Reviews tagging 'Body horror'

The Final Strife by Saara El-Arifi

12 reviews

ford_defect's review against another edition

emotional mysterious tense medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Plot
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? It's complicated
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.0

The beginning of this book is pretty rough. There were multiple times I thought about dnf'ing it (especially since it is so long). The pacing really needs some work. The beginning is super slow, and the main characters were pretty unlikeable (except Hassa) up until about 200-300 pages in. I also thought the treatment the Ghostings got was unnecessary up until 80% of the way through. When it all clicked together, though, my mind was blown. But what really annoyed me was all the fatphobic descriptions of Anoor. They lessened over time, but it rubbed me the wrong way. That, and the author put a lot of emphasis on how much Anoor enjoys food, which is another fatphobic stereotype. Another thing was how Sylah's addiction was portrayed. Major spoilers ahead.

I was so proud of her when she quit her joba seed use (albeit, she only quit cuz Anoor forced her to) and kept it under control throughout almost the entire book. But then, the author has her take a joba seed, so she can defeat Jond in Anoor's place during the trial of combat. And what's even worse: once she sees a healer after having relapsed, the healer tells her to essentially microdose for the rest of her life! I would rather have Sylah find a way to work around her seizures and tremors. The Ghostings have no tongues and no hands and they have found ways to talk and take care of themselves, so why can't Sylah find a workaround for her drug-induced disability? Like you wouldn't tell an alcoholic to keep drinking to prevent the DTs. You have to cut it out completely or it can ruin your life again.

And I had really gotten into the book by that point, too.

But anyway, now I'll talk about what I really liked about the book. The blood magic system was super cool. At first, I wasn't sure how much I liked needing to draw runes to fire a gun (since that would be pretty inefficient if you were slow at writing). Though, the longer I thought about it, the more it grew on me. Bloodwerk requires skill and dexterity, so not everyone would be good at it, which is a good challenge for the MCs that didn't know how to bloodwerk before. Secondly, the atmosphere was quite unique and immersive. Especially since the author wrote about the history of the world, too. The character development was also well done (with the exception of what I said about a part of Sylah's progress). I initially hated Anoor and Sylah, but they evolved so much. I was a little disappointed we didn't see more romance between them.

I came into this book thinking it was gonna be a sapphic romance... but it was more focused on Jond and Sylah's romance. The romantic scenes are still well-written, though. For both pairings.

So 3/5
I would have rated it 4/5 since it got really good halfway through, but I just can't forgive the author for how she portrays Sylah's addiction. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Death of parent, Drug use, Genocide, Injury/Injury detail, Bullying, Child abuse, Death, Gaslighting, Child death, Classism, Colonisation, Violence, Body horror, Self harm, Ableism, Domestic abuse, Xenophobia, Blood, Sexual content, Gore, Hate crime, Slavery, Addiction, Body shaming, Cultural appropriation, and Panic attacks/disorders

Moderate: Toxic relationship, Fatphobia, Toxic friendship, Kidnapping, Torture, and Alcohol

Minor: Dysphoria, Suicidal thoughts, Pregnancy, and Racial slurs

ciaraqueer's review against another edition

adventurous medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Plot
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.75

Some of this book rather irritated me, but I did remain gripped and would definitely read the sequel so it definitely did something for me. I think the writing felt a bit immature at times, especially with regards to the overly traumatic setting. I think I struggled to marry a society in which infants are brutalised and people regularly tortured and quarted in public with the writing tone. I also thought it was very niave to have such a complicated language for a culture with no hands or tongue - I fully support that they would have a comprehensive bodily language but its simply not possible to express what her characters were saying with that degree of disability - I also thought, though probably well intentioned and meant to be disability positive, that she profoundly could not understand the difficulty that the Ghostings would experience doing day to day tasks. As someone who works with disabled people I found this hard to get past. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Body horror

kaitrates's review against another edition

adventurous mysterious fast-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes

4.5

Holy shit. 

WHEW Y'allll what is there to say about this stunning novel that hasn't already been said? I'm so glad I buddy read this and we could collectively lose our mind together on page 545 aka 95% . 

This one admittedly took me a bit to get into—as is common with new fantasy worlds where you spend the first 100 pages confused about what's what and who's who and so on—but once I had my proverbial feet on the ground, I was hooked. 

This has some of the best character development I've ever read with a plot that was paced perfectly to match it. And the world gets so much bigger at the end! I fell in love with this world and these characters and cannot wait to continue their journey in book 2 and beyond. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Child abuse, Slavery, and Addiction

Moderate: Body horror and Violence

porcupine_girl's review against another edition

adventurous challenging dark emotional hopeful mysterious sad tense medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

5.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Gore, Grief, Toxic relationship, Colonisation, Drug abuse, War, Addiction, Blood, Abandonment, Alcoholism, Death of parent, Genocide, Violence, Body horror, Alcohol, Classism, Cursing, Death, Drug use, Slavery, Hate crime, Physical abuse, Police brutality, Sexual content, Child death, Child abuse, Confinement, Injury/Injury detail, Murder, Emotional abuse, and Religious bigotry

Moderate: Medical content, Self harm, Body shaming, Fatphobia, Kidnapping, Ableism, Blood, Gun violence, Gaslighting, Toxic friendship, and Dysphoria

Minor: Bullying, Cancer, Chronic illness, and Fire/Fire injury

musebeliever's review against another edition

slow-paced

1.0

I really wanted to enjoy this book, but I could not get on board with too many things. The book is clearly not for me, and some aspects were too flawed for me to get into the story. 

I really liked the idea of the two protagonists being swapped at birth and was curious about how it would play out in their lives. However, I was not at all on board with the magic system relying on a biological element. This has big chosen one and essentialism vibes, which I just could not deal with. 

I also struggled with the writing style and the characterisation. The fact that we are privy to every single thought created, in my opinion, very unidimensional characters. Despite this shower of information, some of Sylah's actions just do not make sense to me, and too much of the plot relies on Sylah's poor choice or negligence. I can understand this happening once or twice, but how am I to believe that we are in the presence of the person who will overthrow an empire. This did not work for me. 

I found everything very bleak, which makes sense for a dystopia, but also extremely heavy-handed. This read like YA to me, which is not my favourite writing style. The clues as to where the plot is going are underlined and surrounded by blinking lights. 

I was also taken aback by the inconsistence in tone.  There is a moment in the book when Sylah reminisces her tragic past while she watches the new tyrants of the Empire being chosen. She looks at one of them and thinks, "68 never looked so good." This sounded taken out of a gossip instagram reel commenting the Met gala. It felt really out of place. There were many moments like this when I was thrown off by sudden tone changes that did not match the atmosphere of a chapter. It feels like the book has not been edited.

Finally, fatphobia and foodshaming are frankly painful to read and so unnecessary. Sylah calls Anoor the lump, foodshames her, finds her dresses ridiculous because they are big. She seems to justify her fatphobia because she thinks that Anoor is fat because she is rich and privileged. This does not seem to be coherent as Anoor is mocked by her peers. The author also depicts her as a bit silly. Someone who chooses her seat in a room to have a better view on the dishes that are being served. We are clearly supposed to find that funny. Let's be serious one minute.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Physical abuse, Rape, Toxic friendship, Drug use, Body horror, Gore, Bullying, Ableism, Addiction, Body shaming, Murder, Slavery, Fatphobia, Genocide, Death, Drug abuse, Eating disorder, Torture, Blood, Hate crime, and Violence

avisreadsandreads's review against another edition

adventurous dark mysterious tense medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? It's complicated
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

4.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Drug abuse, Drug use, Emotional abuse, Body horror, Murder, Blood, Death, Injury/Injury detail, Xenophobia, Confinement, Gore, Addiction, Child abuse, Child death, Colonisation, Death of parent, and Violence

Moderate: Fatphobia and Body shaming

bookstarbri's review against another edition

dark sad tense slow-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? It's complicated
• Loveable characters? It's complicated
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

2.75

I wish I loved this :/ Idk, I think a big problem was that I didn't like one of the main characters, so it was a rocky start. I also didn't like that it took SO LONG for things to happen. I'm all for slow burn, and even prefer it in fantasy, but it felt like a lot of scenes could've been cut to move the plot along faster. Since it was a training kind of book, there was a ton of that, but then what they would be training for ended really quickly so the buildup didn't really feel worth it? For me, things didn't start getting really interesting until around page 400, and that was just too long to wait. There were some slight surprises before that point, but nothing that was super shocking. The ending is interesting and part of me is considering reading the sequel because the ending was so good, but I'm not sure. I will say that it did have a promising start for me and I LOVED Hassa, Anoor, Kwame, and Gorn. Though this wasn't for me, I can definitely see why it's beloved by so many. There's a lot of intricate thought put into this world and I did love reading that aspect of this book.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: War, Slavery, Addiction, Blood, Drug abuse, Body horror, Confinement, Injury/Injury detail, Murder, and Violence

Moderate: Ableism, Body shaming, Child abuse, Kidnapping, and Self harm

Minor: Rape

bookcaptivated's review against another edition

challenging dark emotional mysterious reflective tense medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.75

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Body horror, Child death, Drug use, Emotional abuse, Classism, Death, Death of parent, Gore, Grief, Kidnapping, Confinement, Addiction, Blood, Child abuse, Injury/Injury detail, Drug abuse, Murder, Torture, and Violence

Moderate: Body shaming, Colonisation, Slavery, Ableism, and Alcohol

Minor: Medical content and Stalking

gagereadsstuff's review against another edition

challenging dark tense medium-paced

4.5

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Alcohol, Blood, Drug abuse, Bullying, Confinement, Cursing, Hate crime, Violence, Body horror, Child abuse, Child death, Death of parent, Emotional abuse, Genocide, Injury/Injury detail, Murder, Physical abuse, Sexual content, Addiction, Cultural appropriation, Police brutality, Racism, Self harm, Classism, Colonisation, Death, and Drug use

Moderate: Vomit, Torture, Excrement, Grief, and Kidnapping

bookswhitme's review against another edition

adventurous challenging emotional informative mysterious tense slow-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Loveable characters? It's complicated
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.25

Definitely a solid start to an epic fantasy trilogy. I’ll admit to took me awhile to be invested. A lot of this book seems to spend time introducing us to characters and getting us acquainted with them by learning about their personalities and motives. There little hints of action here and there but the last 20%-25% was where the most action happened. The world building was very intriguing and once I really started piecing together where this was headed and making real life parallels, I realized just how well the story was set up.

My only thing was the relationship that eventually developed between Sylah and another character. I didn’t have a problem with it but for most of the book the romantic feelings seemed one sided. So to find out that Sylah felt that way too was a little jarring. I expected the friendship, but not the romance between them. I just think if that’s where Sylah’s feelings were headed, it could’ve been developed/demonstrated a bit better.

All in all, I’ll definitely check out book two once it’s released. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Colonisation, Death, Death of parent, Genocide, Grief, Addiction, Blood, Body horror, Drug use, Slavery, and Violence