Fable For The End Of The World

*Libro.FM ALC Review *

Fable For The End Of The World By Ava Reid

Inesa, one of our main characters, grew up on the rough side of town. Her family struggles to make ends meet. With a younger brother, Luca, a mom who’s cold and distant toward her, and a dad who has disappeared. Her mom constantly thinks she’s sick and takes on debit, trying to live a life she feels she deserves.

Melinoe (Mel) is our other main character, but her background is shrouded in mystery. She was taken by the government at the age of 8 and turned into an “Angel”—a cold-blooded assassin working for Caerus, the powerful corporation that controls the country. Her memories and emotions have been wiped clean, leaving her as a weapon without a past.

The world they live in is dystopian and brutal. Imagine if The Hunger Games and The Last of Us collided: food is scarce, animals and water are contaminated, and society operates on a credit system. If someone racks up enough debt, they’re thrown into a deadly gauntlet where they must face an Angel in a fight to the death. These “lambs” can sometimes sponsor someone else, often a vulnerable family member, to take their place. The gauntlets are televised for entertainment, with the public eagerly watching as these lambs are led to slaughter—because no one can survive against an Angel 😱.

Inesa’s mom hits the debt limit and, without hesitation, sponsors Inesa for the gauntlet. Mel is chosen as her Angel opponent.

But things don’t go as expected. During their fight, something changes, and Inesa and Mel are forced to team up to survive outside the city. As they struggle to stay alive, they begin to see each other in a new light, shattering their preconceived notions about each other’s class and background. As their bond deepens, they develop feelings for one another.

The danger ramps up when Caerus find them using mechanical dogs. Mel decides to kill the dogs to protect Inesa, but when she reconnects with Caerus’s mainframe, she discovers that the corporation has been monitoring them this entire time—thinking they were lost. Caerus is threatening both Inesa and Mel now.

Inesa remembers a place her dad once mentioned—an off-the-grid refuge where people can escape the corporation’s grip. Together, she and Mel set off to find it, but what they find at the end of their journey isn’t what they expected. The final climax is packed with everything you’d want: a battle against the evil corporation, betrayal, action, and death. The ending is optimistic, but it’s also uncertain, leaving readers wondering what the future hold for both Inesa and Mel.

What stands out about Fable For The End Of The World is how closely it mirrors our real world. The themes of rampant consumerism, the power of corporations, and the way they manipulate society into submission feel all too familiar. It’s a reminder of the dangers of unchecked corporate control and how easily people can be brainwashed into accepting a distorted version of reality.

Rating: ⭐⭐⭐⭐
Spice Level: n/a

Blurb:

The Last of Us meets The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes in this standalone dystopian romance about survival, sacrifice, and love that risks everything.

By encouraging massive accumulations of debt from its underclass, a single corporation, Caerus, controls all aspects of society.

Inesa lives with her brother in a half-sunken town where they scrape by running a taxidermy shop. Unbeknownst to Inesa, their cruel and indolent mother has accrued an enormous debt—enough to qualify one of her children for Caerus’s livestreamed assassination spectacle: the Lamb’s Gauntlet.

Melinoë is a Caerus assassin, trained to track and kill the sacrificial Lambs. The product of neural reconditioning and physiological alteration, she is a living weapon, known for her cold brutality and deadly beauty. She has never failed to assassinate one of her marks.

When Inesa learns that her mother has offered her as a sacrifice, at first she despairs—the Gauntlet is always a bloodbath for the impoverished debtors. But she’s had years of practice surviving in the apocalyptic wastes, and with the help of her hunter brother, she might stand a chance of staying alive.

For Melinoë, this is a game she can’t afford to lose. Despite her reputation for mercilessness, she is haunted by painful flashbacks. After her last Gauntlet, where she broke down on livestream, she desperately needs redemption.

As Mel pursues Inesa across the wasteland, both girls begin to question everything: Inesa wonders if there’s more to life than survival, while Mel wonders if she’s capable of more than killing.

And both wonder if, against all odds, they might be falling in love.