I loved this. It was slowed paced for at least the first half but that didn't effect my enjoyment.

Sylah may have her flaws and issues but I loved her. Seeing her journey and struggle with drug addiction. The strength she has to power through and try help others.
Hassa may actually be my favourite character. I just wanted to hug and protect her at times. I need a novella dedicated to her.

The training for the trials were interesting to read. Learning about the skills and powers needed to get through each one.
We spent enough time with each trial to learn more about the world and how they do things. But didn't feel filler at all.

This story was rich in detail without ever feeling too info dumpy. I never found myself confused or overwhelmed with information.

This is the opening to a brutal fantasy trilogy with dystopian elements. exploring some dark themes such as addiction, grief and oppression.

I didn't like is how slow it was, and really struggled to get into it, theres a lot of exposition and for someone with ADHD like myself it can be difficult to enjoy.

Thank you so much to Netgalley for providing me with a copy of this!
I really enjoyed this! The plot and the world building clearly was very well thought out, although it did take me some time to really be hooked. However the characters were very well written and engaging! Both Sylah and Anoor were well developed and interesting characters. Overall a solid debut and I’m excited to see how this world expands.

would like to thank netgalley and the publishers for letting me read this epic book

have to admit to struggling at first in getting into this book but i was soon caught up in the drama of it all... there was so much going on but i soon caught up and just went with the flow of it all

red blood, blue bloods and the non coloured bloods all have a part to play in this story some are down trodden and ill treated with their tongues and hands cut off for a discretion that happened years ago...

a cuckoo in the nest was planned... 10 children were replaced with the hopes that they would bring the uprising that was needed but only two survived to enter but betrayals would happen, who would be their allies....

oh my word a long book but one that had me hooked

Great representative of SSF.
F+F enemies to lovers trope.
Northern Africa/Arabic setting.
Has got some elements from "The hunger games".

4.5

Thank you to Netgalley and the publisher for providing me with a free eARC in exchange for an honest review!

Saara El-Arifi has solidified herself in just her debut as an incredibly talented author. To be able to handle such a complex, vast world with such care and deliberation is not something many seasoned authors can do, and to accomplish it in her debut novel? Outstanding. Despite the incredibly rich and complex worldbuilding, it was still easy to digest and grasp an understanding of. Storytelling aspects are interwoven throughout the book, which, rather than bringing you out of the immersion, are actually a refreshing change of pace to the main plot and added so much depth to the world.

Don't get me wrong, there are very heavy and brutal topics dealt with in here including enslavement, colonisation, enslavement, drug addiction, murder, etc., and nothing was shied away from. I felt like it was all dealt with so realistically and just really well done. But there's also a lovely contrast in that gender and sexuality were not something that these characters had to fight to have freedom over, they just were, and that was so nice to see!

The characters are very well-rounded and complicated, and flawed. They felt incredibly real and were all so easily distinguishable from one another. I loved them all, you can't help but root for our three main girls, Sylah, Anoor and Hassa. Honestly I felt like I was watching a movie while reading this, I could picture everything and everyone so clearly and I didn't want it to be over.

I'm very intrigued to see where this story goes. I wasn't completely taken in by the actual plot of the book; the tournament almost felt like filler while the real intrigue occurred in discovering the world and culture and all of the secrets that have been hidden from this society for over 400 years. But I cannot wait to read the next one as the world is expanded and we learn so much more!

Wow. What a fantastic book. Easily the best fantasy novel I've read in the past few years. Saara El-Arifi builds a breathtaking world with roots in Africa, complete with a vibrant landscape and history, and a host of diverse characters. All of this with zero pandering to white readers. Go Saara!

I particularly enjoyed the casual way that diversity is baked in. There were a few places where I was unconvinced by the logic, or didn't understand why someone did something, but that takes away nothing from this stunning debut. The only major complaint I have is that the book finished abruptly—or I had a few pages missing from my file.

I'm staying tuned for book 2.

(Review copy from NetGalley)

The Final Strife is set in a fantasy world where the colour of your blood decides your path in life. Sylah is a drug addict, battling with the demons of her past and doing all she can to forget her past. Anoor the daughter of the warden of strength who has no chance of ever following in her mothers footsteps. There's a FF enemies to lovers romance with a sunshine/grumpy one!

The world building and mythology is second to none in this novel. The savage world that the MC's live in is built around you as you read. The characters are amazing and strong.

The plot took a long while to get going, and parts of this felt a bit predictable. The second half of this book really picked up and became enjoyable.

This was an incredibly strong and absorbing start to a new fantasy trilogy and I can't wait to see how this series continues.

Thank you so much to the publishers and Netgalley for an ARC in return for an honest review.

Thank you to HarperCollins UK for the ARC in exchange for an honest review.

First off, let me just say that The Final Strife has had so much hype surrounding it and, sometimes, when a book is this hyped, it fails to meet expectations. Not so in this case – The Final Strife not only met those expectations but exceeded them. It was every bit as great as everyone has been saying, if not more so.

The basics before my review – the empire is ruled by red-blooded Embers, who hold all the power. Blue-blooded dusters are the workers, the poor. Clear-blooded Ghostings are the servants, the invisible.

This book, the first in a trilogy, follows Sylah, a red-blooded Ember stolen by blue-blooded Dusters when she was a baby and raised to infiltrate the Ember ranks and bring the empire down.

Anoor, a blue-blooded Duster left behind as a decoy when the Ember children were stolen, brought up in the Ember world, in their privilege, but always less than.

Hassa, a Ghosting who is used to being invisible and uses this to her advantage.

Sylah, stolen by Dusters, was destined to win the Aktibar, the trials that take place every ten years to find the next Ember rulers of the Empire (Wardens), and become Warden of Strength. Taken by the Dusters as a child, they raised her to win, until her entire adopted family were murdered. Six years later, Sylah is a completely different person, without a cause, without hope, and she has turned to Joba Seeds, an addictive drug. She lives day by day, always looking for her next fix.

Anoor, a Duster child left behind as a decoy when the Ember children were stolen, has lived her entire life knowing she is different, that she needs to hide who she is. And it’s not easy being a Duster when your “mother” is the Disciple of Strength, soon to become Warden of Strength. When Anoor crosses paths with Sylah, she decides to enter the Akitbar herself and prove everyone wrong – Anoor wants to create change from within, but to win the Aktibar, she needs Sylah’s help.

Then we have Hassa, a Ghosting servant and friend of Sylah, who’s status renders her all but invisible to Embers. Hassa uses this to her advantage, gaining work in the heart of the Ember’s home, gathering information to help other Ghostings.

Can all three work together to bring change to the Empire? Is there more going on beneath the surface? Will their differences destroy everything?

The Final Strife is the debut novel by Saara El-Arifi, and it’s hard to believe this is her debut it’s that good. This reads like a seasoned pro. The world building in this book is incredible – some books pile information upon information on the reader and it makes it difficult to fully immerse yourself in the story. That wasn’t the case here – the Empire was intricately woven and built-up for the reader, without detracting from the narrative as a whole. It left you with a deep understanding of the world, but you were fully immersed at the same time.

The characters are fully fleshed out, with POVs from Sylah, Anoor, and Hassa driving the story. You really get a feel for each of these characters and their relation to this world, and this helps drive the narrative throughout. When these three characters interact with each other, it’s funny, irritating, emotional – you really feel what the characters feel in their interactions.

There are a host of side characters, some you’ll love, some not so much, but all incredibly written. Plus, this is book full of diverse characters, which is amazing.

Then there is the plot – this was exciting throughout, full of action, full of intrigue, full of politics and history. I can’t say too much without giving things away, but the plot sweeps you along for the ride, it never falters (surprising given this is a 600+ page book!). You are hooked for every page and the reveals are shocking when they come.

It perfectly sets up for Book Two, and I am so excited to see what happens and where these characters go from here.

Thank you Netgalley and publisher for the eARC in exchange for an honest review.
The Final Strife, is an epic fantasy based around three POVs, Sylah a red-blooded Ember, stolen as a child by the fabled Sandstorm, to help bring down the empire. Anoor a blue-blooded Duster, replaced in the cradle to the stolen Ember, and Hassa, a clear blooded Ghosting, the dredges of the empire, hands, and tongue cut off at birth to keep them silent and weak.
There are so many themes in this book, love, loss, addiction, revenge, and racism all set in an immense fantasy world. The world-building was vivid and rich, and while it does follow the age-old assassin, enemies to lover’s trope, this book does it with ease. The plot followed smoothly and had lots of twists and revelations which I didn’t see coming. I loved the character of Sylah, she was just so beautifully flawed, hard, edgy, and suffering from extreme loss and addiction.
I absolutely loved this book, and couldn’t put it down, I will definitely be buying this when it's released, and I can’t wait for the next instalment.

Thank you for letting me read the advance copy of this book, it really was worth the time I took to read. Although there were some rather brutal and visceral episodes in this book, they were there for a reason and were acceptable within the context of the narrative. The characters were well developed and fleshed out and the story immersive. Once I started it was difficult to stop. Can I have the next in the series now please ?

No one is more disappointed at this result than me. And I mean that. The Final Strife starts explosively, with a flawed and fractured heroine who has lost purpose.
But then loses momentum faster than it gained it until I had to force myself to read.

I've explored what exactly in The Final Strife irks me, but this is quite a personal interpretation, so take it with a grain of salt.

Let's first see what went well.

El-Arifi has built a vivid and intricate world, complete with its caste systems, natural changes and social structures. Her writing makes the world come to life in front of me and that is so incredibly rare.
The first few chapters are really strong, with an explosive opening image establishing the core concepts of the society we will be seeing along with the themes. The thematic exploration of caste, and society is very good but for an issue that brought this book down to two stars for me.

Now for what went wrong
Characterization was flatter than flat earth theories. There seems to be only one defining character to Sylah, our main character, and that is her anger. I wanted someone more complicated than someone who is just incredibly angry all the time, and feels nothing else.

The supporting characters too seem to be archetypes instead of fully fleshed out people. Jond is probably one of the most bland characters I've read and there was absolutely zero chemistry between Sylah and Jond. While I liked Hassa and Anoor, Anoor's chapters were always tainted with rampant fatphobia and Hassa's with ableism but I felt that the book failed to address either of this at all.

While the themes El Arifi has tried to explore are commendable, I despise the tool and the angle she has chosen.

There will be spoilers from this point onwards.
The book explores race and caste privilege through the medium of blood. Sylah and Jond are red upper caste who were stolen at birth and raised by the rebellion to overthrow the castes. Here lies the first issue. Sylah is able to cast off any and all of her disadvantages of being raised as a oppressed race simply by showing her blood. So how could she be the savior of the people her caste oppresses? I feel that Anoor or Hassa would have been much better protagonists than focusing on Sylah.

I has high hopes for The Final Strife but they were dashed quickly.

3.75/5
Thank you Netgalley and HarperCollins for providing this e-arc in exchange for an honest review.
Overall I did enjoy this book, however it definitely felt like it was all set-up for the story to come in the following books. My main grievances with the story came from this fact. The main plotline didn't intrigue me nearly as much as the plots we begin to unravel did. The plots I was interested in were the ones that will carry over into the next books. I also felt that there weren't enough stakes in the story, the aktibar and almost all the trials were definitely the most interesting part of the main plotline however even they felt low-stake and almost easy.
All of these grievances die off at the very end. The end of this book really captured me and intrigued me. The story finally grows bigger and more in-depth. There are finally lots of plot-twists and secrets for us to discover. The story finally feels great.
My main praise and love for this book was definitely the world-building. Everything about the world-building is so interesting and intense. The different colours of blood and how they're treated because of it and all the world-building that you begin to discover throughout the book is amazing. I can't go into detail here because of spoilers, but those aspects hooked me the most.
The characters were really interesting, especially our main character, Sylah, and another character, Hassa, was one of my favourites. I still felt, however, that they lacked in some places, namely in their relationships with others. They weren't badly written or constructed, but I just felt that if every relationship had been pushed deeper it would have made things a lot more interesting.
Sylah is a great main character, she's determined and fiery, but she also has a lot of flaws. I adore flawed characters, flaws add so much more depth and realism to characters and I think she's a brilliant protagonist for us to follow. The most intriguing character and perspective, though, was Hassa. Hassa is a ghosting and her blood runs clear, as children all ghostings have their tongues cut out and their hands cut off. Hassa is an incredible character and the ghostings were the storyline I liked the most, their history and spirit was amazing to read. I also enjoyed other character arcs and development a lot.
By the end of this story I was satisfied and I did enjoy it. However the lower rating comes from the fact that I didn't feel the story actually pick up until the last 100 pages and this book isn't small. I do adamantly feel that the next books will only get better and better now that we've learnt everything we need to learn to make this into more of an epic.
I also want to praise the diversity in this book. It's immensely diverse in a multitude of categories and I've never seen a story with as much representation as this, it's incredible. There's a main sapphic ship, a side achillean ship, tons upon tons of gnc characters that use a range of different pronouns and also a trans major character. The world is African and Arabian inspired and all the characters are too. There's also many characters that can't speak and use their own sign language. This kind of intersectional diversity is so, so amazing to see in stories.
The ending will leave you wanting the next book in your hands now!

'Duty, Truth, Strength, Knowledge'

A debut novel and what an opener!

In Sylah's world you are separated by classes based on the colour of your blood. An intervention was staged 18 years ago and high born red blooded babies were replaced with blue blooded babies in the hopes they would grow with sympathies and change their world. Most of the plan was foiled but 1 remains.......

This book starts off really strong, I was invested in the world, the magic system and characters but then the pacing got really slow. Slow pacing is an issue for me as I find it doesn't hold my interest so had to just read a few chapters everyday instead. But that could be a 'me' thing!

Saying this I was on the edge of my seat in some places and I did enjoy it in the end, albeit slower!
Sylah was an interesting character, a bit of a drug addict, a bit all over the place but her meeting with Anoor (daughter of the Empire's ruler) gets her head straight and they embark on trying to set things right.

Hassa, Sylah's friend was my fave. A ghosting with translucent blood, she was secretive and so intriguing! Loved her!!

All in all this was good and would love to read the next book.

Sadly this didn't work for me. The cruelty and brutality in the first 10% did not make for comfortable or easy reading. I didn't particularly like or feel invested in any of the characters.

The book is well written and there definitely is an important story there, it's just not for me.

I was invited to read this book through NetGalley by Harper Collins back in March, I hadn't heard much about it so I went in fairly blind.

From the off this book hooked me, the prologue had a really powerful start and introduced us to the world with very atmospheric writing. @saaraelarifi knows how to hit hard and I am here for it!

The Final Strife is brutal, in more ways than one. It doesn't scrimp on the violence, which seriously adds to the drama of the story. And no character is protected which leaves your heart pounding over what might happen next, both physically and emotionally.

I rooted for so many of these characters, Saara writes characters that are complex and complicated and who you can't help but love for all their flaws, insecurities and humanity. How she developed the relationships between characters was immense and truly a joy to read.

To sum up my feelings on this one; Saara has epic world building skills, writes engaging and lovable characters, knows how to break a heart (and a bone or two) and has really set the tone for this series. I for one, can't wait to read more

It took a while for me to become invested but I was in a reading slump prior to starting this. It is a little slow to begin with but the end is worth it - It really picks up in the last 20% and the twists absolutely blew my mind.
The world is very interesting and I loved learning more about it - the use of the unreliable narrator here is absolutely phenomenal.
I loved the diverse cast in this - LGBT+ and disability rep is there, although I can't speak for how well the disability rep was done. I also thought the substance misuse and grief was well done although I don't have specific experience relating to this. (Please check own voices reviews for all of these.)
I love a trials trope - competition in books for high stakes is always a winner for me.
The characters were well-developed and nuanced.

I really struggled to get into this one and found myself quite overwhelmed and inundated with information at the beginning. I could tell it’s an amazingly created world with some fantastic world building but I guess I wasn’t in the right mind frame for coming to grips with something that required so much depth of understanding!

I did love the plot idea, with the feeling of segregation and rising above adversity, adding to the sense of overcoming. It definitely had red queen vibes with the colour of your blood dictating your station in life.

I didn’t particularly warm to any of the characters and for some reason I wasn’t quite rooting for them! I wanted to but I just couldn’t make myself engage with them which I think was more my fault than the books.

The writing is amazing and it’s a truly brilliant book but I don’t think I was in the right headspace for reading such a complex book in the midst of exams when my brain was already feeling a little full!

It’s a great example of a fantasy read so I can certainly imagine will be a favourite of many and well worth a read if you love a perfectly crafted world!

I loved this book. Took awhile to get into the flow of the story. I can’t say o particularly liked any of the characters at first, but the world building was fascinating. However as the story built I found myself liking the two main characters much much more. I’ve been In a funk since finishing this. I miss Anoor and need the next one now!!!

A brutal world that feels real and lived in; a traumatised MC (Sylah) who goes through absolute darkness and comes out the other side raging w/ fury; a sapphic enemies-to-lover interest (Anoor) with SO many layers. The language-based magic system also works really well for me. It feels intricate and unique, and also not super "gamey" at all. The queer rep is brilliant!

Thanks so much to Netgalley / Harper for the e-arc! Can't wait to pick up the real thing next month.