Fable Book Review

Fable
By Adrienne Young
Genre: YA Fiction/Fantasy
Recommended For: Ages 16+, Sea Adventurers and Treasure Seekers

For seventeen-year-old Fable, the daughter of the most powerful trader in the Narrows, the sea is the only home she has ever known. It’s been four years since the night she watched her mother drown during an unforgiving storm. The next day her father abandoned her on a legendary island filled with thieves and little food. To survive she must keep to herself, learn to trust no one, and rely on the unique skills her mother taught her. The only thing that keeps her going is the goal of getting off the island, finding her father, and demanding her rightful place beside him and his crew. To do so Fable enlists the help of a young trader named West to get her off the island and across the Narrows to her father.

But her father’s rivalries and the dangers of his trading enterprise have only multiplied since she last saw him, and Fable soon finds that West isn’t who he seems. Together, they will have to survive more than the treacherous storms that haunt the Narrows if they’re going to stay alive.

Synopsis

The Hit List:

Well-crafted, vivid introduction to a beautiful, yet complicated world
Love story that slowly develops (no insta-love)
Nuanced portrayal of different types of relationships between people
A story of perseverance in hope
Fast-paced and full of adventure

The Review:

What an amazing story. As soon as I finished reading Fable, I recommended it to all my friends who love to read. I wouldn’t shut up about it because IT’S SO GOOD. Most of the story takes place on the sea, and when they aren’t on the water, they are navigating the tricky environment of the vicious traders in port cities. Right from the beginning we meet a fierce female protagonist who not only knows how to survive, but how to hope for better things and fight for them. She intelligent, strong, brave and vulnerable all at the same time. Young’s writing style is subtle and grows with each turning page. She has created a vibrant world and mixed it with dynamic characters, a beautiful love story, and rising action to make a truly incredible book.

By far the thing that struck me the most was the expert-level world building in Fable. I had such a clear picture of life on the sea and in the port cities. What it looked like, how the people acted, what the culture was like. And I loved how she created a multi-faceted world: one with both beauty and harshness. She masterfully avoided the dreaded info dumps by organically dropping in details of the world through the experiences and observations of Fable, the protagonist. The aesthetic she described was breath-taking. Vivid descriptions that included all five senses. She was informative in an exciting way and without being burdensome or dragging the pace down.

One of my biggest pet peeves in young adult novels in instant love. Too many stories have main characters fall in love too quickly leaving me with zero excitement about them as a couple. Not so with Fable. First of all, from the beginning we learn Fable and her love interest have known each other for years. Moving forward, their journey together is peppered with moments where they get to know each other and slowly peel back the layers they use to conceal themselves from the world. It’s a beautiful, organic, blossoming relationship, the kind that makes me giddy inside and squeal at multiple points throughout the book.

There are so many parts of writing craft that Young shows talent it. One of her strongest in my opinion is the way she writes different relationships between people. Whether it’s between family, friends or love interests, Young shows a delicate nuance between heart-warming moments, suspicion, heartbreak and revelations using dialogue and action in ways that always felt natural and realistic.

In so many ways I think the theme of this book is hope, and no one displayed that better than the protagonist, Fable. I love a book where the characters do stuff and move the plot forward with their actions and clearly convey a deep and rich theme, like this one. The reactions Fable has to her circumstances or events around her are what inspire hope in the reader. And Fable isn’t a perfect characters. Her imperfections, her mistakes, her misunderstandings, those are what make her relatable. Perfect characters are a little annoying, no? I was never annoyed by Fable. Her strengths and weaknesses were well balanced, realistic, and a driver in the plot.

And it’s not just Fable I fell in love with. Young does an admirable job of introducing us to the crew and giving them unique personalities that make them a good team and endear you to them. West, probably the second most prominent character in the book, is also multi-layered and quite interesting to get to know. And I was enthralled by the way Young made characters who don’t make an appearance in the story all that much, still have this overshadowing presence over nearly everything that happens in Fable’s life.

Pace is something I’m constantly looking at in books. While some in similar settings would fall prey to slow beginnings due to world building, Fable was fast-paced throughout in my experience. within the first 50 pages I was drawn in and telling friends how much I already loved this book.

There are so many reasons to love Fable. It’s technically labeled as fantasy on other sites I’ve seen, but know that if there is magic in it, it’s so subtle even I had a hard time seeing it. But don’t worry, the world Young has created was more than enough magic for me. This is a book that will become a frequent recommendation for me.