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.

A richly imagined world with an obvious social commentary on Empire, The Final Strife is a gripping tale of fighting for what's right - even if it means losing everything. Queer as well as body positive, I loved the huge scope of this book, it's magic system and the wealth of possibilities it offers for the sequel!

The two main characters spark off each other in all the right ways and I can't wait to see what happens next!

Sorry but, although I love fantasy, this wasn't for me. I found there was too much information given too quickly, so I didn't engage with anyone straight away. Then the violence which put me off - I've read many fantasies based on a violent racist regime and decided to give this one a miss. But I'm sure others will love it.

I have a lot of thoughts on this book, it was very dense, a lot to learn, a lot of characters to learn, a complex caste system. The plot was heavy. All that said, it was an interesting book and I’m glad I read it.

This is a phenomenal debut, and a sapphic epic you'll never forget. Devastated that I can't read the next one immediately.

The Final Strife showcases a diverse range of Black women in high fantasy, and I never knew I needed to read about them until now. The characters were interesting and compelling enough to drive the plot forward and the themes were always well-written. The atmosphere was amazing and the writing was smooth and easy to read.

I cannot wait to see more of the author's works!

Like its main character Sylah, this book grabbed me, and wouldn't let me go until it had my undivided attention. It is an intensely felt, beautifully characterised story where you feel for both Anoor and Sylah - two girls who are quite different in many ways and who are the making of each other as they work together to overturn the rigid ruling class who determines those with blue or transparent blood are social inferiors and are dispossessed. Fans of the Red Queen by Victoria Aveyard and Age of Ash by Daniel Abraham will really enjoy this. There are story tropes such as the games of strength and tactics, literal blood magic and a tale of stolen children designed to be sleeper agents in a long game of infiltration and destruction from within. Most disturbing are the Ghostings, the original inhabitants of the land now colonised by the ruling red bloods, and who at birth have hands and tongues removed before being enslaved. It was a very compelling tale and I cannot wait for the next installment.

With thanks to NetGalley and HarperCollins for a complimentary review copy. Opinions are my own.

I requested this one because it might be an upcoming title I would like to review on my Youtube Channel. However, after reading the first several chapters I have determined that this book does not suit my tastes. So I decided to DNF this one.

I won’t lie, I was suspicious at the books description. I mean, if your mind didn’t scream RED QUEEN and then instantally WARNING then I don’t relate to you. Come on, the blood, the rebellion, the one with hidden powers among the normals. AND THAT IS JUST FROM THR BLURB.

And, okay, I wasn’t totally wrong. BUT, like red queen, the first book wasn’t half bad. You really can’t go wrong with a competition story OR enemies to lovers. So maybe not the most original, but hey I had fun!