Much of this was way too relevant and relatable, unfortunately. I think the corporation taking over the world and getting everyone in severe debt was a realistic take on the whole Hunger Games situation. Also the flooding and the climate change. The aquatic animals that turn people into zombies if you eat them was especially sinister and probably one of the aspects that pushed past believable, including the cyborg Angels themselves. There was a lot of relevance to the way people consume both products and entertainment and the people, especially women, who get consumed in the process. Also the whole I was sent to kill you and now we're falling in love--never gets old. Excellent drama. It did have a major loose-ends kind of ending. I'm not sure if that's how it's staying or if the author is planning on a sequel, but that too feels realistic--a future not tied up neatly in a pretty bow. Hopeful, but open-ended.

Ava Reid's commentary and unique storytelling has never failed to keep me reading, and this book was no exception. I enjoyed this book for the most part and will be recommending it! I'll go through what I liked and what I think could've made the story stronger:

LOVES:
- The world. Reid creates an impressively immersive world in a short span of time. I am hoping she writes in this universe again because the world of Caerus was one of the most intriguing parts of this novel to me.
- The love story: SO endearing and heartbreaking. Both character's described feelings felt so honest.
- Melinoe!!! I wanted to learn more about her past!

Likes:
- The character development: I think both Inesa and Melinoe developed in a way that was emotionally satisfying, endearing, and believable
- The sociopolitical commentary: nothing groundbreaking but still insightful, and never tried to be deeper than it actually was (we love self-awareness!)

Areas of Improvement:
- Pacing: I understand that the relationship needed to be developed, but I think a little bit of the middle could've been cut, and the ending could've been extended
- Repetitive Descriptions!! These could be cut down, especially Inesa's physical descriptions of Melinoe that seemed to be the same thing over and over

I don't really know where to place my feelings about the ending, I found it a little unsatisfying, but I understand if thats the point. It also made me hope that she will write in this universe again!!!

Thank you so much for the ARC, I will continue to follow Reid's work!!!
3.75/5 Stars

2.5 Stars rounded up to 3 Stars

To say this book was disappointing to me would be an understatement. A short disclaimer and a little background: I am huge fan of Ava Reid. I have rated all her past books favorably with Lady Macbeth being my lowest rated to date. That is to say, I have an opinion on what is Reid's best work and what her writing is like when she is at her peak. Fable for the End of the World is decidedly not her best.

To me a dystopia is a commentary on the world as it is now. Perhaps it is slightly exaggerated, maybe set in the future or placed in a different setting entirely. Much like dark academia it is a genre that exists to talk about things that are happening right now or will in the near distant future. This book attempts to address these things: classism, climate change, debt, misogyny. It doesn't discuss many of these things with much success. Most of it is borderline surface level and what isn't is....confusing. Why are we allowed to sacrifice close relatives to the Gauntlet in order to wipe our own debts clean? Simply for spectacle? We'd have plenty of that just by having someone chosen for the Gauntlet, especially since we're told Lambs are very carefully selected in order to be assigned a specific Angel, and for them to build a narrative. I could have been convinced to let this go if Inesa had been that compelling of a character. I will say I loved her backstory and the set up with her family, but backstory is only half the equation with character building. Melinoe truly wipes the floor with her in terms of character depth.

I won't even bother addressing the issue with animals "mutating" or whatever sort of unrealistic evolution they're going through. It's silly and took me out of the book with every mention.

Ultimately, this book suffered from some of the same issues that plagued Lady Macbeth in that a lot of the commentary feels very shallow. It's not as obvious as it was in Lady Macbeth, but it's very much still present. Not to mention the reason this rating is knocked so low for me: the ending.

It should also be noted that this book is missing the prose that sets Reid apart from other authors. It's very straightforward in a way we haven't seen from her yet. I'm sure this choice was a conscious part on the author's end, but it took away a large aspect of what I personally love to see from her.

As someone who has never read the Hunger Games series (I know, I know) I can't really say whether or not this book is a pale imitation or a good homage to it. It was a very easy and digestible read. I am trying to give grace when I can as this is a Young Adult novel, but from an author like Reid that is capable of much better, this was a swing and a miss.

I received a digital review copy from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

Fable for the End of the World is a Hunger Games-esque stand along dystopian novel following Inesa as she is chosen for the Gauntlet. In a world controlled by Caerus through its lower class citizens’ debt, Inesa works with her brother to make ends meet at their taxidermy shop. When Inesa is offered to the Gauntlet by her own mother, she must run and survive one of Caerus’s most deadly assassins, Melinoë. These assassins, called Angels, have been modified and reconditioned to become weapons. While trying to survive, Inesa wonders if her missing father really did find a place to live outside of Caerus’ control; and Melinoë questions her place amongst the Angels and wonders if she can do more than just kill.

This book took me back to middle and high school and I can only hope that perhaps dystopian novels come back. I enjoyed this book, but I am wondering if I would’ve enjoyed it more not as a standalone. I felt there was a lot I wanted to know about Caerus and how it started and I totally wanted Inesa to find somewhere else to live outside of Caerus’s control. But alas, that is basically the Hunger Games and I should just go reread that.

Thanks to NetGalley and Harper Collins for the preview. All opinions are my own.

4.5 stars

Wow! Ya know, I actually wasn’t sure I was going to be mentally able to read this at first; the echoes of everything going on in the world right now in this book were overwhelming. But then it just hooked me and I couldn’t put it down.

This is a love letter to The Hunger Games, and at the same time an indictment of the worst parts of our consumerist culture. It made me rage, made me sad, made me despair, and made me so emotional in general.
The sapphic longing/star crossed love story of hunter and prey was on point. Mel and Nesa were an amazing pairing.

This isn’t an easy or a happy book. But it makes you feel and it makes you think. And it pays a wonderful homage to a beloved series.
Highly recommend.

The author mentions being a fan of The Hunger Games, and I can really see it reflected a lot in this book. There is a clear divide between the rich and the poor depicted, and they have dehumanized one another because the gap has grown so wide.

Melinoë is a particularly interesting character because she comes from inside the wealthy "city" class, but is still a prisoner in her own way. I liked seeing her transition from the ruthless killer they want her to be to becoming more human and letting herself think and feel her own dreams.

The book was a bit darker than I was expecting at some points as well, there is a lot of undertones and even some blatant mentions of sexual abuse happening. I wasn't necessarily expecting that level of depth for a YA book, but I found it a pleasant surprise, the book does not shy away from difficult messages.

Although I did mostly enjoy this story because of the great character building and exciting premise, there were some parts I didn't love as much.

For one, I thought that the romance factor was a bit rushed. The Gauntlet takes place over only 13 days, and somehow Melinoë and Inesa go from trying to kill one another to falling in love in such a short time span. Despite the seemingly short timeline, it would have been almost believable if there had been even just a few more scenes between them before things turned romantic. I loved the progression of their relationship right up until their first kiss, and then it just felt way too accelerated for my taste.

In addition, the story does not end in a HEA for our two characters. I'm not usually a fan of books without a happy ending, although I can see why it would work for this story even if it's not my preference.

Overall, the book conceals some powerful messages beneath an exciting and queer love story. I am unsure if there will be another book, but I think there is potential for a lot more story for Melinoë and Inesa and would love to see more of them in the future. 4.1/5 stars.

Fable For The End of the World is a nod to the Hunger Games, the early 2010s dystopian genre, but with sapphic vibes. I love Ava Reid's bleak worldly description; of the Angels, the Wends, and even the Outliers.
The book is very intimate with its dual POV and can be very dark at times but I still enjoyed it for the most part.
Given the situation in which Inesa and Melinoe meet in, I wasn't really invested in their romance. I was more rooting for their own survival. People have to do what they gotta do in order to survive. I really liked the message the book was trying to convey.
The ending did have me question if it was truly a standalone but because of the nature of the book, it's actually very understandable why it was written that way.

Thank you so much Harper Collins for the ARC!

Ava Reid. I can't. I loved this. i am reeling. I am unwell.

This dystopian novel rings of a lesbian hunger games to me. I felt that it was clunky or slow at times but I truly devoured this book. Thank you for letting me into your world, Ava!

This was such an intriguing and accelerating read! I was completely invested in the plot, characters, and setting; everything about this book had me hooked. The story centers on Inesa, who is chosen as a sacrifice to settle her mother’s debt, and Melinoë, the assassin tasked with hunting her down. As Melinoë pursues Inesa across the wastelands, their paths cross in ways that kept me on edge.

From the moment I started reading, I felt easily transported into this dystopian world Ava Reid created. The world-building is vivid and immersive, and the dynamic between the two leads is both tense and captivating. The pacing kept me on the edge of my seat, balancing suspense, action, and emotional depth perfectly. If you love dystopian, atmospheric reads with morally complex characters, this book is for you!

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

I loved this! Fast-paced and so richly written. The author mentioned being inspired by The Hunger Games and that inspiration came through. I loved the characters and how clearly they were both trapped in the infrastructure of the world. Absolutely incredible! I'm recommending it to everyone I know.

*4.5

This book is so deep! The story is a little bit too dark for me, but it’s great. I like it a lot more than I expected, I was captured by all the themes and the substrates here.
I think I have to digest this story a little bit longer.

(ARC Review - thank you Netgalley!)
This book has such a compelling concept - it's sapphic dystopian Hunger Games, but the "tribute" - here called "Lambs" - are hunted by Cyberpunk'ed hot assassin girls - the "Angels". I found myself wanting to like it more, but there were some truly weird choices made in the world building that just didn't land in the way I think the author intended. It made it hard to trust the world or take it seriously, and it made a lot of the world seem half-baked conceptually (I'm sorry, but being a taxidermist when you can barely afford to survive makes absolutely no sense. And hunting the last remaining non-mutated animals to "preserve" them?? Is an absolute waste?? Why not ..idk, farm and breed them?).
A lot of this patchy world building made the first half of the book a bit of a struggle - I had to basically edit bits in my head to make the story make sense. Especially the moments that lead to our Lamb and Angel coming together, it was so quick/insta-lovey and the reasoning held together with string. One moment they are literally strangling each other, and the next they are like "well I guess we need to work together". I feel like this was missing a lot of the pressure and strain this kind of partnership deserved.

The last fourth or so of the book, though, nearly redeemed itself for me. The main characters fighting to survive and discovering more secrets to the world finally starts to feel compelling. ...and then the ending happens, which was not at all satisfying or logical. Bummer.

So overall, a cool concept with some entertainment value, but frustratingly falls flat in its world building. I do love Ava Reid's writing, but this isn't her best work.

I really liked this book overall. I have a soft spot for dystopian YA and I appreciated the call backs to books like the Hunger Games while still being a unique story with a unique world. The ending caught me by surprise but I like the direction the author took it. There was enough hope to keep the story from being bleak but not so much that it made the world u unrealistic. Overall, a very good book.

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.

A video review including this book will be on my Youtube channel in the coming weeks, @ChloeFrizzle.

Thanks to Netgalley and HarperCollins for a copy of this book. All opinions are my own.

The good: The premise of a sapphic dystopian novel had me excited. The beginning was a nice set up, and I liked the way that Reid introduced us to Inesa and her family. There were a lot of intriguing parts of this world, like the credit system and the role of Caerus. The romance had its moments, and I liked Melinoë and Inesa together. The enemies to lovers was fun to follow. I also enjoyed the way that Reid explored the reactions from the viewers and the themes of misogyny.

The not-so-good: I don’t know exactly what it was, but this book took me forever to get through. It felt slow and repetitive at times, and I did not feel invested. Maybe because it’s YA there were things that were left out and surface level? I’m not sure what felt like it was missing, but I needed more world building and background on how the world got to the point that it was in the book.

Thank you to the publisher and NetGalley for the ARC. All thoughts are my own!

Fable for the End of the World is an incredibly well written YA dystopian story about love, sacrifice, survival, and hope. (Very strong Hunger Games vibes).

Ava Reid is a tremendously talented storyteller. I thought the entire book's writing was so vivid, descriptive, and really pulled the reader in. I found myself truly immersed in the story and feeling connected to the two main characters, despite the setting being something straight out of my nightmares.

Some of the story's pacing felt off, and though much of the dystopian setting is discussed, I would have loved for it to have been explored in more depth. Though I thought the ending was fitting, I was disappointed because I still wanted more and had questions left unresolved.

Overall, it's a really great book! Would love if there was a sequel.

At the beginning of the book, we meet Inesa, who runs a taxidermy shop, in a town that is half sunken especially when it rains - for instance, Inesa has to take a boat home after her workday. Her brother Luka does the hunting for the taxidermy shop while Inesa does all the stuffing and selling to the rich. Due to all the climate issues and mutations of animals, owning a taxidermy natural animal is rare, which is why mostly only the rich come to the shop to buy things with their credits. In Caerus, a credit system is the way things are run and when people, typically the poor, end up with 5,000 or greater credits in debt then they must volunteer someone to the Gauntlet. The Gauntlet is an event live streamed where one of the Angels of Caerus hunts the volunteered person to kill them. Unfortunately for Inesa, her mother ends up putting her up for the Gauntlet as she has been secretly using credits and is now 5,000 in debt. The angel assigned to this Gauntlet is Melinoe, who has recently been undergoing work as her last gauntlet caused her quite the trauma.

Ava Reid my girl. This is where you have truly shined. This is a nod to all of us who grew up reading books like the Hunger Games, Divergent, and other dystopian 2010s novels. This book was definitely dark at times - I still remained hopeful through the well written characters (Melinoe def gives Finnick Odair vibes from Hunger Games). I'm curious if there is going to be another book because the ending was kind of bleak and I think there is still so much more to explore in this world. The only other Ava Reid book I've read is a Study In Drowning and while I liked that, this was definitely better.

See my review on goodreads linked below and I will post closer to publish date on my instagram account: @the.bookish.dietitian

Ava Reid has created a fantastic dystopian world that carries similar vibes to The Hunger Games trilogy and the Uglies series. I enjoyed the world building and getting to know each of the characters as the story progressed.

A YA sapphic dystopian romance that's a cross between "The Last of Us" and "The Hunger Games," and what what? Doth I detect a hint of influence from Taylor Swift's "Ivy" in here? Don't speak another word, I am IN!

Whew, what a ride. I absolutely loved this hauntingly beautiful dystopian fable that's about - honestly, it's about a lot of things. The dangers of corporatocracy, how late-stage capitalism has transformed human connection into a transactional hell, the ubiquitousness of social media giving rise to a toxic and dehumanizing culture of spectacle, memory as identity, the things we'll do or won't do to survive, the limits of familial bonds and community, and possibly Yin and Yang. But mainly it asks about love - whether or not, like survival, it can be enough.

The love that unfolds between Melinoe and Inesa is just so pure and simple and so heart-achingly happy-sad. As I read about them slowly falling for the other, I kept recalling what Hayao Miyazaki said about love: "True love is two people inspiring each other to live."

I thought both girls were very well developed characters, so when they finally got together, it just made so much sense. Reid's writing is, as always, a great balance between efficiency and poetry. The pacing was pretty balanced as well, perhaps a bit fast or maybe I am just a fast reader. The concept is not wholly original - a brutal televised game to punish the poor and their children in a dystopian world with such gaping wealth inequality, def have seen that before. A couple times, perhaps. But the author calls out these similarities in her address to readers at the start of the book, and Fable's Hunger Games fanfiction origin is no secret. I think it rather makes me enjoy it a bit more actually, knowing that the book intentionally plays in the same sandbox as Suzanne Collins' beloved dystopian series, drawing inspiration from it but endeavoring to deliver a different, maybe slightly smaller-scaled but equally powerful and inspiring message about queer love.

Wavering around 2.5 stars

I feel the need to preface that I very much admire Ava Reid as an author and human being, and appreciate the way she speaks out about issues in real life, including many of the issues and themes touched upon in this book. This is a fast-paced, YA story based in a dystopian landscape, with some relevant themes on corporate -government takeovers, climate change and environmental disaster. While I have some major beefs with this book (see the rest of this review), this may still be a good story for younger readers as an introduction to the dystopian genre, and I think there are some poignant moments and thoughts sprinkled throughout.

That said....I did not really enjoy this book. Even without seeing her notes on the inspirations, this is very obviously inspired by Hunger Games and I think the comparison lessens the impact of this book - it feels more like fanfiction than an original story in terms of plot points, background and characters.

Both Inesa and Melinoe have promise, but I feel like their character arcs stagnate as the book progresses. This characters feel a bit like the parodies of YA characters I've seen online before - "My name is Avocado Basket, and my parents are dead. I catch a glimpse of myself in the mirror and I have lush eyelashes and long hair, but I'm not beautiful". There is a lot of this sort of description - we are constantly reminded about how Melinoe is cold and calculating, the cool, calm, assassin, but nothing about what we learn here besides what we are told makes me believe that.

The relationship arc feels rushed - while I understand trauma bonding, these events take place over only a few days? Not nearly enough time to justify the way the relationship plays out, in my opinion. It again gives echoes of Katniss and Peeta, but in their case, they had known each other for years, if not well.

More nit-picky, but as wildlife biologist and evolutionary ecologist, I have major issues with the way Reid depicts and talks about the natural disasters and evolution of the forest animals. None of it makes any sense - I'm sorry, but deer cannot grow scales or webbed feet. At one point, Inesa finds a dead deer mutant, who's feet are "partly developed" - not how evolution or natural selection works. at. all. The world building feels lacking for a story that is supposed to be commentary on corporate development, pollution and climate change - was it climate change? was their nuclear war? The landmarks used in the story are real places in the US, but we have very little context for how they are positioned in this story. Why is New England an entire country? I'm not saying we need a full explainer (I hate infodumps), but it just feels like a disconnect.

Finally - this book is missing Reid's signature lush and thoughtful prose. I think in this case, the 1st person present tense does Reid no favors. While I can understand the reasoning of why that would be the choice, I feel like it stunts Reid's writing and doesn't let her play to her strengths as a writer.

Thank you to HarperCollins Books and NetGalley for an eARC of this story.