human aka the governments assassin and plaything was also 10/10. She defied all odds and broke the mold she was created and boxed into.

All around this book was just a wonderful and thrilling adventure, what’s going to happen next???? We did leave off on somewhat of a cliffhanger but it wasn’t one that upset me. It was peaceful and made sense. If there’s no book 2 I will gladly accept it (though book 2 would be great I love a sapphic story). Did I mention it was sapphic? Wonderfully sapphic while showing how disgusting humanity can be at the same time.

Thank you so much for the lovely read!

Thank you to the publisher and NetGalley for an advanced copy of this!! I love capitalism being the enemy. And that really comes through in this. This book will make you want to hate people, hate everything really. But I think this has a lot interpretations that are going to be hard to miss or clouded due to the way it has you focusing. I would honestly love to hear what people think of this when it comes out.

OK!!! on to the more pleasant matters. Characters are great, honestly. It was really easy to get drawn into the parts said and unsaid as well as the alternating POVs.

I absolutely adore Ava Reid and this book knocked it out of the park for me. The author has said that they were really inspired by classic YA dystopian novels, like the Hunger Games, and this absolutely pays homage to that era while giving it a modern twist. When people talk about dark damp moody atmosphere this is exactly what they mean. Reid is a pro at creating the perfect atmosphere for her books. Each book has a different vibe that is executed perfectly for that book.

There's a really interesting backstory for how the city/world became covered in water and turned into a Corporatocracy. A company similar to Amazon reigns supreme over the country and sponsors and encourages the gauntlets. There's a lot of exploration of debt and what you owe to others, not just in monetary terms, which is a big theme, but also in acts of kindness towards others and what we owe to society.

The moralizing at the end gets a little heavy handed but overall I really loved the ending. I know this is a standalone but I would read the sh*t out of any sequels.

This was a solid YA fantasy.. I liked the enemy to lovers troupe and how it played out. While the book was dark this cat and mouse game was enduring. The dystopian world was well written, the writing was top notch.

Lesbian longing is my favorite genre.

PLOT SUMMARY:

Inesa is a seventeen-year-old girl struggling in a sinking county under the control of a dangerous company called Caerus. When Inesa’s mother accumulates too much debt to pay off herself, she petitions for one of her children to participate in a live-streamed assassination spectacle called The Lamb’s Gauntlet.
On the opposite side of the Gauntlet is Melinoe, one of the many Careus-controlled assassins dubbed “Angels.” When she receives her assignment to kill Inesa, she believes it will be a chance to redeem herself from the disastrous results of her previous Gauntlet.
But when Melinoe and Inesa find themselves lost in the woods, with Melinoe cut off from Careus, they both form a tenuous deal to keep each other alive, But only until the cameras come back on.
Will this Gauntlet redeem Melinoe? Will Inesa survive? Or will the sudden attraction tugging them together be too much to resist?

PLOT REVIEW:

This was a genius plot.
Not only do we get a world slowly sinking below the surface of the water, we also get a country completely under the control of a high-tech company focused on debt-collection and gruesome spectacles.
This was truly fascinating world-building, and the society depicted is starkly unsettling yet so similar to our own society now. We consume media to the point of madness, finding the most vicious forms of barbarity “entertaining.”
That’s not the end of it, though.
Reid also snuck in several discussions about the fetishization of lesbians and the sexualization of women. As someone who identifies as both a woman and a lesbian, it’s important to me that more people spread awareness about these issues.
Thank you, Reid, for doing that.
Continuing with the review, I found the plot of this book to be enjoyable but not completely perfect. There were times when I wanted more action but also more time for the characters to get to know each other.
Several plot points were also completely dropped at the end of the book, including the plot about Inesa’s father. I was curious about him throughout the whole book, wondering if he had made it out of Caerus’ control like she thought. But this area of the story was never fully explored, and I was left unsatisfied, feeling as though something was missing.
Another thing I was disappointed in was the lack of discovery about who is controlling Careus. Who is the person pulling all of the strings? Why did we never find out who they were?
It was just really annoying to be left with more questions than answers, especially when I’m pretty sure this is a standalone novel.

CHARACTERS:

I adore the characters that Reid designed.
They’re fully fleshed out, with contrasts and similarities that make them endearing and perfect for each other.
My favorite character was Melinoe. Her development throughout the book was so satisfying and meaningful. The fact that she discovered her humanity through her days with Inesa was simply beautiful. Her protective nature also really endeared her to me, especially when she focused on covering Inesa from the watchful, grotesque eyes of the camera.
Her character was simply gorgeous.
And Inesa was much the same.
I enjoyed her slow growth as well, especially when it came to the realization that her empathy, something she was often berated for by her mother, was actually a strength and not a weakness. I love getting to see young girls in books realize what makes them human and powerful are the things they are often told are “weak” or “wrong.”
It’s a delicious storyline to follow, and I adored seeing it here.
Even more delicious was the longing between Inesa and Melinoe. Lesbian books just hit different when it comes to yearning, and this story was no exception! That ending had me crying and desperately hoping that Inesa and Melinoe would be reunited!
Concerning the other characters, they were not as fleshed out as Inesa and Melinoe. I was hoping we might have a few explorations of the other Angels and their respective character arcs. It seemed we were heading in that direction, but then things took a turn, and we never really made it there.
Disappointing, but at least we got two powerful and queer characters to enjoy in this book!

OVERALL THOUGHTS:

When it comes to yearning, the lesbians just do it better.


Big thanks to NetGalley for giving me the chance to review this ARC!

Ava Reid has written some of my favorites and some books I could barely finish - I NEVER know what to expect from her, but I'll always have a strong opinion on it. "Fable for the End of the World" is an homage to the dystopian reads Reid grew up on - one can see the bones from such series as 'The Hunger Games' and "Divergent' peeking out from beneath her able prose. I appreciated that unlike most of the dystopians of yesteryear, this one was happily sapphic, but Reid's world suffers from being a little too vague for my tastes. It's clear she has Big Ideas but has fumbled a little in the execution. That said, this is a fun read for anyone who wants a nostalgia hit.

This was just okay.
I loved the premise I was seeing from other book reviewers. A dystopian, sapphic fantasy hunger games type of book. But ultimately it fell short for me in a lot of ways.

The world building and writing just felt awkward, like didn’t really make sense but was trying to be complicated. The plot was nothing I found exciting because I’ve seen it before.

Only redeeming qualities for me were the characters. I liked both female leads a lot. Inesa and Melinoe can’t be more different in their life circumstances but both end up in this game that like the Hunger Games is a representation of their bad governments / politics (another too close similarity for me)

Overall it’s nothing original at all. It’s a decent read the characters were the most intriguing but don’t expect much more

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.

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.

Thank you to NetGalley and HarperCollins for the ARC of this book.

Fans of Ava Reid's books and/or The Hunger Games will love this dystopian story. In a world that feels like our not so distant future, people who go into debt must pay with a life. The person is then hunted by one of the elite killers and it's broadcast for entertainment.

This book is a standalone and is possibly the most open ended of all of Ava's books. I loved the characters but for me it didn't hit as hard as her books usually do. Still an excellent read.

3.5 stars! This was a fun nod to the old dystopian, battle royale-type books. It was very similar in some ways to the Hunger Games, but it a good way. I loved Reid’s beautiful writing style among the tense situations the characters were in. This does have trigger warnings similar to those of many of the old dystopian novels. So if you didn’t’mind the trigger warnings in those, this will be fine. I highly recommend this to anyone who enjoys a good dystopian. Let’s bring that era back!

Thank you Netgalley and Harper Collins Children’s Books for allowing me to read an eARC of this book. The opinions in this review are my own.

This was the perfect homage to the dystopian books I grew up with. The Hunger Games will always be a staple in my re-reads and now so will Fable for the End of the World. It was a beautiful sapphic love letter to the story I grew up on. I will cherish this forever. And secretly wish for a sequel…

Thank you to NetGalley, Ava Reid, and the publisher for allowing me access to the e-Arc.

4.25 stars

Lesbian Hunger Games was not on my bingo card. I am so glad that I got to read this arc. It was such a great read. It’s a perfect dystopian novel that talks about climate change, technology, corporate corruption, and the haves and have-nots. There were so many great quotes.

TW: Murder, Medical Content, Suicide Attempt, and Emotional Abuse.

✨ Sapphic
✨ Enemies to lovers
✨ Hunger Games vibes

I highly recommend it!

Ava Reid is becoming one of my auto buy authors and books like Fable for the End of the World are why. Reid tells us at the beginning that this book is a love letter to the 2010s dystopian books that raised us all, setting up us to make comparisons to our favorites from ten plus years ago. She definitely took her inspiration from things like the Hunger Games and Divergent, but Fable is its own entity. It opens with a similar feeling as the Hunger Games, being dropped directly into the story without much warning, but from there Fable turns into something completely its own. The same feelings are there, that familiar hopelessness and the desolation of it all. Reid knows how to make us feel like we’re reading a book from the dystopian renaissance of the 2010s without making us feel like we’re reading a poorly done remake of those books. Fable is poignant and painful and beautiful, using thinly veiled comparisons to our current day situations as a kind of wake up call. These things are happening all over, and Reid wants you, needs you, to remember that. Their characters are easy to root for and root against all the same. Melinoë is reminiscent of the careers from District One and Two, carefully crafted killing machines made solely to compete and kill. While Inesa is something different entirely. A young girl whose kindness is almost nauseating because of just how much she’s suffered. How can someone be so good after everything she’s gone through? They make a powerful pair, filling in the pieces the other is missing, and maybe they’ll be powerful enough to burn the whole damn thing down. The pacing makes for an exciting story you’ll want to finish in one sitting. Coming March 4, 2025, make sure to add Fable for the End of the World to your tbr lists! Thank you to Netgalley for early access to this title!

This was alright, but didn’t knock my socks off. The author describes it as a tribute to the dystopian novels of our youth, but it was a little too similar to the hunger games overall for me, but with a less well fleshed out world. I had a lot of unanswered questions about why things were the way that they were, and that left me feeling a little flat about the plot overall- primarily why the world was the way that it was. The characters were likable overall, but the plot was predictable and the themes were a little too in your face, even for a YA novel.

Overall, not a bad airplane read, but not stellar.

Thank you NetGalley and HarperCollins for allowing me to read this ARC.

Whew. Reid mentions in their author's note this is both a love letter to growing up with the Hunger Games and a pondering of the impact of climate change on our future.

Inesa lives in New Amsterdam, a place so flooded the populace uses rafts and boats to get around. She works as a taxidermist, helping preserve the bodies of animals before mutations made them unrecognizable. It's a humble life, and she and her brother make do as best as possible while dealing with their mother, who makes their already harsh situation worse.

Every so often in this society, a gauntlet happens where a Lamb is sacrificed to erase a citizen's debt, and the Angel who hunts them comes to their city, but they are not allowed to hurt anyone but their target.

Melinoë is one such Angel, struggling to recover after her last gauntlet, and, quite obviously, leading a very different life than Inesa.

Both women's lives collide when Inesa's mother accrues enough debt to qualify one of her children for the gauntlet, and tosses Inesa's name in without a second thought.

As Inesa's life is thrown upside down and Melinoë attempts to rebuild her image, both begin to realize things about themselves.

This was such a beautiful tale; I know it's billed as a stand alone, but I can also see Reid not being done exploring this world.

*wipes away tears*

This book destroyed me in the best way.

An unflinching examination of climate change, late-stage capitalism, and the often unhealthy spectacle of social media celebrity overlaid with a resounding message of hope and unexpected beauty in a decaying world.

Fable for the End of the World was everything I loved about The Hunger Games and more—the page-turning tension and the brutality offset by quiet, tender moments between characters you actually CARE about. And what better antagonist is there than a corrupt, all-powerful governing system?

Inesa and Melinoe's love story made me ache from beginning to end. Reid's handling of the characters' separate POV's and unique voices was as masterfully done as her lyrical, immersive prose.

While I would have loved to see Inesa and Melinoe bring the system down somehow (hey, I wouldn't be mad at a sequel!), I loved this story and had to consciously slow myself down to savor every word.

Thank you NetGalley, HarperCollins Children’s, and Ava Reid for the eARC.

The world has been ravaged by climate change, and only the rich live in comfort in the cities. The poor are left to gather debt in the remains of a world that is more wasteland than home. When someone gathers enough debt, the angels come to collect. Those who are particularly desperate or sadistic offer up their own children as sacrificial lambs to be hunted down in the gauntlets. In a tale very reminiscent of The Hunger Games, Fable for the End of the World tells a story of two young women who bond as they make their way through the treacherous wastes of a ruined world.

Fable for the End of the World is a dual POV sapphic dystopian story inspired by YA dystopian books (The Hunger Games). Inesa is a young woman from a flooded town on the outskirts of a small nation run by a capitalist nightmare of a cooperation who allows the lower members of society to rack up debts in exchange for any goods and services. When someone’s debts hit the maximum allowance, you are able to volunteer yourself or a family member for the Gauntlet (the Lamb); a televised event where the volunteer can run and try to hide from an assassin like figure (the Angel), and either be killed, and manage to survive and have the debts cleared.

Dystopian lovers rejoice! Ava Reid strikes yet again, this time delivering a captivating story capturing the heart of the nostalgic dystopians we grew up loving (looking at you Hunger Games).

I really loved this book!! Reid really plants seeds of questions in your mind with this story of right vs. wrong, order vs. control, government vs. love and compassion. With every aspect of their government being controlled by Caerus, we really witness how programs meant to “help” the citizens lead to their society’s downfall over time. Reid writes in the beginning “If there’s one thing I wish for readers to take away from “Fable”, it’s that the bravest thing you can do in this challenging, frightening time is to choose love.” She executes the message within the contents of this book very well!! Everyone please go read this one!!

Huge thank you to Netgalley and HarperCollins Publishers for an eARC in exchange for an honest review!!

3.5 ⭐️

Thank you so much Netgalley and for this arc!

fable for the end of the world is a YA standalone dystopian romance that takes great inspiration by all the nostalgic dystopian books we know and love.

I really appreciated the social commentary and critique in this book. There's a rather big focus on behavior and anonymity on the internet, as well as the consequences that greed and consumerism could have on our world in the future.
In a way it's showing how our reality could look like if certain things continue as they currently are, which makes for an interesting and almost uncanny reading experience (&that's a GOOD THING).

I gotta say that the worldbuilding and crafting of the dystopian system that we got in the first quarter of the book was much more intriguing and interesting to me then the actual 'lamb's gauntlet' that made up most of the story later on. I constantly found myself waiting to find out more about the Caerus corporation and the many ways it's corrupted or the way the class system in that world actually works.

One thing that Ava Reid always excels in is writing complex relationship dynamics. Family was an important part in this book in both a negative and positive light. On one hand there was the beautiful sibling bond that Inesa and her brother, Luka have, they kind of felt representative for the hope and love that's so obviously missing in the world they live in. On the other hand we saw the (mostly verbally) abusive and awful relationship that Inesa has to her mother and how deeply that kind of relationship can effect someone. I really appreciated seeing that in a YA novel. (definitely check trigger warnings for that)

The romance between Inesa and Melinoë started off SO strong and I really enjoyed the small moments of tension and yearning we got in the beginning. However the more I read the more the romance felt .....rushed. It started off with the promise of a slowburn but whenever it actually slowed down, it suddenly picked up again and everything just moved too fast. 😭 Like 'blink and you miss it' fast.
It made the romance feel less believable, because there wasn't that much build up.
That's not to say I didn't enjoy the romance, I did!! I only wanted a lot more than we got.

Related to that, my main complaint is that the plot simply moved way too fast, the book should've been so much longer than it was, considering that it's a standalone and we only got so many pages.
There were moments that felt too abrupt and left me frustrated because it made the story lose depth and just overall ended up feeling underdeveloped almost.

I just wish the story and the romance had gotten enough time to properly develop and make use of the interesting worldbuilding we got in the beginning.

The ending was also way to open for there to not be a sequel planned tbh so..... maybe we'll get a sequel who knows. If we do I really hope that it follows Luka, because honestly he was my favorite in the entire book.

Thank you to NetGalley, the publisher, and the author for an arc of this book in exchange for an honest review.

Dystopian is back y’all. I’ve been in such a dystopian mood lately with everything that’s going on so I’ve been searching everywhere for a new one and this one is it. Although it’s a little info dumpy and boring in the beginning it’s one of the most unique takes I’ve seen, which made it really good. It’s giving a similar vibe to the hunger games so if you liked that series I’m sure that you’ll enjoy this one.