Fable by Adrienne Young

DNF @ p.56

Practically all of my friends were singing this book's praises, so I was so happy when I was given an ARC of my own. But then as soon as I cracked open the book, I got a sinking feeling. I even put off reading the book and writing my review, despite my early copy, because contrary to popular belief, it doesn't really feel that great to be the only prominent one-star for a book that everyone loves. Not just on a guilty, personal level, but because people tend to come for you, and demand that you explain yourself further.

Which brings me to two crucial points:

1) I do not "down-rate" books simply because it's popular to go against the grain. I am always honest. If I like a book, I rate accordingly and say why. If I hate a book, I rate accordingly and say why. If I truly feel that I am so biased towards an author that I am unwilling to rate and review their books fairly, I will not touch their books at all. I find it incredibly presumptuous and, frankly, insulting, that people imply I'm such a whore for votes that I would lie about my thoughts.

2) I rate my DNF books because I usually know within the first 10-20 pages what rating I'm going to give a book, and I think if a book is so bad for a reviewer that they're unable to finish it, they should be able to rate it accordingly. I'm not here to pay fan service to authors. I'm here, as a reviewer, to read books and write honest reviews for them. Life is short, and this whole "you must read the book to the end or you're a trash person" philosophy some of you have is not only ridiculous, it's a waste of time. Why force yourself to finish things you're not enjoying? You're wasting precious hours you could be spending on better books.

/rant over

Anyway, FABLE fell short for me for several reasons. The biggest, and most unforgivable, reason is that it's boring. Nothing about the world or the characters drew me in. I looked at some of the negative reviews for this book before posting mine to see if it got better, or if it was worth continuing, and none of them seemed to think so. In fact, I agreed with all of their opinions, and the ones who pressed on seemed to regret it. I went into FABLE expecting a girl power story of rising against the patriarchy, but it's just another basic fantasy story with minimal world-building about a girl we're all supposed to believe as special without any sorts of complexities to actually build that cred.

Thanks to the publisher for sending me a copy in exchange for an honest review! 

1 out of 5 stars