April has started and so far has been fairly calm. I’ve just finished the new Ava Reid book, A Fable for the End of the World. I really enjoyed it more than I have any book in awhile. The book is a sapphic dystopia with strong Hungry Games type vibes.
Synopsis
The story focuses on Inesa and Melinoë two young women both trapped in a corrupt system. This system is run by the Caerus corporation who encourages massive debt within the underclass of society. With the way people are reliant on them for everything Caerus has control of every aspect of society.
Inesa lives with her brother and mother in a half-sunken town. She and her brother scrape by running a taxidermy shop. They preserve the last of natural animals like deer, birds and squirrels. Most of the animals have turned into mutations. They are things that are toxic to eat and bear more aquatic features.
However while her and her brother are trying to get by. Their mother is running up debt to Caerus with unnecessary medical procedures and her own greed. There is only one way to get rid of your debt with Caerus. That is to sign a member of your family up for Caerus’ live streamed assassination spectacle called The Gauntlet.
This is exactly what Inesa’s mother has done to her. With the help of her brother Luka, she tries to fight back and get away. She assumes The Gauntlet will be a bloodbath at the hands of one of Caerus’s Angels.
The angels are taken from their parents as children. They are subjected to violent surgeries and changes to make them the perfect killing machines
Melinoë is an angel known for her cold brutality and deadly beauty. She is the product of many surgeries and mental conditioning. These have made her a living weapon, she not supposed to fail. Especially after she had a breakdown on her last live stream.
However Melinoë has a glitch, she got emotionally caught up in one of her assassinations. She is given one more shot by the angels mysterious handler Azrael. She must succeed on her next gauntlet. Or she will be decommissioned and given to a Caerus employee as their wife.
When Inesa learns she is up for a gauntlet she isn’t overly surprised. Her mother always favored her brother. While she at first despairs at her fate. Soon with the help of her brother and her years of practice surviving in the wilds around her home she starts to believe she might be able to come out of the gauntlet alive.
Things soon become complicated as both Melinoë and Inesa are cut off from Caerus’s cameras and their ever watching eyes. The two have to trust each other to survive and with that trust grows fondness. The two begin to wonder if there is more to the world than they have been told. Inesa wonders if she is capable of something other than just surviving. While Melinoë wonders whether she can do something other than just killing.
And against all odds the two wonder if they might be falling in love.
Review
Ava Reid builds an interesting and troubled world which is a perfect backdrop for this competition. The world is slowly being flooded. The part of the world that the story takes place in called New Amsterdam. New Amsterdam has harsh divides. There are differences between people living in the cities and those in the outlying counties.
These differences mostly focus on the people’s access to technology and safe resources. The city has plenty of technology and clean food and water. While the outlying counties are barely scraping by and have to survive on Caerus credit line. They also have to deal with irradiated food and mutations that dot the landscape.
Water seems to be a big theme for Reid. From what I’ve read of A Study in Drowning the influence of water and the power of nature both seem to be big themes. I find myself liking Fable for the End of the World better than A Study in Drowning. This is simply because it’s LGBTQ and the subject matter is less triggering. I will go back and give A Study in Drowning a shot though because I’m really enjoying this book.
I’d give this book four stars. It is the first book I’ve simply sped through in awhile. I liked the characters and their moral quandaries. I also like the overall vibes of the world, some of the mutations and the other creatures were especially interesting. The overarching question whether one human can make a difference in a dark world will stay with me for awhile. The only thing that kept it from being five stars was the ending. I didn’t personally like it, though it made sense for the world and characters.
Amazon: Fable for the End of the World
About the Author
Ava Reid was born in Manhattan and raised right across the Hudson River in Hoboken, New Jersey, but currently lives in Palo Alto. She has a degree in political science from Barnard College, focusing on religion and ethnonationalism.
Are you reading any new favorite books? Let me know in the comments what you are working on currently.
Happy Reading
Solara
Image by Robert Balog from Pixabay
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