4 ⭐️ Falling In Love With Dystopian Again

I’m sick of just surviving, I whisper. I want . . . more.



Quick Thoughts:

What a nostalgic feeling this book brings to the era of my childhood. I know Ava wrote in her author letter that this is a love letter to that era, and it hits like that. It's beautiful and haunting, how realistic bits of this were to our current everyday. I'm glad Ava didn't shy away from the morality of man, and how it is decaying.

I loved:

Plot
I was unsure if I would enjoy this book because I felt I might have outgrown the plot based on the back. I thought it might feel too much like hunger games, yet I didn't feel that. The plot was more than an Angel hunting a Lamb, and the Lamb trying to survive. It was Inesa and Mel trying to survive in different extremes of the world. Mel being this “angel” that from the outside sounds like the pinnacle of the society, but in reality she's a slave to an industry and can never truly escape. Inesa being the lamb is the bottom of the industry, and she still can't escape. Her daily life is miserable, and it shows the decay of family/human values as Inesa’s life is forfeited by her own mother. It's unique the layers of the plot that Ava was able to weave together.


Inesa
Inesa had many layers to her that I loved that the story unraveled. It starts right from the beginning with money vs. morality, and in a society where money is the highest value, Inesa continues to pick morality. The complexity of emotions she feels towards others I loved, and I wish was explored a bit more. Her relationship with each family member is touched on and some are explored a bit more than others. I wish this aspect was explored a bit more in depth before the plot picked up, but the book is very fast paced so it was understandable.

Mel
Highly complex does not even describe how Mel comes across. There was so much I wanted to learn about her, and her past which I didn't fully get. I feel the “wipe” and unknown piece did make sense with the world, however it cheapens the value of Mel’s past to her current self. I think Mel was one of my favorite characters, but the complexity of her was not explored enough.

The World
I enjoyed the breakdown of the decay of the world. It was from the aspects of technology, culture and science with the world on the brink of ending. It was terrifying at times because it definitely felt like a world we could fall into. Each small aspect of life had a new bit of horror which I enjoyed. I do think it could be built up a bit more, but I overall really enjoyed it.

The Ending
I am not spoiling the ending, however I didn't expect it to fully go the way it did. I think it was a creative choice to end more “neutral” or “negative” depending on how someone views it. It definitely made me more hopeful for a second, even though I believe this was marketed as a standalone.

The downfalls

Romance
I loved that this book was sapphic in a soft gentle way. It was beautiful in that regards, however my issue lies in the enemies to lovers. The tension to turn to lovers seemed almost immediate when Mel had just almost killed Inesa. The build up of their relationship wasn't there, which was highly disappointing to me.

Side Characters
This was weak overall with each side character. As a stand-alone, only so much can be built in but I didn't understand Mel’s connection towards others. She's wiped, she had training to be emotionless yet these connections were formed and not fully explored. Similarly, Inesa had complex relationships with her family members that were surface level explored. Her brother could be explored more, and I understood the choice of him disappearing however, it left a bit more of a lack of depth.


Overall, I will buy this book. I have it preordered and rumors of Owlcrate doing it, so I should have two copies. Ava continues to be one of my favorite authors, and I highly recommend this book still. I hope it gets a sequel because I think Ava could flush out this world so much more with her current characters.

Quotes I loved:

“It was easy once I understood that it was the girl’s life or mine. Survival is the most natural thing in the world, as natural as breathing. “

Moments drip by, like water through a crack in the wall. Then, in the same low tone, she says “I've been paying attention”

“Websites that use AI technology to transpose my face onto naked bodies, so men don't even have to use their imaginations.” This was haunting for me to read with the rise of AI

“But beneath the surface, there is a metamorphosis taking place, in the mud and the flower buds, just curling out of their seed hulls.”

This was so good!!! The Hunger Games but make it sapphic and of course with very applicable commentary on the current political climate. Stories that tackle these issues are so important, especially following this most recent U.S. election and everything going on elsewhere in the world, so I really appreciate the opportunity to read this novel.

At first, I wasn't sure that I was enjoying the pacing, as it felt a bit slow, and I was wondering how the author was going to continue the story in only half a book. BUT- the payoff was so well executed, and I grew to really care for the characters. On top of that, Reid's writing style was impeccable as per usual and allowed me to visualize the setting and political commentary very well.

Overall, I would highly recommend this book for fans of 'The Hunger Games' or anyone who appreciates commentary on real-world issues tackled in a very humble and real way.

4.75 stars. This was one of the most memorable reads I’ve read. The dystopian future Ava Reid has written is not that far fetched from what’s relevant today. This book had me thinking about everything and I was so engrossed in the world and story. I have spoken about this book to many people and it’s a book I think about constantly. I’m so grateful to netgalley, Harper Collins, and Ava Reid for this arc. I was a little shocked by the abrupt ending. It did add to the shock of what happened but also I really hope there might be a sequel in our future bc I would love to dive back into Inesa and Melinoë’s story. I will be re reading this book and can’t wait for my pre order to get here. This was a great book and in my opinion a must read for any hunger games lover.

A unique hunger games inspired dystopian following two girlies who fall in love. Should be entertaining right?

And it was. Kinda. Until it wasn’t.

Fable starts off with an interesting premise following a taxidermist and a hired assassin! In their world, everyone is in debt and in order to pay off this debt you can hire someone to hunt and kill your selected target!

What started off as a thrilling fight for survival turned into an insta-love relationship causing all the action to completely disappeared. There was so much lead up for the chase only to then be cut short a few chapters later. The relationship between Mel and Inesa wasn’t fleshed out AT ALL. It felt more like a trauma-bond than love. So many components of the story could have led into a 5 star read, but everything felt short and rushed…SO MANY PLOT HOLES????

I was really into the first 30% so I’m super bummed it didn’t live up to the first few chapters!

This captivated me immediately. Reid describes this as a Hunger Games retelling and I loved what aspects she brought into this story. With that said, this still felt fresh and different. The way this story comes together is both beautiful and heartbreaking. It does however leave you with a longing that feels incomplete. I hope we see more from this world in a continuation of the story.

I voluntarily read and reviewed an advanced copy of this book. All thoughts and opinions are my own. - arc & monthly book box pick reviewer

This is one the most hyped books of 2025, and since it has a queer main couple, I was all grabby hands. I just needed to read it! I haven't read any f/f dystopia, so I was very excited for it! However, it just didn't do it for me.

We have chapters from both girls, of Inesa's and Mel's. You really feel for both of them, that's for sure. Inesa has a brother with whom she has an agreement not to talk about both elephants in the room namely the dad who abandoned them and a mother who is self-absorbed and who blames everything on Inesa while her brother is a golden boy who can do no wrong.

Mel has been stripped of everything that makes her her. Her memories get wiped, her face altered, her body pumped with various substances. She is at the mercy of Azrael, her handler and creators of the atrocious Gauntlets. She is also a victim of her circumstances, of poverty, of lack of privilege. She is designed to be a weapon that kills at the Gauntlets. Anything else should not exist. But her feelings still exist.

I rooted for both girls, and I liked both, but I didn't feel the romance at all. Each girl starts having feelings for the other because they're pretty? Their attraction, I can get. But actual feelings just like that when one of them is meant to kill the other? To me, it felt forced, and I couldn't get invested in their romance.

I haven't read any of the author's previous work, but many readers say that she is known for her atmospheric prose. This book didn't have it, in my opinion, and perhaps, it was by design. I don't know. I just felt like it was very wordy, paragraphs were long, and there were plenty instances of page after page of commentary and/or worldbuilding descriptions. I did feel the author's heart on the story, though. This book certainly means a lot to her, and I felt her devotion to it. However, for me, the worldbuilding didn't feel fresh, it felt like a natural devolvement of our society seeing the world's current state.

I'm not a fan of the ending, either. It felt very anticlimactic, an awkward bittersweet ending that had me sighing.

Suffice to say, this was def not for me, but others might feel different! I mean, we finally have a YA queer dystopia! This can open the path to so many other stories by authors of marginalized backgrounds.

It is the monthly pick for a YA March box, and I will skip.

Fable for the End of the World is perfect for fans of The Last of Us, The Hunger Games, and The Uglies Trilogy from back in the ol' 2000s.

As a lesbian woman I'd never picked up a sapphic novel out of fear that I wouldn't feel represented well (and likely a thousand more reasons which include how picky I am) but I loved this book. It hurt my heart a little, the bruised little damsel that it has become as of late, but I cannot stress how much I enjoyed the pain.

The action was riveting, the stakes were high, and my heart was flip-flopping between hurting and yearning over and over again. This is an incredible dystopian stand-alone novel that I will be thinking about for a long time. I loved the world that was created and the loose threads left for us to cling to so that we can make up our own ending good or bad out of the scraps of knowledge that we were given in the final chapters.

In the acknowledgements Ava Reid talks about old roleplay forums and fanfiction websites being a part of how she found her passion for writing - and I feel that everything in this book is perfectly crafted to give aspiring writers inspiration for fanfictions that would seize loopholes or ambiguities and write new stories for the characters after the end of the book. If I had it in me, I'd do just that.

Ive loved all of Ava Reids books so far and am a huge dystopian fan. I think I've settled on a 3 1/2 stars for this book. The beginning and the buildup of the plot was really interesting. It got me really excited to see where the story would go.
But the relationship between the 2 main characters didn't feel believable. The story felt fast-paced, but not in a good way. It felt more like rushed. The transition from "enemies" to lovers was WAY too fast. There were some beautiful quotes that I highlighted about the state of the world, loss, grief, what it means to be a woman, what it means to be poor in capitalism, all those dystopian themes.
Overall okay but I think I need some time to digest this one.

3 Stars!

As the younger, much more sapphic cousin of the Hunger Games, Fable is a story about survival in a world where everyone wants a piece of you. Inesa, a woman from the sunken town of Esopus runs an animal taxidermy shop. Her brother, Luka hunts the last few non-mutated animals left, while the siblings take care of their hypochondriac mother. Their world is built upon debts, and when their mother racks up too many, she submits Inesa to be a Lamb in the upcoming Gauntlet. Inesa will be chased by an Angel, a cyborg girl named Melinoe who has been bought and reconfigured by the company Caerus and her handler, Azreal. Melinoe gives chase to Inesa alongside her brother Luka, all while their world watches live.

This book was interesting and definitely pays homage to it’s predecessor. As someone who was a little too old for Hunger Games mania, I didn’t love this as much as I felt I was meant. the characters were well fleshed out, especially the mom (hated her!) and the story was well paced. It offers no answers to your questions, so know that you won’t leave this book feeling satisfied. Ava Reid always tells an interesting tale full of twists and turns.

Oomph, I can't believe I didn't love this one, it was one of my most anticipated reads of the year! I really just felt like this was lackluster and not "enemies to lovers"... AT ALL. The world building was minimal and so was the character development. The main character Inesa was very wishy-washy and a Sad Girl™, while the trained assassin Melinoë had the personality of a cardboard box. This might be a personal preference, but when I read a book about the girlies dismantling a corrupt system I want them MAD, not sad and I will take angry or crazy (or a little of both). If you are looking for that type of book I would recommend Iron Widow. If you didn't like how blood thirsty that MC was however, you might still enjoy this one. I think I will stick to Ava Reid's adult gothic books instead, I think Reid's writing style and character work just works better in that genre.

Fable for the End of the World is like a sapphic Hunger Games. I enjoyed this book quite a bit. This book about a dystopian world where people indebted to a corporation to the point where they are hunted once they reach a certain debt level, was savage and sad. Inesa, the FMC is given up to the Gauntlet by her mother when she reaches that debt level. What follows is Inesa’s fight to survive, while Melinoë hunts her down.

There was plenty of action, great work building, great characters and some romance. I will say that the insta love was a bit of a stretch for me, but I just enjoyed it for what it was. Why am I expecting realistic romance in a fictional dystopian novel?

Overall, the book was very engrossing and intriguing. I really enjoyed reading it.

Thank you to NetGalley and Harper Collin’s Children’s Books for the advanced copy of this book.

Thank you to Netgalley for providing me with an advanced copy in exchange for an honest review.

DNF at 10%

What drew me to requesting this book was the comp titles of The Last of Us and Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes. However, I couldn't get past the first few chapters to really see how the story stood on its own. The scenery was beautiful and the establishing of the horrific capitalism cycle that the characters are subject too were interesting though. Just a poorly timed pick up for me, I hope to get over my reading slump soon to try again.

One thing Ava Reid is going to do is write a good stand-alone. This is no exception. Ava Reid has a talent for writing across genres and Fable for the End of the World is an excellent dive into dystopian fiction. It was intense, fast-paced, and, at times, difficult to read because of how relevant it felt to current times. As someone who loves The Hunger Games, this satisfied the part of me that wishes I could read it for the first time again. We will absolutely be getting this for my library.

I was sent an early review copy in exchange for my honest review! Thanks to NetGalley & HarperCollins for the ARC. This doesn’t affect my thoughts about the book in any way. Out on the shelves on March 4, 2025!

I truly love lesbians in fiction. Unfortunately, this didn’t deliver the way I expected it to. Essentially a Hunger Games fanfic, anyone could see the love Ava Reid has for the dystopian trilogy that has shaped at least two generations of readers. The world-building was quite unique and she was able to write a post-apocalyptic society that also reflects our current world. Reid incorporated a variety of social issues in this book which made it a tad richer plot-wise. She also added some elements of popular horror video games such as TLOU and Until Dawn, but it made the world-building slightly messier than intended. It wasn’t well-laid out enough for me to work with. I kept asking for more thrill, more build-up to possible conflicts that the main characters will face but the story doesn’t pick up until the 70% mark. Inesa and Melinöe had amazing tension and chemistry, I absolutely love women, and I expected them to have a worthwhile ending. But I didn’t get anything an exciting enough conclusion, or at the very least hopeful. I’m trying to justify the point of having a cliffhanger ending if there isn’t any possibility for a sequel. Is this a duology? Trilogy?

I’m a sucker for anything enemies to lovers, and this my friends did not disappoint. Dystopian, enemies to lovers, sapphic. Could use more world building. Still an enjoyable read, but not one to throw at the top of your TBR immediately.

Thank you Ava Reid and Harper Collins for an ARC Copy of Fable for the End of the World!

Rating 4/5

I am speechless, this book was so unbelievably soul crushing.

One of the things I most enjoy about Ava’s writing is their world building. Their world’s are so descriptive to the point of discomfort. I find that I can feel the constant dampness on my skin and smell the rot in the air while - while that may not sound pleasant, it definitely makes for an immersive reading experience.

I think Fable was an excellent (and terrifying) commentary into the brutality of a late stage Capitalist society. While not everyone is chosen for the Gauntlet, you still the majority of society suffer in their own ways. I was especially disgusted by the mass desensitization of society through the government controlled social media that allows entertainment such as the Gauntlet to thrive.

While I thoroughly enjoyed the majority of the book, I did have a few issues. My main complaints being timeline and pacing issues. I was constantly losing track of days, or not realising when a night had passed while reading. I literally thought we were still on the first night of the Gauntlet only to find out 2 ½ days had already passed. I also understand the cabin setting’s importance for cementing the FMCs relationship, but these days drag on for so long. I felt like we lost all momentum and tension from the countdown during this time.

Overall this is an excellent book that I know I won’t be able to stop thinking about!

There have been a lot of authors who have tried to pull the emotion that the Hunger Games brought out in readers, and I’ve read a lot of them. This, by far, is the only one who’s made it original and somehow just as hard hitting. 5/5. If you would like to suffer with the doomed lesbians and cry your heart out, this is the one for you.

this is an ARC review - fable comes out 3/4/25

to preface, i want to say as strange i feel cutting into a book like this, especially when it’s before release and i was granted early access for free, i believe reviews and feedback are valuable and important beyond just when they’re positive or diffident, and honest reviewing is a nonnegotiable.

with that said, this is a rough one so if you don’t want to hear criticism about the book or want to read it & would rather go in knowing nothing, feel free to skip this review

for the rest of you:

⚠️ spoilers ⚠️

fable being sapphic YA heavily influenced by the hunger games (& its other comp title being one of my favorite games, the last of us), i had such high hopes for how it would play out & how much i would like it. reading and finishing it, however, i found myself continuously disappointed.

the author’s note in the beginning of the book establishes early on how majorly influenced the book is by the hunger games, which felt like a step in a good direction in contrast to a book like powerless, which more or less blatantly ripped off details from popular 2010s YA dystopian books (including the hunger games). rather than finding the execution well done, though, i recognized the derivation of things in the hunger games within fable that failed to uphold the intentionality & meaning the hunger games imbued such ideas with, and fell short on individuality or ingenuity in fable’s take on them. the comparison only emphasizes how far fable falls short.

the book maintained an ever present lack of nuance and felt so insipid. the silhouettes of impassioned themes are there, but the almost perfunctory execution muddles & dilutes them greatly. fable tries to make ambitious commentary on several complex, modern day relevant topics, including sibling relationships, corporate monopolization, eradication of secular government, means and justification of survival, misogyny, power imbalance, rape, grooming, difficult parents and parentification, poverty, objectification, addiction, rampant consumerism, access to healthcare, pollution, exploitation, systemic violence and class conflict, mental health, sacrifice, modernization and standardization of people life & personhood, climate change, targeted erasure of history, opulence, oligarchy, lack of individuality and community, and reliance on technology—but every last one felt superficial. there were no significant ideas or nuances brought to them, only the implication or acknowledgement of their existence, leaving no true mark and holding no substantiality. the conversation on fear, revulsion, empathy, etc was stale from only stating their presence rather than describing the effects of their existence. there was such weak conviction and so many ideas convoluted rather than explored, without the time or emotional depth for the characters to have believably understood each other or fallen in love. the book is marketed as an enemies to lovers but they never actually hate each other or largely challenge each other's values, and their partnership turned relationship rarely if ever experiences any conflict or strain from their characters' core (manufactured) opposition; it's much more insta love than anything else.

there was no real exploration of the society & its pointed detriments. you never actually feel the evil of caerus; it’s only ever described and never shown, like its cheap take on militaristic force and live streamed slaughter along with the half baked climate-ravaged society and its classism. for example, the book mentions more than once that it hasn't snowed in inesa's entire lifetime, and when it does for the first time in at least 17 years there’s no commentary or revelation on what that might mean for the climate or climate doomers or anything at all--it seems to have been written in just so inesa and mel can be vulnerable in their wonder and physically close together because it makes them cold. none of the characters ever feel real or afraid. another example is the implication that <spoiler>azrael slept with (possibly raped) mel and then wiped the memory. mel has "almost memories" seeing azrael's bare chest and having his body over her</spoiler> but no further comment, conclusion, or effect on the character is ever drawn, like it never really mattered to begin with. mel's erased memory & the concept of the wipes could've been so interesting but the book never delivered on the potential of her instability and loss of identity.

fable also suffered from the writing attempts to build characterization by heaping on “i wonder” or “really” or “not really” into the narration as a substitute for actual opinions or affect from the mcs but in actuality came across as a cheap bid for authenticity or identity. this is paired with an absurdly incessant repetition of certain words or descriptions, including but not limited to leaf pulp, deciduous brush or trees, green brown indescribable unnamable hazel eyes (literally is this fanfiction, what is mel's hyperfixation with inesa's eyes), "a metamorphosis takes place," and "my skin/my blood/my veins turn to ice."

within the first chapter, we meet inesa and luka’s mom, introducing us early on to the flat characterization of the story. there was no depth or humanization in her character or actions, even in the final parts of the book. as the causation of the inciting incident and a contributor to inesa and luka's lives and perspectives as one of the main characters and her supposed driving motivation, you'd expect their mom to carry more weight or complexity as a character than a caricature of "the narcissistic parent."

there was also a noticeable absence of urgency even in the technically high stakes. it's paradoxically not at all fast paced; things did move fast--too fast to let them marinate or harbor any meaning or impact on the story or characters--but reading it felt so slow and like nothing happened or mattered. the plot stagnated rapidly and the characters honestly have no significant character arcs at all, further elucidating the lack of evolution from start to end and the inconsequential nature of all that happens between. one of the main contributions to this is the husk of "threatening" antagonists. lethe and azrael are further example of characters who never come to life on the page, the former of which violently falls into the stereotype of childish and shallowly jealous girl nemesis who's never actually fleshed out or effectively established outside of being an obstacle for the mc, and the latter being a stock image of all powerful <spoiler>insidious father figure with bad intentions</spoiler>. rather than being complex characters showing another side of caerus, the angel program, and azrael's own cruelty, they're like gnats i could never take seriously and i wanted to swat away. azrael never felt anything more than self involved even though we were meant to believe he might actually <spoiler>care about mel</spoiler> and lethe was like a toddler in her characterization and not a teenage girl at the crux of years of trauma grooming and exploitation. this was further exacerbated when her last big moment before <spoiler>her death</spoiler> was shrieking when she was shaken off mid fight as opposed to honing in & adapting, and then throwing her ace, as a <spoiler>"killing machine" trained and genetically altered with a specialization in daggers, using her dying breath to fling her knife at mel and going for the stomach in a nonfatal injury (they say she wouldn't have survived without interference but they save her and she doesn't die, so from the perspective of lethe who was just killed and had viscerally hated mel her entire life and was beyond practiced in fatality and throwing knives, not even having the impact on mel of actually lastingly threatening her life is just lame. the reader never suspects or worries mel might be in real danger or die</spoiler>

furthermore, each character felt interchangeable from the next to the point i simply didn’t care about any of them. they had no hold on the plot or the story itself, inconsequentially thrashed with the inevitable throes of the ghosts of storybeats. melinoë and inesa are both so generic, and plain & indistinctive of each other enough after the blurred establishment of their contrasting lives & opinions that i had to actively keep referring to the labelled pov at the top of the page to remember whose perspective i was reading. i felt like they could’ve both died or had to kill each other or something and i wouldn’t have cared much. we never really go into either girls’ trauma or values and there was no personality or driving force in their narration or characterization. i never believed in or rooted for their love or survival. the first and last time any character seemed to actually have a personality at all was when inesa remarks how she’d rather be in debt than change her name to prudence or bartholomew. i was and still am excited to be out of their heads and done with the book.

fable also fails to recreate a world where everything is available (and almost exclusively) online. the inclusion of the streamer zetamon and his contribution to the plot is so strangely done. first of all, the name zetamon itself feels like an attempt to recreate streamer handles like pokimane or the like, but it felt so hollow and out of place to me in a way i can't put my finger on why. maybe it’s similar to why the name azrael feels so obnoxious to me, because it seems more like a parody of names made up to sound futuristic fantastical and intriguing. as a character, zetamon is meant to represent this section of the internet and how equally powerful and meaningless a streamer with a large platform can be, but he felt like a placeholder from someone who didn't actually understand what streamers and content creators becoming these like pillars of online society and internet culture/customs actually looks like. the way he interacted with his chat, the lack of personality, the personification of chat & their questions, all of it came across ineffectively. he has no real impact on the story or characters, and we never actually feel that he’s popular or edgy or anything other than a plain mouthpiece for his audience, or that <spoiler>luka is in danger or even afraid. he may as well have been voluntarily interviewed by zetamon because he felt like it, completely irrelevant to the gauntlet or his sister.</spoiler>

similarly, the book had such an indescribably underwhelming ending (although i will say i don't hate <spoiler>that it’s open ended with a hopeful air, which offers a bit more substance/how the story and characters are actually impacted by things rather than jumping to the book's conclusions with no logic</spoiler>. reaching it, i felt like nothing happened at all, which especially became noticeable to me when we met zetamon and realized <spoiler>caerus had luka</spoiler>. the book tries to be really introspective and present these advanced ideas meant to prod at an extreme representation of where our world could end up or hyperbolize and emphasize poisonous qualities in our own dystopia but it, again, has such a weak exploration and conviction that it falls epically short.

overall i found this to be relentlessly mediocre. i don’t know if it’s just this book or if i’ll clash this much with all of ava’s writing but i still would like to give a study in drowning a try. i’m hopeful that it’s just either this book or ava's first person narration that fell flat for me.

one thing i will say is, as much as i did not enjoy this book, i still appreciate the concept of it. when requesting the arc, i said "YA dystopian is the genre that made me love reading growing up, and i’ve never read a dystopian WLW book before. as a sapphic myself i was so beyond excited when ava shared fable’s premise and i realized two major parts of my identity could exist in the same story." regardless of efficacy or quality, the sentiment that queer and dystopian media can coexist is something i'd never seen represented before, and that matters regardless.

sorry this was so brutal.. such high hopes became critical disappointment i guess

some spoiler-free quotes that held promise (however fleetingly):
✧ I'm just afraid. I'm afraid all the time. And maybe that's the real reason I refuse to watch the Gauntlets. I don't want it to feel real.
✧ But behind closed doors, I'm still the one protecting him. I take Mom's bullets every single time.
✧ It's so much harder to kill in the light, when I have to see everything, with all the human parts of me that are still left.
✧ while others [memories] slip away, eroded by time. Why certain ones get buried in us like shrapnel so we can't move without feeling the pain of the thing that's killing us slowly.
✧ But there's no tension to watching a Dog take down its target. It's like watching the wheels of a car turn a skittering creature into roadkill. Ugly and inevitable. Being struck down by an Angel is meant to be a beautiful thing: riveting, theatrical, perfectly paced.
✧ Rifle in my hands, back against the cold metal table, knees digging into the shower tiles, water running over me, real and not real.
✧ As much as people like the Soulises want it to be, anger isn't strength. Hate isn't power.
✧ It feels like all I've ever done is cared for things that everyone else has left to rot.
✧ Even a wolf can be gentle if it wants, but you should never forget its teeth.
✧ But I can't make myself hate them. I never have. They're just surviving. Even the Wends are just surviving. Who knows what they would do, if they had another choice? If they knew they were safe? If they were free?

As a big Ava Reid fan, someone who LIVED for the Hunger Games and other YA dystopian series in my youth, and as a queer girl, I genuinely can’t begin to explain how much I loved this book.

It took inspiration from the Hunger Games, but Reid applied so many issues facing society today that this story was entirely its own thing.

The love between Inesa and Mel made my heart full and also so broken. It captured queer love in exciting and exploratory ways, without any of the “this is wrong and shouldn’t be” thinking I’m tired of seeing (at least in the sense that it’s wrong because of their genders, not the fact that they are the assassin and the target which is more acceptable to be a little weary about).

I also have to give it up to Reid, she was able to establish such imaginative and descriptive world building in such a small amount of time, all while making it simple for the reader to understand, not flooding us with information that will just go in one ear and out the other (something I find so many dystopian and science fiction books tend to do).

I truly loved this story, this world, this love, and I am so happy to see one of my favorite authors venture into my beloved YA dystopian genre. It reignited a love for it that I seem to have gotten away from as a grown older, so thanks for that,

Honestly, this is the most attention I have given a Netgalley review before. The reason I say that is because I am a bookseller, I often get flooded with arcs and oftentimes find joy, but not usually to a larger extent. I truly appreciate Netgalley and the publisher for allowing me to read this copy in advance.

I chucked with joy and excitement when I saw this described as hunger games/last of us but sapphic. It truly lived up to that! I think this really ran off of taking what we readers enjoy, whether that be tropes, but adding the uniqueness that author's need to make their story their own (to say trope is a stretch here because there was not really anything out of the norm.)

At first, it was a little hard to get into for the first 20ish pages. It picked up pace rather quickly after. This story line, from the start, was very much about the character's journey and not the world building. I often find myself preferring those stories but I would not recommend it to those who prefer the opposite.

It had great representation for traumatic and negative parental relationships. I liked to see how those experiences brought the siblings closer together and why it was so hard for the brother when Inesa got dragged into the Gauntlet.

Mostly, what I stuck around for was the romance. That is why I picked up this book. I knew it was going to be sapphic and it was amazing to see it in such a popular trope like world. I loved the complexity of Inesa and Melinoe in their romance. The only thing I wish was different was the ending. I was disappointed with it. I wish it ended with Inesa locking eyes with Melinoe instead of us just know Inesa went to try and find her. We need that last touch with them -- even just their eyes meeting. I am glad it did not fall into the "bury your gays" category but I do wanted a little more from the ending. I need to know their story did not end because it still feels like a death.

I am so happy Reid wrote this and I hope she continues to write stories like these!