Fable For The End Of The World by Ava Reid Book Review

Fable For The End Of The World is a suitable title for this book. The definition of a fable is a short story with a moral or two, usually involving animals. It has a moral and some very interesting creatures, plus it’s a standalone. It also has the material to warrant a franchise or at least a sequel if Ava Reid chooses.

This book is described as The Last Of Us meets The Ballad of Songbirds & Snakes. The Last-Of-Us vibe comes from a ravaged world with most of the animals out in the wild carrying a deadly disease that makes them look all disfigured and prone to attack you. The Songbirds-and-Snakes vibe comes in the form of a special event that happens every once in a while called The Gauntlet.

This book bounces between two points of view; Inesa and Melinoe. Inesa ends up chosen as the prey, The Lamb if you will, and Melinoe is the cyborg Angel. The Gauntlet is an event that takes place in the dangerous woods, with drones and security cameras everywhere documenting the event. The games don’t end until either the Lamb or Angel are dead, and usually the Angel wins, because the Angel was created basically in a lab to be the perfect killing machine. And what Inesa does for a living is stuffing old non-infected animals in her little piece of nowhere in the flooded neighbourhoods of New Amsterdam, with her brother Luka and nagging bedridden mother. You know, taxidermy.

Inesa and Luka try to escape to a rumoured safe haven, trying to survive Melinoe’s onslaught, but something will happen to force the two girls into a sort of temporary truce. What it is and how I won’t spoil.

So, the book starts out a little cluttered and unfocused. It’s filled with background about Inesa’s job as a taxidermist and Melinoe’s superiors, and maybe too much exquisitely-framed exposition. This book is written very well, but it’s a lot to digest at the start.

And when the conflict begins, there’s an early scene that bugged me. Inesa and Melinoe are facing each other, and at different points, they each have a gun pointed at the other, and they both think about how pretty the other one is, even though they might be about to die by them. This gave me a sense of non-logic and instalove. Then, Melinoe almost strangles Inesa to death but falls unconscious (won’t spoil why) and Inesa and Luka decide to spare her because they don’t feel they can commit murder. This was a sense of non-logic and plot armor. I truly don’t think it would’ve been realistic for them to hesitate on killing someone who is very strong but miraculously at their mercy, whose mission it was to kill them, and who just tried to do so. And who would for all they know, try it again in the near future.

But eventually its rough start fades into the background enough when we actually get into the middle of the Gauntlet.

Despite what I just said about the insta-love atmosphere, the best part of the book by far ends up being the romance that develops between Inesa and Melinoe, which I guess is big spoilers, sorry. But even with the several relationships out there in entertainment medias, the two of them stand out for how sweet and real they gradually become to one another. Once they teamed up, I really rooted for them to find a way to escape the Gauntlet together.

The book then becomes a straightforward adventure, and it was enjoyable having them improvise shelters, find food, keep each other safe, and dream of the possible.

So what’s my score? In the end, Fable For The End Of The World is a book with good enough writing, thrills and romance by the halfway point to make you wish there were more. That’s the big thing. It has a smart look at its little dystopian world, and by the end, we don’t really want that to be it. Some stories are good enough on their own, but in my opinion, this one wasn’t. If we get a sequel, I’m in. For now, we get what we get.

My rating: 2 and a half stars out of 5