This was fantastic. I love everything Ava Reid writes and as soon as I saw this compared to the hunger games I knew I’d enjoy it. The characters were great and the dual POV worked really well. The story while inspired but the hunger games was still its own and very original. The writing style and language used was beautiful

This was very interesting, and I liked the characters and the social commentary on society.

However, that ending… not for me.

This feels like an homage to so many incredible dystopian books, and is so beautifully written. Some parts had me ugly-crying, and I adored Inesa and Melinoë so much.

Thank you so much Ava Reid - this was everything to me and more. Reid has been one of my favourite authors for a while now - I think I’d read a shopping list if that was the next book released.

Thank you so much to Netgalley, the publisher and the author for the arc. 🫶🏻

📖 Genre: Dystopian / Dark Sci-Fi / Sapphic Romance

🖋 Author: Ava Reid

⭐️ Rating: ★★★★☆ (4/5)

🔥 Tropes: Enemies-to-Lovers, Forced Survival, Cat-and-Mouse Chase, Corporate Dystopia, Morally Gray Characters


What happens when survival is a game, love is a liability, and the world itself is a cage?
Ava Reid’s Fable for the End of the World is a gritty, atmospheric dystopian tale that blends corporate control, brutal survival, and an achingly tender sapphic romance between two girls who should be mortal enemies.

If The Hunger Games and The Last of Us had a gorgeous, vicious, sapphic love child, this would be it.
We have:
✔️ A live-streamed bloodsport where debtors are hunted for sport.

✔️ A ruthless assassin who has never failed a kill.

✔️ A sharp-witted survivor who refuses to die quietly.

✔️ A slow-burn, high-stakes romance born from violence and desperation.

And at the centre of it all? A brutal, corporate-controlled world where the rich feast and the poor bleed.


Inesa and her brother have spent years scraping by, running a taxidermy shop in their half-sunken town, surviving the only way they know how. But survival isn’t enough when you’re drowning in debt.
Their mother—vain, cruel, and utterly selfish—has gambled away more than they can ever repay. And in a world ruled by Caerus, a monolithic corporation that controls every facet of life, unpaid debt isn’t just a burden.

It’s a death sentence.

Inesa’s mother sells her out to the Lamb’s Gauntlet, a live-streamed, corporate-sponsored manhunt where assassins—branded as entertainment icons, hunt down debtors for sport.

Enter Melinoë, the corporation’s most lethal and legendary killer.
She’s a flawless executioner, her body enhanced with cybernetic modifications, her mind fractured by years of neural reconditioning. Every kill is a performance, a necessary display of dominance to maintain the Caerus empire.
But there’s a problem.
She’s slipping.During her last Gauntlet, she hesitated.And in this one, something about Inesa unsettles her.

Inesa, despite being prey, doesn’t behave like prey.
She fights back.She outwits her, challenges her, taunts her and for the first time in Melinoë’s cold, controlled life, she begins to question everything.

As Inesa fights to stay alive and Melinoë wrestles with the ghost of her own humanity, their battle turns into something neither of them expected:
A connection.A chance at redemption, rebellion… and something terrifyingly close to love.

What I Loved: Dark, Thought-Provoking, and Addictive

✅ The Worldbuilding is Unnervingly Real – The world of Fable for the End of the World feels scarily plausible—a corporate-controlled dystopia where debt isn’t just financial ruin, but a literal death sentence. The live-streamed executions, the weaponisation of poverty, the way people have become desensitized to violence—it’s all hauntingly believable.

✅ Melinoë’s Inner Conflict is EVERYTHING – She’s cold, precise, deadly—and yet, beneath the assassin’s mask, she’s a broken girl desperately trying to survive her own mind. Watching her struggle between duty and conscience, violence and vulnerability, control and chaos was utterly gripping.

✅ Inesa is the Perfect Survivor – In a world that wants her dead, she refuses to just roll over and die. She’s tough, smart, and reckless, with a sharp wit and an even sharper survival instinct. She’s not just fighting for her life—she’s fighting for a future beyond survival.

✅ The Enemies-to-Lovers Tension? Off. The. Charts. – Inesa and Melinoë’s relationship is so charged with tension, violence, and unexpected tenderness that you can’t help but root for them, even as they try to kill each other. Their dynamic is intense, complex, and incredibly well-written.

✅ A Dystopian Love Story That Feels Earned – Nothing about their relationship is instantaneous or easy. There’s fear, hatred, grudging respect, and eventual trust, all unfolding against a backdrop of violence and desperation. And when feelings finally surface, it’s painfully beautiful.

What Could Have Been Better?

Melinoë’s Past Could Have Been Explored More – We get glimpses of her history, her trauma, and the brutal conditioning that made her a killer, but I wanted more. I wanted to fully drown in her memories, to feel the weight of her past in every decision she makes.


Read This If You Love…

✔️ Brutal, High-Stakes Dystopian Survival Stories

✔️ Enemies-to-Lovers with Intense Emotional and Physical Battles

✔️ Morally Gray Characters Struggling to Find Humanity

✔️ Sapphic Romance that Feels Earned, Not Rushed

✔️ A World that Feels Terrifyingly Possible


Ava Reid has crafted a dystopian tale that feels painfully real, filled with visceral action, deep emotional conflict, and a love story born from the ashes of violence.
It’s a fable worth remembering.

I didn't realise how much I missed the dystopian era until now. This book could be dark in some places, but I felt it emphasised that not everything is as it seems. Throughout the book, we are shown the importance of power and how quickly someone can go from being your saviour to your doom. Reid covers the topics of wealth, inequality, climate change, survival, and how greed can change people, which makes this book feel more realistic and relatable. The plot was gripping, and I was invested in New Amsterdam and finding out how this drowning city came to be.

The Gauntlet itself was intense and barbaric, but in all honesty, I felt it was tamer than The Hunger Games when you compare the fight between the Lambs and the Angels to the battle between the Tributes. How people are entered into the Gauntlet, however, is darker. In The Hunger Games, your name was essentially put in a hat, but you could put your name in more than once if you needed to exchange it for something else like food, supplies, etc. This affected your chances of being selected, but everyone was still entered so everyone was at risk. When you are selected for the Gauntlet, it's because you are being sacrificed in order to pay off your own debts or someone else's. Inesa's mother wracked up a high debt and was required to enter the Gauntlet in order to pay it off, or she could choose someone else to take her place. Offering your own child to be publicly slaughtered in order to pay a debt you accumulated due to sheer greed was upsetting to read about as I can't imagine being that desperate. It highlighted how people's greed and selfish desires can change them and cause them to lose part of their humanity.

Inesa did seem a little bland at the beginning, but as soon as the Gauntlet started, we began to see a different side of her and her strengths. Inesa and Melinoe's relationship is forbidden and unimaginable, which obviously adds to the tension between them. Their relationship did feel a little insta love, but considering how fast-paced the book, it was to be expected. As we follow them through a treacherous journey to survival, we learn more about Melinoe and what she went through, causing us to shift our point of view on who the enemy is.

I have rated it 4 ⭐️, but as it all sinks in, I'm torn between 4⭐️ and 3.5⭐️. I really enjoyed this book, and I felt it was a good introduction to Ava Reid's writing, but the ending! I was so heartbroken, slightly traumatised, and left wanting more. It didn't end the way I thought it would, and there would have been potential for a sequel. If I imagine a different ending, then it would be 5⭐️, but for now, it's sitting at a shaky 4⭐️.

If you want something similar to the Hunger Games that isn't as graphic or politically focused, then this book is for you. In this book, you'll find:
- Dual POV
- Enemies to Lovers
- Dystopian
- Forced Proximity
- Survival
- Sapphic Romance
- Hunger Games x The Last Of Us

A huge thank you to NetGalley and Random House UK for this arc.

We all do what we have to in order to survive." ... The law that governs all of nature. The law that can be used to justify anything, if you can twist and warp the words to fit.

Really enjoyed this book! I’ve read a few by this author and i think this one just might be my favourite to date.

A beautifully written homage to the greats of the dystopian genre, Fable for the End of the World is a standalone dystopian romance that truly did the genre justice. I’ve adored everything I’ve read so far from Ava Reid, and this newest title is no exception. They are quite the master of their craft in my opinion and I’m always excited to see what they release next.

I love the dystopian genre for the way it makes me feel and think, and it isn’t difficult to draw stark comparisons to the themes in Fable and our current social and political climate. I’ve always loved the way Ava Reid includes the subtle undertones of social commentary throughout their writing, and Fable is no different; we see a world ravaged by climate change and the people of the land desperately adjusting to these affects to just simply survive; the effects of chemical pollution on the land and it’s inhabitants; the effects of late-stage capitalism and the monopolisation of all areas within society by an oligarchy to have all of the population completely and totally dependent upon them; the purposeful dehumanisation of the lower classes so as to justify the mistreatment and abuse of them; and online spaces, anonymity in these spaces and the objectification of women, to note just a few.

Both Inesa and Melinoë were well written, and it was difficult not to root for them both equally; Inesa as a kindhearted, soft underdog thrust into the role of the Lamb through her mother’s faults, and Melinoë, perhaps not as thick skinned as she’s believed to be, with a need for redemption for past mistakes lest she suffer the dire consequences if she doesn’t succeed in her task. The chapters alternating between Inesa and Melinoë’s perspective helped set the pace for both characters and was utilised really well throughout. I love that the caring, soft, hopeful and compassionate tones of Inesa’s character were not written as her weaknesses or ‘downfall’, but rather her strength.

Of course, putting aside everything else, Fable is also a queer love story, and a necessary one at that. Inesa and Melinoë are entirely different but they each find safety and love within one another, and they do not allow the overwhelming danger to keep them from one another.

Whilst a standalone, this ending was quite open-ended and there were some loose ends, so I hope this was intentional to set up for a sequel. I need more of Inesa and Mel, and the side characters and subplots too

3.5 stars. Fable for the End of the World started very strong. I was instantly interested in this waterlogged drowning world.

The world building, the character relations and the social commentary are classic dystopian that feels very timely to today’s world:

- capitalism and debt
- corporate wealth and greed
- the horrors of developing technology
- corporate monopoly
- government surveillance
- access to health and social care

The beginning (and a bit towards the end) are the shining parts in this novel. Reid’s critique of capitalism mixed with her descriptive prose really paints a dystopian world I feel we’re not too far aware from. Truly, books like this need studying not banning.

But I felt it just maybe a tad too similar to The Hunger Games in tone to fully enjoy this as its own story. In other aspects it was also lacking, such as (and I cannot stress this enough), an utterly USELESS FMC that didn’t have one redeeming survival quality which just lead to multiple plot holes when you got to the crux of the plot. Because for this, I stopped caring about the outcome about 50% of the way through

I found the romance forced, almost shoe-horned in to the later second half in an attempt to keep readers interested because the main survival plot line started to fizzle out. However, this book is going to make queer teenagers very happy, and give them a shining ray of hope in this current shitty world.

The ending is a bit unconventional and I liked that. I like that it’s not predictable and a bit different. It’s not perfect, just like the world and the situation the characters find themselves living in.

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

Inesa and her brother live with their mother in a Drowning town where they are so careful not to fall into debt. They have recently seen first hand what happens to the 'Lambs' given up as a sacrifice when someone ends up on too much debt... they end up in the Gauntlet

Melinoé is an Angel, but don't let the name fool you, her whole purpose is to hunt the Lambs during the Gauntlet and make it as much of a show as possible

Inesa and Melinoé find themselves locked at opposite ends of a Gauntlet where Inesa is fighting for her life and Melinoé is fighting for her reputation and also her redemption in a way

But the past has a habit of not being so easy to push down, and in a turn of events neither could have expected, everything changes for them both... ..

I really enjoyed this book, gritty and harsh world where life is nothing more than an expendible payment plan and hard memories can be swept away, but at what cost

Dystopian books are a great love of mine but hard to do right and feel unique and this really does!

Thank you to NetGalley and DelRey for the review copy. Out now!

The author admits to being heavily inspired by the hunger games and wanting to write something similar to YA dystopian books she loves. She certainly did that well, I could see the influence in there from the corrupt government to starving families, from the barbaric gauntlet to the mutations, and the sibling love, vacant/terrible mother and lack of a father figure. It also had a lot of novelty like the currency system, and the effect climate change has had on the world which was a really interesting spin. Also the angels, beautiful girls who have been modified and trained into killing machines. While I liked this aspect, it really showed the brutality of this world, it’s also where I started to get lost. I’m not a fan of books that get too techy or sciency as I get lost and then disengage with the story and the angels were too high tech for me. As it’s dystopian which is science fiction I think many people drawn to this book will actually enjoy that element so it’s not a criticism just unfortunately that’s what made me lose interest. I will definitely be trying this authors fantasy books because I was liking the woodland setting and taxidermy

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

Ava Reid’s work is very beloved online, so I was very excited to dive into this one, especially with it being comped to the hunger games!

I will say that while the story sets up an intriguing world, the writing itself and the characters failed me. I’ve been having such a poor run with sapphic work lately and it’s very upsetting to find the trend continued here.

There was a lot of telling and the romance was quite rushed. Everyone is so enamored with enemies to lovers that as a trope it’s now ubiquitous! It is very unfortunate that writers aren’t giving those relationships time to progress in a believable manner. Romance is not an easy beast to slay!

Inesa and her brother are trying desperately to make ends meet, to always stay out of the red and never, ever, accumulate massive amounts of debt owed to the ruling corporation Caerus. But their mother, unbeknownst to them, already owes them, and the only way to pay the debt is to shove Inesa into one of Caerus’s murderous games.

Now, hunted and running for her life from one of Caerus’s assassins, Inesa must survive, and with help from her brother, maybe she can.

Told from dual POV, this really made me question social media and screen time, and just how easy it is to become desensitised to so much. That being said, it was a DNF for me at 60%.

A big thank you to Netgalley and del ray books for providing me with an eArc in exchange for an honest review

Ava Reid has once again created a masterpiece with her latest book; Fable for the end of the world.
Set in a dystopian future of earth where climate change has caused both humans and wildlife to adapt to their new environments. Water levels are high, the rain barely seems to end, the pink skies are caused by chemicals, animals have mutated and are out populating their original species, the people who try to live alone in the wilds away from society are feral and the general public answer to a big company for their needs through a credit system.

But what happens when to the people who are in debt to the organisations domineering this new world? The Lamb’s Gauntlet happens. This book truly is a heartfelt love letter to The Hunger Games, Reid crafts an atmospheric world with beautifully contrasting and conflicting characters but the domineering force amongst all the turmoil not only of earth’s state but the way humans now seem to treat each other is love.

Exploring the what should be impossible connections, where a girl named Melinoe (the hunter) who has been engineered and altered to surpass a human state and has been designed to be more like a literal killing machine, become conflicted when our “Lamb” Inesa seems to shutdown her so carefully curated systems designed to separate Mel from her human nature and be the killing machine the public love to watch be let loose for the hunt; kill whatever lamb has landed themselves in debt to the system. Oh and its televised.

Our “Lamb” Inesa has found herself hunted after she’s put up for The Lamb’s Gauntlet by her sponsor….her own mother who is in credit debt after frivolous needless spends; which will now be paid for with Inesa’s life. When a twist In the hunt means the hunter and hunted ed up needing each other, necessity turns into choice. And the two explore the depth of human (and machine) nature and connection; How it can be forged, destroyed, manipulated and transmuted from one thing to another. The love of two young women, love that might just change the world.

Ava Reid always has such a haunting aspect to her writing while simultaneously making it feel like you are dancing on top of words of poetry. The equivalent of honey and gravel in a mesmerising combination. As usual there aren’t enough words to do this book justice and I’ll ever be able to translate all that this book is through this review. All I ca say is to pick this book up and see for yourself. 2025 is the year of the dystopians. Thank you Ava for once again writing a book that has wriggled its way into my veins.

This book sits in a liminal space where it is simultaneously written to appeal to a sense of nostalgia for 2010s dystopian novels but also to capture a YA audience. Whilst adults can and should read YA books, this book feels somewhat like one of those books where it isn't going to hit as much if you are little further away from that target 14-18 y/o age range.

What Reid does well is evoke a very believable landscape of the world that we could be heading towards with climate disaster, rampant capitalism, nuclear disaster, etc. As I have aphantasia, I follow it challenging at times to get a sense of place as it seemed as if the environment was akin to somewhere like Venice where all transport was done via rafts but then the characters utilise a car so I think my sense of the terrain was a little shaky. This is also a book that very much taps into the dystopian archetypes with a large disparity between the haves and the have=nots, a televised gameshow where children are fighting for their lives, and even a somewhat bleak ending to the story. Whilst there is some originality, I couldn't get away from the sense that I was reading a fanfiction for Hunger Games where the serial numbers have been filed off. I really appreciate the fact that this is a sapphic story as it satisfies a real gap that I felt in the most popular 2010s dystopian stories although it is somewhat depressing that in this imagined future, homophobia is still very much the norm. There was a slightly strange moment at around the 85% mark where we have a long info dump of basic world building stuff that we had basically already discovered by the reading the book; this felt almost self-insert in the way that it seemed to be very unsubtly saying "look at what's happening in America right now, this is the future we're heading towards".

This is a book that I really wanted to love and I was excited to read but unfortunately it mostly fell flat for me largely because both of our leads felt very two-dimensional and I often felt as though I couldn't really get a read on who they were. It was refreshing that Inesa was kinda hopeless and her skills didn't really translate into things that would have allowed her to survive if it weren't for her alliance with Melinoe. I felt as though there was a lot of potential to Melinoe's character however I didn't feel as though her arc was executed as smoothly as I might have liked. It felt like a missed opportunity that her feelings around her future as a sex slave weren't given much time on-page. I think the intention with her character was that cracks in her facade of a heartless killer had started when she killed Sanne but it just didn't quite work? Honestly, so much of my dissatisfaction with this book can be summed-up by saying that it felt like a series of missed opportunities.

I think this is a book that will likely either really hit or be middle of the road for most readers and I genuinely think those in the target age audience or, ironically, those who are less familiar with books like Hunger Games will have a better time with this story.

This gives 2000s YA dystopia in the best way possible. It's genuinely like being bacxk in that peak hunger games era of reading. And yet this does a fresh twist and take on it all so it feels new and at times, all too relevent. We have dual POV here, and it's utilised in a way that actually really adds to the story which is incredible?

As ever with reid's characters, there is an underyling beauty and softness that is their real strength and she really crafts a character so well. And I feel that, in a time when it is becoming less and less to outwardly be yourself, their is strength in vulnerability here. Strength in being who you are. And strength to be found in being queer in a place that doesn't always accept you.

As previously said, yes this does feel like a homage to the hunger games, and it is a love letter to all that time brought us, but in its own fresh way. It takes inspiration but doesnt copy and that's a hard line to trace. But i think people who loved the hunger games back ion the day will find delights within the pages of this book.

As every dysopian novel is, it feels horrifying and 'how can a world descend to this level?' but there are always parallels, and links to our own world that make you pause, and Reid does this so well. It's little things that mirror society now but enough to make you relaise maybe the horror of it all isn't that far away. Some examples are more overt than others, but i feel with YA you need to make some things more obvious and literal so they aren't missed.

My only complaint is I wanted more. I'd have happily spent more time in the world.

Ava Reid has done it again. And by “it” I mean written another book that I love with my entire heart. Fable for the End of the World is a little different to the other books I’ve read by Reid, but her phenomenal writing still shines through as ever. I loved the dystopian setting and the sapphic enemies-to-lovers, the storyline was so interesting and it was all just executed so well. I’ll read anything Ava Reid writes, and this book shows exactly why!

Thank you Netgalley for the ARC.

Fable for the End of the World by Ava Reid was fantastic—sapphic romance meets The Hunger Games in a brutal, dystopian world.

This book honestly didn’t disappoint. I read it in two sittings, only because I was on a flight when I picked it up, but I could have easily devoured it in one. It’s probably the first dystopian I’ve read since 2014, and I’d forgotten just how much I miss this genre. Reid’s writing is so immersive, weaving a world that feels eerily possible, and the tension kept me hooked from the start.

We follow a dual POV: Inesa, who lives with her brother and a very questionable mother, and Melinoë, an assassin forged by the cruel society she serves. Melinoë’s job is to balance the debts of those who can’t pay under the ruthless point system controlled by Caerus, the corporation that dictates survival. Their paths inevitably collide, and what unfolds is a story laced with tension, survival, and the tiniest sliver of hope.

I loved the worldbuilding and the depth of the characters, but at times, the pacing felt a bit off. That said, the dynamic between Inesa and Melinoë carried the story, and the bleak yet beautiful storytelling left its mark.

Well, that was harrowing.

This was not in the same realm as anything that I've read from Ava Reid previously, but was just as gripping and atmospheric- albeit a very different type of atmosphere. The world that Reid lays out in the story is far into the future, yet retains just enough similarities to our. current world that I kept grappling with the uncomfortable question of "but is it actually that far into the future?" And I think that's what made the story work so well: the world is different enough to be dystopian, but retained just enough of familiar biases, misogyny, and "othering" to be extremely recognizable.

The story follows two women from the opposite ends of the world in which they live: Inesa -an Outlier, the oppressed, a cog in the wheels that keeps the corporate overlords rich and in control of New Amsterdam, the Lamb that must compete in a Hunger Games-esque televised show as the prey that will inevitably be killed for entertainment- and Melinoë -the predator, the tool of the corporate overlords, the hunter, the girl who has had her mind/body/limbs/psyche altered to turn her into the soulless killing machine. I must admit, I was a little skeptical during the first part of the book. I couldn't fathom how the reader was expected to forgive Melinoë, let alone root for her.

I'm not sure that everyone -or anyone- does end up on Melinoë's side. But I also don't think that it matters. The plot and themes that the story addresses are enough to keep you turning the pages. It's heartbreaking and infuriating and slightly terrifying. And it's brilliant.

My only qualm is that I did wish that the characters had been slightly older. I understand the decision to make them as young as they are, but I also think that the issues that are being addressed in the book could've gone a lot deeper had this been nudged into the New Adult category instead.

All in all, another phenomenal book from Ava Reid.

Rating: ⭐⭐⭐⭐

This is the perfect book for readers who crave a dystopian romantasy that pulls you into a world of survival, tension, and hope.

New Amsterdam is a dystopian society plagued by climate change, where mutations are rampant, and society is deeply divided. The Caerus corporation holds power, providing for the population, but at a steep cost. And when individuals fall into overwhelming debt, the corporation comes to collect. This collection comes in the form of the Gauntlet- a livestreamed event where people’s lives are the form of payment. In this deadly game, a genetically perfected assassin Angel is unleashed to hunt down and kill the chosen sacrificial Lamb.

With a unique dystopian setting, a fight for survival, and a forbidden enemies-to-lovers romance, this story weaves together in a way that will keep you hooked. It’s a fast-paced, high-stakes journey filled with moments of tension and the ultimate battle for survival.

Main Tropes:
🗡️Dystopian
🗡️Sapphic Romance
🗡️Duel POV
🗡️Forced Proximity
🗡️Enemies to Lovers
🗡️No spice (kissing/off page)

This story of survival follows Inesa, a lower class girl trying to provide for her family by running their taxidermy shop. But when her mother puts her name in the Gauntlet as payment for her medical bill debt, her world is ripped out from underneath her, and suddenly her life is a ticking clock. Melinoë, a trained and modified assassin is assigned to her demise, having thirteen days to hunt and kill her- all of which will be broadcast on live television.

The Gauntlet is a sadistic spectacle, eagerly tuned into by viewers on their TVs and tablets. With the help of her brother Luka, Inesa sets off with one thing on her mind- survival. It’s rare for a lamb to survive the Gauntlet, but there’s always hope, no matter how small. When the hunt begins, Inesa expects Melinoë to be nothing more than a cold, calculating killing machine, but soon discovers there may be more to her than meets the eye.

In world where it’s kill or be killed- what happens when you find yourself falling for the one who’s been sent to end your life?

Special thank you to Del Rey UK, for providing me with this ARC via NetGalley.