I loved The Final Strife by Saara El Arifi.

The Empire of this epic fantasy novel is one ruled by blood colour. The elite ruling class have red blood (Embers) and can perform magic, those with blue blood (Dusters) have been forced into a difficult life of poverty and Ghostings, those with translucent blood who are servants, have their tongues and hands cut off for the crimes of their ancestors 400 years ago.

The Aktibar – a set of trials held every ten years to find the next Ember rulers of the Empire – will decide on the future wardens of Strength, Knowledge, Truth and Duty. Our main character, Sylah, has been trained from birth to become Warden of Strength. Stolen away by a Duster rebellion, she was raised to be a weapon to end the empire’s regime, but the murder of her entire family sends her on a self destructive path of drug use and crime. Can she return from it and finally put the rebellious plans of her family into action before it’s too late?

I won’t say too much and spoil it, and it took me a while to get into as there was a lot of (great) world building, but I loved that the characters were all complex and flawed individuals just trying to do their best. Anoor’s arc was so well done (I was really rooting for her) and I loved the diverse and inclusive representations of sexuality and gender in the world the writer has built. The ending definitely sets up book two, so I look forward to reading the next instalment!

Thank you to @netgalley and the publishers for the ARC!

An exciting way to start a trilogy is with The Final Strife. Through the lens of modern epic fantasy, many typical elements of the YA dystopia setup and setting—categories of people and those chosen to advance—are challenged and subverted. The exchanges between the characters convinced me that they were well-developed characters (even love ones). Since it looked like the pieces of the jigsaw were coming together and each revelation had a bigger meaning, I enjoyed being able to foresee the twists in this book. The world did at first need a lot of explaining, and it wasn't done in a very gracious way (a lot of blunt description or unnatural dialogue), nonetheless, the book picked up steam after that and prepared the ground for a sequel who, in my view, will be much better.

Gritty, sapphic, inclusive, friends-turned-enemies, morally dubious people, fierce side characters... just everything you could possibly desire, and it all occurs in the bloody realm of The Final Strife.

What an absolute masterpiece of a debut! Saraa El-Arifi has woven a tale of a beautifully intricate and harrowing world, with a fascinating lore and social system. Sylah is an engaging lead, struggling to find her place in the world after tragedy struck. She does not have it all figured out, if anything she is a bit of a mess, and that makes her all the more endearing as she struggles to get back to herself and fight for her people and their freedom. Anoor was easily my favourite character. I thought her character development was the best by far, as she finally comes out of the bubble she's been living in and learns to stand up for herself and fight for what she wants. There were twists and turns along the way that kept me on my toes, and a fantastic ending that leaves off for an epic sequel. Cannot recommend this book enough!

The Final Strife by Saara El-Arifi is a great debut book and well worth 4 stars!!

Summary
The Aktibar – a set of trials held every ten years to find the next Ember rulers of the Empire – is about to begin.
All can join but not just anyone can win; it requires great skill and ingenuity to become the future wardens of Strength, Knowledge, Truth and Duty.

Sylah was destined to win the trials and be crowned Warden of Strength. Stolen by blue-blooded rebels she was raised with a Duster’s heart; forged as a weapon to bring down from within the red-blooded Embers’ regime of cruelty. But when her adopted family were brutally murdered those dreams of a better future turned to dust. However, the flame of hope may yet be rekindled because Sylah wasn’t made to sparkle, she was born to burn.

Review
I love the world building in this book, it is so detailed and original and had me hooked from the start. The different class system is really interesting and i love the different take on blood magic.

The plot was good, i really loved the first half, but it started to fall flat in the middle and picked up again towards the end. i wasn't a big fan of the ending but that's because i thought it ended to soon (probably not a bad thing).

I loved the characters and their development, Anoor is my favourite and i was rooting for her from the start.

I'm really looking forward to seeing where Saara takes us in book 2 and the next instalment to Sylah, Anoor and Hassa's story.

This book took a while to win me over. I think I was somewhere into the 60% mark when I found myself really enjoying the characters, their interactions, developments and the story as a whole.

Anoor's character starts off immensely irritating but I suspect that is from us seeing her from Sylah's POV (despite the book being in third person) so of course as Sylah softens to Anoor, I felt more fond of her too. I really hope the next book(s) show off her reforms for the empire, which I am sure will not go smoothly but still can't wait to read.

Sylah starts out very tragic and also somehow bland, by the end I couldn't help but cheer for her and just want good things for her. Please just let her have good things for once, I am begging you Saara!

Hassa is just brilliant. She's a mystery, she's all the knowledge, she's the bridge straddling all corners of the story and city. I cannot wait to see more of her in the next book. I would also like more Kwame if we're taking requests.

The world building was good. The plot twists and unveiled info about the world building were even better and well spaced throughout the book.

As I said, the book took a while to win me over. It is a slow read then suddenly everything is happening and that was that. Should you read it? Yes.
"What if I don't like strong female characters, overcoming trauma/addiction and the concept of overthrowing an oppressive empire?" Well then what is wrong with you? Go read this book and re-evaluate your choices.

I am so not over this book. It was everything I wanted and more. I cannot wait to read more from this author this was just fantastic and addictive from the start.

Many thanks to Netgalley and HarperCollins for providing me with an eARC of this book in exchange for my thoughts!

A fantasy inspired by Ghanian and Arabian folklore? With a morally gray sapphic MC that is out for revenge?? AND a tournament arc? Obviously, The Final Strife was one of my most highly anticipated releases of 2022, and I'm happy to say that it ended up being a very enjoyable read.

One aspect that I wasn't anticipating and therefore very positively surprised by is the disability rep in this story. Two out of the three main POV characters are disabled - one of them trying to work through her addiction and learning what it has done to her body and how to handle these changes, the other having undergone forced amputation of her arms and tongue and therefore being mute and making use of a specific sign language. As this practice already kind of implies, this book is incredibly brutal at times, both the world itself and the society the characters live within are absolutely merciless, and that is very much reflected in the story at times. So, if you're someone who doesn't enjoy brutality and gore in their books, this might not be the story for you.

I found all of the leading characters to be quite compelling and complex, their stories are intriguing and I am definitely invested to see where this series will lead them, especially with the note that book one ended on.

While there is much to like here, I did have some minor qualms with the book. Most of it can probably be chalked up to this being the author's first work. As some others have mentioned, yes, this book is long, and frankly, it's just a bit longer than it would need to be. I would be lying if I said that it didn't drag a bit at times.
While the worldbuilding was lush and incredibly intriguing, there were some aspects of it that just seemed a bit... too convenient. This might get addressed in further depth as the series goes on, so definitely take this with a grain of salt.

And finally, I'd like to see an end to the trend of sapphic high fantasy where the couple is split up at the end of book one. This is no fault of this book at all, but it's somehow become such a pattern at this point, and I'd just like to see them hold hands and be happy for once.

'Stolen, sharpened, the hidden key,
Well destroy the empire and set you free,
Churned up from the shadows to tear it apart,
A dancers grace, a killers instinct, an Embers blood, a Dusters heart.'

The worldbuilding. The characters. The pacing. The plot. All absoloutely exquisite.

If youre a fantasy reader like myself, this book is SUCH a well-written and thought out read i would 100% recommend it to you. It delivers on all fronts; strong female characters, magic, fighting, uprisings, secrets, bloodshed, a vividly conveyed world, and a concretely constructed social system.

My favourite thing about fantasy books is when the plot constantly throws curveballs at the characters which make them question their beliefs and continues to turn what the reader thinks they know or have figured out on their head. This book had LOTS of both. Some questions we got the answers to and some we didnt, and in the last few pages, we get thrown a massive curveball that raises an even BIGGER question, and I loveee it when authors end books like that. It makes me wish I had the second book right now. If you analyse this story, you can really appreciate how magnificently constructed it is across all aspects.

Sylah is our main character, a woman who has lost her purpose in life and wanders, taking a drug called a joba seed and fighting for money to buy these seeds. And when I tell you that the character development here is amazinggggg! We follow her from nearly giving up on life to being given a purpose again and we watch how her character develops and watch as when she meets new people, her beliefs shes held since childhood, slowly change.If anyone has watched Arcane, Sylah and Anoor, the other female lead, are like Vi and Caitlyn.

All of the main characters and even the side characters are well fleshed out and completely independent of one another. I think my favourite is Hassa, shes so knowledgeable, witty, and empathetic.

The only reasons why I dropped a star is that, I think this is a me issue more than a book issue, but I kept thinking "am I at the end yet?" and looking at how much I'd read which for me shows I wasn't fully being immersed in the story though I'm not sure why. And similarly, though I appreciated the development and technical aspects of the characters, I would say that personally I didnt feel any connection to them, even though they were so well created? 🤔

This was a really hard review to write because I couldnt really talk about the book without it needing a long explanation of what I was referring to? But I know its going to be huge when its released, if I ever wrote a fantasy series I would want it to be as well written as this!

DNF at page 111

There is nothing wrong about or with this book. But it just is not capturing my attention with the characters.

TW for drug abuse.

I received an advanced reader copy of this book in return for my honest opinion. Thank you to Saara El-Arifi for giving me the opportunity to read The Final Strife before its release.

If theres one book you just HAVE to read this year it’s The Final Strife. This book was not only beautifully written but the plot was fantastic, I genuinely cannot wait for the next book to come out so I can read more of these characters.

“The Empire rules by blood

Red is the blood of the elite, of magic, of control.

Blue is the blood of the poor, of workers, of the resistance.

Clear is the blood of the servants, of the crushed, of the invisible.”

From just the summary alone I was desperate to read this book; a world divided based upon the colour of someones blood? I’m sold. The characters within the novel not only have to deal with the struggles that come with the Tidewind that literally rips people to shreds each night, but they have to cope with the systematic oppression based on something that is simply in their DNA. It is no wonder that many of the characters initially feel trapped within their own situations.

As the clear leading class, the Ember’s methods of treating both the Dusters and the Ghostlings are horrifically cruel. While if you commit a crime as an Ember you will be given a fair trial, the “trial” for others is to be pulled apart. For Ghostlings it is even worse; their tongues cut out and their hands chopped off at a young age due to events from many years ago.

The story centres around three women, each possessing a different colour blood. When Sylah was very young she was stolen away from her Ember mother and replaced with a Duster’s child. Taken into the rebel group Sandstorm’s care, she grows up as one of the ‘Stolen’; children raised to give the rebel’s a chance to overthrow the current government. However, things go wrong and we meet Sylah as she wastes her life; addicted to a substance that is killing her.

When a figure from her past resurfaces Sylah is forced to re-evaluate her life once more; causing her world and Anoor’s worlds to begin to intertwine. Though most of the swapped children were killed, one Duster baby still remains as the child of a person of power. Sylah finds herself training Anoor for the Aktibar for the Warden of Strength. In such close proximity, the two discover not all is as it seems and begin to learn more about the very different circles the over grew up within.

The other key character within this book is Hassa; a Ghostling who is not content with the life she has now. While she is close friends with Sylah, it soon becomes clear that the two have secrets from one another as Hassa sets out to achieve her own goals.

The world within The Final Strife is diverse and while many things are wrong with how it is ran, one thing that I appreciated was how accepted all parts of the LGBTQ+ community were within the book. We see a variety of representation in a way which in no way feels forced; all of the characters are so well developed and their preferences are clear.

I thought a lot after finishing this book and you know what? I'll be supporting these flawed "chosen ones" making bad choices. Full review will be posted soon.

This was a terrific book. The society felt real across multiple classes, with everything at reasonably well filled out--history, geography, city planning, government, culture, magic system--in addition to character and plot. Every individual component felt as if it could have been enriched just a bit more, but since all of them provided a minimum amount of detail the world felt real and vivid as a whole. And, since this is the first in a series, the rest of the books (I hope!) will deepen and enrich the world-building.

The plot, too, was very engaging: two young women---one, a street rat; the other, a privileged daughter of a political leader---are both very skilled in some ways, but in other ways complete failures at fulfilling their appointed roles. They have had little choice in being appointed to these roles, and yet embrace them with varying degrees of fervor as the plot develops. Naturally, their paths cross and they find that they have complementary strengths that can stir things up in very interesting and exciting ways. (They also have vastly different views on fashion that added a charming little quirk to their interactions.)

The pacing, too, worked well. The book follows the main plot arc (preparing for a grand test that will put the winner in a position to influence government in very important ways) to a satisfying conclusion, while introducing further mysteries and secrets that introduce an expansion of the politics and geography of the world in ways that promise to make for an exciting set of sequels. I will absolutely read the next book(s) as they come out.

i wanted to love this but it is too reminiscent of existing fantasy novels, specifically Red Queen & The Midnight Lie & The Jasmine Throne & The Unbroken, which i wouldn't mind if the writing wasn't so heavy on exposition and the world-building didn't strike me as very uninspired (with elements/things from our world being given a fantasy name). the writing never really grabbed me and the characters have rather tropey function. also, this book is being promoted as sapphic which it kind of is but a lot of time is dedicated to an incesty m/f dynamic...

3.5 stars!

The things that this book did really well:

1. Themes of oppression and class division as well as the magic system and world building. There's blood magic involved but it's done in a way that felt unique.
2. The Lgbtq + representation, the central romance is going to be sapphic and I am here for it.
3. The disability rep and the drug addiction representation. The main MC, Sylah is a drug addict and constantly struggles because of it. It felt very authentic.
4. Anoor - I loved her character and the tremendous development that she went through.

The reason I am not rating this higher:

1. Slow pacing with lots of overexplanation at times. The change of pov from one character to another felt clunky and abrupt throughout the book. However, since I read the arc version this might change in the final draft.
2. The main reason that I couldn't love this fully was because of Sylah. She is a perfect example of morally grey but she got on my nerves throughout the book. I couldn't bring myself to root for her and I absolutely hated how she kept blaming others for everything that was wrong in her life.
3. While the main romance is going to be sapphic, this book focuses almost entirely on a hetro relationship which bordered on incest. I think readers will be divide on this but I thought it was a bit misleading and kind of unnecessary. The said couple could have been just friends and it wouldn't have changed literally anything. Plus, I didn't really feel any chemistry between the two of them to begin with.

Overall, it was definitely enjoyable and I do want to find out what happens next so I will probably be picking the next book as well.

Got a preview ARC of this from NetGalley, and have just blitzed through it in a day! Genuinely couldn’t put it down. Fast paced, and with little mysteries constantly unfolding to keep you turning the pages. Can’t wait for the next one!

What a great start to a series and a brilliant debut!

Although initially slow paced, this story soon gathered momentum and the final 20/25% was fantastic! So many twists and turns, so many challenges to overcome and so much hope.

Sylah, Anoor and Hassa - three young women, separated by blood and status, brought together by love, friendship and a shared goal. These characters were wonderfully written, none of them perfect and each with their own secrets, but they are all powerful and strong in their own way. These women were true heroines in every sense of the word, and I loved them all for different reasons.

The world building is rich, detailed and immensely colourful. The story is well crafted and whilst the idea of a chosen one saving the world through a competition isn’t new, this felt different. The challenges were imaginative and the use of magic, through ‘blood werk runes’, was fascinating. I cannot wait to learn more!

A fantasy full of complex relationships and packed with diversity and representation, The Final Strife was a brilliant read and one I highly recommend - 4.5 stars ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️💫 (rounded up to 5).

Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher (Harper Collins UK - Harper Voyager) for providing a copy of the book for review. All opinions are my own and provided willingly.

“Stolen, sharpened, the hidden key,
We’ll destroy the empire and set you free,
Churned up from the shadows to tear it apart,
A dancer’s grace, a killer’s instinct, an Ember’s blood,
A Duster’s Heart.”

OMG this book was soo good! I can't stop thinking about it. Not often do I give a first book in a series 5 stars but this was amazing.

Follows 3 girls of 3 different blood colours. How they fit in this world and what they do to try change it was not was I was expecting from this at all.

The main plot is very political and peoples blood colour determines where they fit in to society with red blood Embers being the high society/rich/governing people, the blue blood Dusters being lower class/poor/worker people and the clear blood Ghostings who are the servants and are overlooked by pretty much everyone who can't talk and have no hands for reasons I won't spoil. Also learning about the world sometimes at the same time as the main characters was so interesting and can't wait to find out more.

Supplementary to that is the Aktibar trials which I thought would be the main focus of the story but its not really its there more to move the character development and world building elements along. The trials were great, reminding me a bit of hunger games type challenges but were not overly drawn out.

Can't forget the Magic system which was done really well. It was unique but 100% made perfect sense and enjoyed learning about it.

This is a brutal world with so much life and twists with an ending that made me say "What the F***" out loud. Also the slow burn enemies to lovers romance was done so well.

100% recommend and can't wait for the next book.

Such a unique and interesting concept. The plot had me gripped throughout, I love the characters (main and side) the world building was spectacular and the magic system was so intricately described

Urgh, how do you sum up this extraordinary book. Books not even good enough a term... sumptuous tome of excellence. The Final Strife is one of those books that's so unbelievably hyped in the book community you worry that it won't live up to expectations. Well, Saara certainly did and exceeded them. The Final Strife is too good to sum into words other than READ IT NOW. I read it on Netgalley, thank you Harper Voyager, but it was so good that I had to buy myself a copy anyway. Cannot wait for book 2!!!

Thank you to Harper Voyager UK & Netgalley for the opportunity to review this ARC.

What a great book! I’d heard a lot about this book before reading & I was so excited to start.

Although the competition plot isn’t the most original, the world building is fantastic! The world built is so rich & beautifully layered. I loved the bits of history we were given & everything was written in a way that it was all seamlessly inserted into the story without making it seem dull or lengthy.

Sylah & Anoor were both wonderfully in depth, complex characters. Everyone loves an underdog & both embodied that in such different ways. The way their relationship blossomed felt so natural & not at all forced, I was rooting for them from quite early on & that bittersweet ending was just perfect!

And what an ending! Cannot wait for the second instalment!