I received this book for free from Publisher in exchange for an honest review. This does not affect my opinion of the book or the content of my review.

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.

Short and Sweet Review

Inesa lives in a half sunken town where she works at a taxidermy shop with her brother and they barely make ends meet. Unbeknownst to them their mother has them in the red and that means they’re going to need to pay it back and to do that she enrolled Inesa to be in the gauntlet. The gauntlet is almost impossible to survive but with her brothers help Inesa thinks she has a chance. Caerus is a corporation that controls all aspects of society and they’re the ones who made the gauntlet. Each gauntlet has an Angel the one responsible for hunting down the lamb. Melinoë is the angel for this gauntlet and she’s a trained assassin and she was trained to hunt down and kill the lambs. The last gauntlet didn’t go well for Melinoë and she’s still haunted by what happened and no matter how many memory wipes she gets she can still remember. When the gauntlet starts its a normal game of cat and mouse but due to certain circumstances the girls start to work together and might even be falling for each other.

Fable for the End of the World was almost like The Hunger Games but very unique. We have people who owe debts end up sacrificing their loved ones into the gauntlet which is exactly what happens to our main character Inesa. Inesa and her family aren’t well off. Inesa works at the taxidermy shop and her brother does the hunting, their mother thinks something is wrong with her health and spends a majority of the money which is why the family is in the red. Inesa was a good character more often than not she would roll with the punches and try to make the best of certain situations. I do feel bad that she had no choice in the decision and she was basically thrown to the wolves. Melinoë is our hunter and in the last gauntlet she ended up killing the lamb but it was in a way that made everyone watching the stream hate her. I thought Melinoë was an interesting character because she was made to kill but you could tell she has feelings and the one that came across the most was remorse. What I thought was interesting was that this gauntlet wasn’t confined to a space Inesa could run to where ever she wanted or she could stay and fight but her tactic was to run and survive. The wastelands where the girls are was interesting because we see creatures that have been mutated that are after both of them and that’s how the girls end up working together, they also think the cameras are off. I liked the romance, they didn’t just jump in but it was a slow burn and I think they helped each other especially when sharing their perspectives on life. The most captivating thing about this book was the world and the plot and just seeing Inesa and Melinoë navigate their circumstances.

Overall, I really liked this book and couldn’t put it down as I was invested in these characters and what was going to happen next. I will say I don’t like endings that are open to reader interpretation but in my head it was a happy ending. If you’re looking for a dystopian novel thats reminiscent of YA dystopians that came out in the early 2010s but is also very unique, add this book to your TBR!