Reviews tagging 'Murder'

The Final Strife by Saara El-Arifi

42 reviews

sophiesmallhands's review against another edition

adventurous dark emotional mysterious 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

3.5

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Addiction, Body shaming, Child abuse, Child death, Death, Drug abuse, Drug use, Emotional abuse, Fatphobia, Genocide, Gun violence, Racial slurs, Racism, Violence, Blood, Police brutality, Murder, Colonisation, Injury/Injury detail, and Classism

Moderate: Confinement, Sexual content, Vomit, Kidnapping, Alcohol, and War

Minor: Bullying

ms_sarah621's review against another edition

adventurous dark tense 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

4.5

This is a phenomenal story. I had such a hard time putting it down. It was so complex and dealt with so many interesting, important topics. This truly transported me into its world. I was entranced. Sylah is such a powerful character and handles such horrible feats well. She’s creative and determined. Anoor is her opposite. Someone who was exposed to the wrongs in her world and just wants everyone to have a good life. She brings innocence and untainted knowledge/opinions. She is powerful in her own ways. The romance felt slightly forced for me. I felt that the main romance could have been friends that feel a sibling connection, so that threw me off. Overall, the change that these characters will make is something that I have to read. Not to mention, Hassa and all the discoveries with the Ghostings. So moving and such a powerful book of change. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Addiction, Drug abuse, Drug use, Violence, Murder, Colonisation, and Classism

thethingwithfeathers's review against another edition

adventurous challenging dark emotional hopeful 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

5.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Addiction, Child abuse, Confinement, Death, Drug abuse, Drug use, Emotional abuse, Slavery, Violence, Blood, Colonisation, and Classism

Moderate: Mental illness, Physical abuse, Sexual content, and Murder

Minor: Child death, Genocide, Suicidal thoughts, Religious bigotry, Death of parent, and Injury/Injury detail

alilbitofeveryth1ng's review against another edition

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

5.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Confinement, Drug abuse, Slavery, Toxic relationship, Kidnapping, Murder, Toxic friendship, and Classism

Minor: Rape

panic_at_the_bookshelf's review against another edition

adventurous challenging dark emotional 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

5.0

If you are looking for a fantasy book with plenty of amazing representation AND written by a black woman I highly recommend The Final Strife.

As soon as I finished the book I longed for the next one in the breathtaking The Ending Fire trilogy. The characters either made me love or hate them because of how human they felt. The hate did not come from finding it an annoying character. The characters were written out so well I despised them because of their horrible actions and/or beliefs. As if I was part of the story and ready to take them down. Each character had their strengths AND their flaws. 

This is not a typical female hero story. This is a story of pain, sadness and fighting a system filled with lies and dirty secrets to oppress the native people of the land. This is a story filled with fire, passion and dedication. It's filled with friendship and love. Most of all, it's filled with the courage one needs to stand up against a system of oppression. 

I do hope any person who is currently facing said oppression will find their well deserved freedom one day. May there be an ending fire to those who colonised and colonise. May we find the courage to stand up to any twisted system. 

Thank you, Saara, for refuelling my fire to raise my voice and find my inner Sylah, Hassa and Anoor.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Addiction, Death, Drug use, Emotional abuse, Racism, Violence, Blood, and Murder

Moderate: Child death, Colonisation, and Injury/Injury detail

mar's review against another edition

adventurous slow-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

3.0

I enjoyed this, though not as much as I expected I would. There's a very fun subversion of the Chosen One trope, the worldbuilding is nicely done and with a couple very memorable elements, and the story incorporates and explores topics of oppression and class division well. 

What I struggled with was the immaturity of the characters, which made it feel too much like reading a YA novel 😭 I found they got on my nerves a lot, but with time I did get a bit invested in both the slowburn romance and Anoor's success in the Aktibar, so I guess it wasn't all that bad. (Also: I adore a deadly magical competition, and with how much time was spent training for each trial it would've been nice to spend a little more time on the actual events themselves).

Thanks to Netgalley and the publisher for the ARC!

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Addiction, Confinement, Death, Drug abuse, Slavery, Violence, Murder, and Colonisation

Moderate: Ableism, Child abuse, Gore, Torture, and Grief

Minor: Body shaming and Sexual content

ewinnk's review against another edition

adventurous challenging dark emotional funny hopeful inspiring mysterious sad 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

5.0

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Ableism, Addiction, Alcoholism, Child death, Confinement, Cursing, Death, Drug abuse, Drug use, Emotional abuse, Genocide, Physical abuse, Sexual content, Slavery, Suicidal thoughts, Violence, Blood, Police brutality, Medical content, Kidnapping, Grief, Death of parent, Murder, Alcohol, Colonisation, Injury/Injury detail, and Classism

kathyreadsalot's review against another edition

adventurous challenging dark tense slow-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? Yes

4.0

*Spoilers!* So I was a bit skeptical about this when I started. It is definitely heavy with very early mentions of

slave labor, torture, maiming, child abuse and whipping/beatings etc

and the overall like tone of how the kingdom hierarchy is set up is brutal. It can a bit gory in parts as well. 

What I liked: the overall story has promise and it was intriguing enough for me to finish; the LGBTQ+ representation, the political intrigue, the plot twists at the end and the character development of Sylah, Anoor and Hassa. I am definitely looking forward to reading Book 2 because i am keen to see how the story progresses. 

What I didn’t like: the pacing of the middle part of the book was a bit too slow at times especially during the training scenes with Anoor and Sylah, how Anoor’s weight was treated at times, and that we didn’t get equal treatment of Hassa’s storyline vs Anoor & Sylah. 

If you are not in the mood for oppresive and violent government regimes as part of the story lines, I would say skip this one. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Child abuse, Racism, Slavery, Torture, Violence, War, and Injury/Injury detail

Moderate: Genocide, Murder, and Toxic friendship

barda's review against another edition

adventurous challenging dark emotional sad 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? Yes

3.75

I really enjoyed the worldbuilding and diversity of characters in this book, though it was brought down by some flaws and overall tone.

I broadly liked the charactres, with Hassa being a standout in particular. I do wish she had more POV, but she was a delightfully mysterious character and her friendship with Sylah was heartwarming. The autocratic world that the author created was also very interesting, if not the most unique; I found that the twist regarding the map really opened up the world more and makes me eager to learn more in the next book. 

In terms of what I didn't like, it's a pet peeve of mine when the author switches POV's multiple times in one chapter with no breaks in between characters, and this book has tons of it. It also had some random characters that had only one or two POV's in the whole book and these seemed unnecessary. The romance(s) also seemed very abrupt and tacked on, and I wonder if the book would actually do better by removing romance entirely (though the book was very good at developing the overall friendship between Anoor and Sylah, if not the romance aspect). I also found the tone at times to be a bit too grimdark for my tastes; I can completely understand why the author wanted to show the horrors of slavery and discrimination, but the inclusion of sometimes graphic descriptions of death and torture made the happier moments between characters seem incongruous.

Overall, it was an interesting book to read and will be reading the next one, but I do hope that the issues with multiple POV's in particular are fixed in the next instalment.  

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Addiction, Drug abuse, Drug use, Self harm, Slavery, Blood, and Colonisation

Moderate: Confinement, Cursing, Death, Violence, Death of parent, and Injury/Injury detail

Minor: Rape, Sexual content, Suicidal thoughts, Vomit, Murder, and War

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

Moderate: Body shaming and Fatphobia