Common Sense Media Review
By Carrie R. Wheadon
,
based on child development research. How do we rate?
Great Hunger Games-like tale of climate change, queer love.
Parents Need to Know
Why Age 14+?
Any Positive Content?
Where to Read
What's the Story?
In FABLE FOR THE END OF THE WORLD, Inesa survives in the flooded town of Esopus on meager earnings from her taxidermy shop. Most animals have mutated due to nuclear radiation and adaptations for sea rise. Inesa preserves the animals that are left for customers who want to recall their true forms. When a man comes in with his daughter instead of a stag for stuffing, begging at least to be given the chemicals to preserve her, Inesa is both horrified and horribly sad for him. His daughter died to pay his debts in the Gauntlet, a contest streamed across the country that pits victims, or Lambs, against Angels: technologically enhanced trained killers who are also gorgeous young women. Inesa can't imagine such a fate. She and her brother, Luka, are so careful with their meager earnings. But Inesa's mentally ill mother is not so careful, and soon Caerus, the corporate-run government, comes calling. After Inesa is implanted with a tracker, she's given a two-day head start and 13 days to fend off Melinoe, one of Caerus' stunning assassins.
Is It Any Good?
This dystopian tale may remind you strongly of the Hunger Games series, but it has its own fascinating and thought-provoking corporate-greed, climate change, lesbian romance spin. It feels like a cross between Hunger Games and the last Ugly series novel, Specials, because the Pretties in this story—Angels—have also been enhanced with fighting tech, including a mechanical eyeball with night vision. A super-girl soldier is also the main character in the ultra-popular Shatter Me series. And as far as envisioning life after sea level rise, there's Into the Sunken City. These ideas all come together in Fable for the End of the World under the corrupt corporate umbrella of Caerus. More could have been divulged about these overlords who prey on the poor, but there's something about them as nearly faceless (we encounter a few slimy execs briefly) that makes their power more sinister.
But this spectacle is all about the Gauntlet, and disgust with a culture that devours real murders as entertainment and pretends to give girls power and then strips it away again. How can love prevail in such a scenario? With a romance between 17-year-old girls rather than a boy-girl couple, there's an even greater sense that finally, however briefly, misogyny holds no power over them. We're left aching for a different world for the couple while examining where our own world is headed, which is the mark of truly good science fiction.
Talk to Your Kids About ...
Families can talk about the Gauntlet as entertainment in Fable for the End of the World. Why are most citizens so drawn to this lethal hunt? Is there any reality TV you watch where contestants are hurt or scorned? Would reality TV be interesting without an element of competition or negativity toward participants? Where do you think the line is between competition and cruelty?
Melinoe is supposed to be a trained killing machine with no humanity left. When does she start to show empathy for Inesa? Why is Inesa's compassion for others shown as a weakness in her world? When is it a strength?
Melinoe is given physical power as a trained killer while her memories and rights are stripped from her. In what other ways is power taken from women and girls in this corporate-led society? Can you imagine a corporate-run world that isn't misogynistic? Why, or why not?
Book Details
- Author :
- Genre : Science Fiction
- Topics : Adventures , Family Stories ( Siblings ) , Robots , STEM , Animals ( Wild Animals )
- Character Strengths : Courage , Empathy , Perseverance , Teamwork
- Book type : Fiction
- Publisher : HarperCollins Publishers
- Publication date : March 4, 2025
- Publisher's recommended age(s) : 14 - 17
- Number of pages : 384
- Available on : Audiobook (unabridged), Hardback, Apple Books, Kindle
- Award : Common Sense Selection
- Last updated : September 18, 2025
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