My letter F pick for my 2022 A to Z challenge was Fable by Adrienne Young, a book I’ve been meaning to read for a good, long while. If you love pirate-type adventurous YA with a mystical, magical feel (though there’s only the faintest touch of anything like magic), Fable, and it’s sequel, Namesake are the books for you.

This book has an outrageously stunning cover, rich and masterful world-building, and vibrant characters woven together so beautifully, I swear I could smell the salt in the air and hear sails rippling in the background. The plot in the first book was intricate and kept me guessing. The second book, not so much, but it was still entertaining nevertheless.

Fable, the main character is compelling and fierce and I loved her, but her relationship to her love interest sort of came out of nowhere, with no real background to show us how they developed their attachment. It just suddenly appeared and oh yeah, by the way, we’ve both loved each other all this time and here’s my grand declaration a handful of pages after our first kiss. It was honestly the only thing in this tale that didn’t quite work for me, but it didn’t ruin the books.

I started this on audiobook, but quickly switched to print because the narrator, while competent, was a totally wrong pick for this story. Her happy-perky voice style is better suited to children’s books and insurance commercials than this gritty tale of a girl struggling against a terrible past and an uncertain future. It was jarring enough that I had to bail on the audiobook.

I’m giving Fable (and its sequel, Namesake) a solid four stars.