2.5 - 3 stars.

I don't know how to feel about this book. I had a lot of conflicting thoughts after completing it and even after several days, I still feel very confused.

I will say I really enjoyed the discussions of climate change. I think that the book was at its strongest when it focused on the environment and the ways climate change and classism intersects. I appreciated the ways that Reid shows how corporations harm and exploit both society and the planet. My favorite dynamic of the book was between Inesa and her brother Luka. Their relationship as siblings was very moving, especially seeing the ways that they try to protect each other throughout the story.

While I started this interested in the story and its characters, my investment lessened the farther I got into the book. It felt very directionless and the romance ended up feeling rushed and shoehorned in. Everything just felt underdeveloped and surface level, from the worldbuilding to the characters, which was such a waste. It aggravated me to no end that this book comped THG series, because where THG succeeds and thrives from the very first book, Fable fumbles and fails.

Truthfully, I'm not particularly angry about the ending. I didn't like it but I felt more neutral than anything, thinking back on it. I will say I don't like how the ending leaves both main characters punished in some way. I do hate that it seems like this book ended that way to leave room for a sequel.

While this not my favorite of their works, I still really enjoy Ava Reid and their writing. Their compassion for their characters continues to bleed through in everything they write and I will still pick up whatever they release next.



Thank you to Netgalley and HarperCollins Children's Books for an e-arc in exchange for an honest review.

𝙼𝚊𝚢𝚋𝚎 𝚒𝚝'𝚜 𝚓𝚞𝚜𝚝 𝚑𝚞𝚗𝚐𝚎𝚛 𝚊𝚗𝚍 𝚎𝚡𝚑𝚊𝚞𝚜𝚝𝚒𝚘𝚗 𝚍𝚘𝚒𝚗𝚐 𝚘𝚍𝚍 𝚝𝚑𝚒𝚗𝚐𝚜 𝚝𝚘 𝚖𝚢 𝚋𝚛𝚊𝚒𝚗, 𝚋𝚞𝚝 𝙸'𝚖 𝚜𝚞𝚛𝚙𝚛𝚒𝚜𝚎𝚍 𝚋𝚢 𝚑𝚘𝚠 𝚖𝚞𝚌𝚑 𝙸 𝚍𝚘𝚗'𝚝 𝚠𝚊𝚗𝚝 𝚑𝚎𝚛 𝚝𝚘 𝚕𝚎𝚝 𝚐𝚘.

This book truly is a hauntingly beautiful love letter to dystopian novels and brought me back to the first time I read The Hunger Games. The ending broke me, had me ugly sobbing (which hasn't happened in a long time), and needing any sliver of Ine and Mel I can get my hands on. I desperately need to know what they're doing post chapter 35 (please, I'm begging 🥺👉👈). Growing up trying to figure out my identity, Mel's development had struck so deeply with me. The thought of the pain they had gone through and will continue to go through is suffocating and I NEED to know they're alright. I will be up all night for the next year just thinking about this book and making it my entire personality. p.s. Ava, when I catch you, Ava 😭

This was like Hunger Games meets Repo but with lesbians... so obviously I liked it. This story was so much fun but also equally devastating, exactly what I want from a YA dystopian novel. Inesa was such an interesting character to follow but Melinoe was my absolute favorite, her character development and growth throughout the book was so nice but at the same time heartbreaking to see. There were so many elements that really elevated this story to a place I did not expect going in. This was my first Ava Reid but I don't think it will be my last!

Fable for the End of the World by Ava Reid caught my eye with its stunning cover and held me prisoner with it wonderful prose.
What I liked
- Dual Point of view allows for me as a reader to fully connect to both lead characters
-pacing was was excellent
-competition arc elements gave me flashbacks to the ya dystopia boom of my earliest bookworm memories

What didn't work as well for me
-Something felt really wonky with the dialogue in the first third of the book and I never could quite put my finger on what it was
-the falling action felt really short

Who I recommend this title for

fans of ya dystopia wanting a dose of the fantastical in their reading will be in for a great adventure.

As someone who has both read and loved all of Ava Reid's books and also grew up a huge fan of the YA dystopian genre, it's like this book was created in a lab to be absolutely perfect for me. It was so much fun to return to a classic dystopian concept: we're in a futuristic society that a large company has completely seized control of, and we have a main character that has to win a competition to survive. Despite this being a classic plotline in a genre that has been done so many times it often feels stale, this book felt very unique. The relationship between the two love interests was developed well and had me tearing through the pages to get more. A well executed dystopian book always makes you feel as if it's hitting just a little too close to home, and this book absolutely does that. And as always, in typical Ava Reid fashion, the writing was lush and gorgeous. The only thing that took it from a 5 star to a 4 star was the speed at which the ending wraps up, and the lack of closure. It almost felt like we were setting up for a sequel, but this is a standalone. Overall, though, I had SO much fun reading this book. I loved that the author called it out as a love letter to The Hunger Games, and I felt that it was a fantastic addition to its genre!

After not loving Reid's previous book, I really wanted to give her another chance. The premise of this story is so unique while also being a blend of so many tropes we've seen before. It was really interesting, and I love that so many authors are playing with water as a setting. And this cover? unreal.

In this dystopian romance with dual POV, we follow Inesa and Melinöe. The lamb and the angel, the hunted and the hunter in the next Gauntlet.

This was my first Ava Reid YA book. They were already one of my favourite authors before reading Fable for the End of the World. I am used to a darker side of her and was expecting certain things that always appear in their books. That, and this book being advertised as a new The Hunger Games raised my expectations. But I was expecting the wrong things.

Once the real vibes clicked in for me, it went from being a good book to a great one. Don't go looking for the same kind of deadly games, at least not the same format. While in THG you get a great amount of action and stress and you get glimpses of what's happening outside the main character's POV, in Fable you'll get walking, and talking and thinking about life and surviving and more than just surviving. The pace is different. I think of THG as a perspective made for a Capitol TV Show: engaging, entertaining, action packed. And then you have the Lamb's perspective at the Gauntlet, an "unedited" live stream where you're just watching everything.

Don't get me wrong. Fable has several action scenes, specially when Luka (Inesa's younger brother) and Melinöe are around. You'll also get sad and bitter-sweet scenes in Ava's style.

I don't usually like multiple POVs, but I ended up loving Mel's perspective. I'd even say she's my favourite character in the book.

I have a lot of thoughts about Luka. Too many. And 80% of them are not good. He's not a bad kid. He works as hard as Inesa to bring food and money home. But I'm just a girl, and I get sad and enraged whenever I see a man having an easier life just because they're a man and young and handsome. I guess life is not fair. Ava portraits the differences between Inesa and her brother perfectly. Not only their personalities but also how they see life and how the rest of the world sees them.

I could say a lot more, but I don't want to spoil anything so I'll just summarise this review and say: hi, this is not THG and this is a softer version of Ava Reid's style. Enjoy the ending of Fable for the End of the World.

Thank you to NetGalley and HarperCollins for an e-arc in exchange for an honest review.

Amazing! Possibly my favorite Ava Reid yet! This is like Hunger Games on steroids and I loved every minute of it. The world she built is such a hot take on what appears to be a dramatization of our own society and its inevitable collapse. Characters are rough around the edges yet lovable. The political climate that surrounds them is tense and maddening. I really enjoyed this one!

Fable for the End of the World was my first Ava Reid novel and, after hearing so many good things about her other novel, I was not let down! Fable for the End of the World is a haunting and thought-provoking dystopian novel that intertwines themes of survival, sacrifice, and love in a world ravaged by climate change and societal collapse. The writing is rich and lyrical and the novel explore its themes with emotional depth. I really enjoyed this novel and can't wait to read more by this author!

Thank you to NetGalley and HarperCollins for an e-arc of this book in exchange for an honest review.

If you’re looking for a book that has the kind of commentary on society that makes you feel sick like The Hunger Games, this book has that. It also has the fact that gruesome acts are used as entertainment, like The Hunger Games.

And while I can appreciate Inesa and Melinoë’s arcs and development individually, I just wanted more out of this book. Inesa and Mel were very insta-love, which isn’t my favorite relationship trope.

I wanted way more of Inesa and Luka’s relationship, as the sibling dynamic was very interesting. Instead, Luka just vanishes halfway through the book and then we get no information on what happened to him when he was picked up.

And the last act was very rushed in my opinion. I got within about 70 pages of the end and was unsure of how everything would be resolved in that amount of time, and I was right to feel that way as I felt like a lot of story points were just left unresolved.

I do think that unresolved feeling is the point as Inesa and Mel discuss how one person doing small acts of resistance is the first step, but I am the kind of reader who likes loose ends tied up in a story.

Overall, an enjoyable book that I wish just had a little bit more of pretty much everything.

I have never read an Ava Reid book I didn’t absolutely love, and there is so much to love about this story. The world-building is rich and thoughtfully crafted, the exploration of violence toward women, powerful and nuanced. Inesa and Melinoë’s story is one I’ll remember for years to come; so much darkness and despair, yet so much love and unwavering hope. Ava’s characters are always so layered and so very human. I couldn’t stop turning the page.

Dystopia is so back (wow I wonder why) and I could not be more here for it. Thankfully this book has what many of the 2010s Hunger Games knock-offs lacked—an actual message, a plausible future, and real social commentary. This book is a TRUE dystopia. Fable envisions a future ravaged by climate change, corporatism, and the iron-clad consequences of debt. The characters are two girls from very different circumstances (yes they are enemies), both just fighting to survive, who find solace in each other. “Lesbian Hunger Games” is a pretty apt tagline for this book lmao

More on the world-building—Fable’s dystopian future is so fascinating (although perversely) right from the get-go. I was immediately enraptured with the dystopian world because of how timely, relevant, and possible it felt (TERRIFYING ahah). The world was mostly what hooked me at the beginning. I couldn’t put it down because I wanted to learn more about the dystopian future the characters existed in. It is also quite intense right from the beginning—stakes are undoubtedly high.

What led to a slight lull in the book’s pacing is the fact that the stakes, as well as the character’s circumstances, remain basically the same for about 75% of the book. Things escalate quickly at the beginning of the book and then they just…stay there. I felt like things didn’t really start to change or shift from the beginning until the 80% mark, which made this middle of this book feel a bit redundant, repetitive, and just a little boring.

But the end pulled through in intensity, and though I cannot say that I am exactly happy with the way things turned out, I understand why it had to end the way that it did. (Although the bonus novella helped me feel like I got a bit more closure, in a way. I’d also like to add that I think Luka’s novella may have been the best part of the book lol)

I recommend this book to anyone craving a REAL dystopia. Don’t come to Fable if you’re expecting something half-hearted, with only the action and none of the heartbreak or the commentary. This book is important, and timely, and incredibly necessary, and I’m glad to have read it.

Dystopian story with heavy The Hunger Games influences, following a taxidermist named Inesa who’s sacrificed by her own mother to settle her debts, and an altered-human who’s supposed to kill her. It’s about survival, extreme climate change, wealth inequality, corporatocracy, killing and hunting human as a riveting spectacle. It’s clearly not a wholly original story originality because I noticed THG traces all over the story. It’s not bad per se, but reeeeally underwhelming. Many interesting topics but it all went nowhere. There’s no closure at the end, nothing’s changed except for a slightly improved life condition for Inesa. But at what cost? I don’t get the point of this book.

I also listened to the audiobook at first, but Inesa's narrator (there's 2 POV with different narrators) felt irritating and made me unnecessarily anxious, I almost DNF the book right then and there but decided to try continuing without the audiobook. Thankfully it’s more bearable without the audiobook. But still. No strong appeal.

Sorry overall I’m pretty disappointed. It would be better if this is a start of a series because i could see that this book has many potential, but since it’s a standalone I’d say it’s not really worth to read.

Fable for the end of the world
The most important thing in a dystopian, to me, is what is it saying? What in society is it critiquing? Dystopians being made near the fall of the genre in the 2010s lacked the critique and obviously just wanted to capitalize on the popularity of the genre without getting into the meat of it. The relief I felt when being able to see things Fable was critiquing was palpable.

Immediately, Melinoë deals with the men in privilege treating her like an object. Even when she is in her Gauntlet, she has to be careful of doing anything that can be sexualized. It even touched on the current issue of AI and the non consensual porn people are making of women with it. The book very much reminded me of the scene in the Black Widow movie where the villain says the biggest commodity in the world is little girls.

I struggled a bit to get into the book, but around the 25% mark, once the Gauntlet began, I really was into it. Even if I didn’t speed read the whole book, I was invested in the characters and loved all three of the main characters.


I’m so thankful there was no instalove or immediate attraction. While they both praised the other in their thoughts, it wasn’t a romantic connection right away. While the characters aren’t geniuses or perfect, they don’t make me want to tear my hair out because of stupid decisions. Their bad decisions are obvious panic or trauma responses that I couldn’t fault them for making.

Now for spoilers.

The ending is very 1984, which is very fitting but I was hoping for a bit more of a hopeful ending. Of course, it is a dystopian so I should’ve expected at least a marginally unhappy ending but it personally seemed very hopeless to me? At best, Mel remembers her but can’t do anything about it. There’s nothing bettered about society, nothing has changed for the better except they’re no longer poor and they communicate better.

I just can’t get behind the idea of the book ending with Mel being married to an old man and being raped for the rest of her life. Even if Inesa finds her… there’s nothing she can do about it. I’m sure the ending is part of the message but ouch. The more I sit with my review, the lower it gets. The ending was rushed, everything was done within the last 10% of the book and it just felt unsatisfying. Dystopian novels are supposed to give hope but I just felt disappointed and confused. It felt like there’s supposed to be a second book, so it just feels incomplete.

Thank you to the publisher and Netgalley for an early copy in exchange for an honest review.

Review: I should start this off by addressing that I am a big fan of Ava Reid. I have been quite surprised to see that there are so many mixed reviews on this one so I wanted to wait just a little bit before I read it myself. Many reviews compare this book to The Hunger Games which I can see why, however I don't see that it's a "rip off," or anything like that. It's similar in that it's dystopian and teens are forced to kill each other while people watch for their own enjoyment.

I really enjoyed this book. I find Ava Reid's writing easy to follow but not boring. In, "Fable for the End of the World," we get two opposite sides of the "conflict," or the hunter/ prey trope, essentially one is sent to kill the other. I did greatly appreciate that this is a sapphic story, just based on my own life experiences. I thought the world building was good, not confusing and entertaining.

The characters were likable, multifaceted and interesting. I also felt that on the other side of the story there was a well formed villain which will always increase my rating of a book. I can see ways people may think this book lacks some depth between the plot, characters and worldbuilding, I can see that, and it felt like I read this book at just the right time for me.

I also felt that it was reflective of our current politics and wealth gap. Dystopian comments on our current realities with our worst fears applied and this book did just that.

this is lowkey if the hunger games had lesbians
i had a lot of fun reading this and i finished in a day because i just couldn’t put it down

3.5/5
This was actually my first Ava Reid book.
I really liked the concept of this book. Poverty forcing people to get so far in debt that they must send a family member into the ‘gauntlet’. There are modified humans who are put in there to hunt down the ‘sacrificial lambs’ and it’s all live streamed for everyone to watch. You get both the hunter and the one being hunted pov in this. They both need to win and it’s hard not to root for both of them too.
It is very hunger games ish which was fine by me. I love the hunger games so much and this has enough differences that i liked it.

I guess my main complaint is that the gauntlet portion didn’t really seem all that life or death and I didn’t love the romance. I just didn’t feel it. In the middle of the book when it’s just the two of them together was my least favorite part to be honest. Melinoe’s backstory with a different person was more intriguing to me.
I liked both main characters and their individual storylines though. I really liked Inesa and her brother’s relationship a lot. Almost everyone has an ulterior motive or they’re just out for themselves in this world but those two had each other’s back. I loved it. 🩵

This wasn’t my favorite book but I look forward to reading more from this author.

This was alright, but really hard for me to get into. I understand it's inspired by the Hunger Games and although it is unique in its own way, I just couldn't help feeling like I had read all of this before. I didn't necessarily attach to the characters in the beginning, and didn't find myself wanting to pick the book up and keep reading. Was probably most intrigued by the idea of this taxidermy shop and the possible sibling relationship but we barely get any of that before moving on to elements that I did not find as new or interesting in the slightest. I think I will try Reid's adult books because I saw promise with the storytelling, but would have just appreciated adult characters and more depth.

There's no way that was the ending?!?! Ava Reid has always amazed me with her words. Not one book has felt similar to the others. This story felt nostalgic and brought back the memories of diving into a new dystopian world just like in the late 2000's. This felt fresh and new and made me reflect of the happeningings of the world and political climate today. Many compare it to The Hunger Games and while it has the element of making a game out of killing people it is a completely different world. This world is ran on debts, rich people running society and the online streaming culture. There were so many parallels to actually society, I don't know how anyone can read this book and not walk away deeply thinking about how we engage in the world. The explanation of how the gauntlet started, the rich corporation swooping in under the guise of saving the community and taking them out of a recession. Only to further put it into ruin where people lost their ability to afford to live unless they indebted themself to the very cooperation that claimed to be trying to help them. The main characters Inesa and Melinoe (beautiful names) journey was just truly heartbreaking. Two people that just wanted to be set free. Ugh I hope there to be a continuation of their story some day because the way that ended was not good enough for those two. I demand justice!

Very hunger games core! It was a lot of "oh wait, we're both just trying to survive" and i loved seeing them bond.

HOWEVER WHAT WAS THAT ENDING? I've never been more upset and annoyed with anything in my life.