Reviews tagging 'Body horror'

The Final Strife by Saara El-Arifi

16 reviews

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

gurofl's review against another edition

adventurous 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? It's complicated

3.75

I liked it in the start, but after a while I lost a bit of interest. There's little development of the plot in the middle. 
I liked the character Anoor, the start of the relationship between the two main characters, the quest, and that the society is very diverse (both when it comes to identity and sexuality). And I would be interested to find out what happens next with the empire and the politics if I hadn't been so annoyed with the characters feeling like they're teenagers when they are 20-22. 
It feels like this borders between adult and young adult fantasy. What I didn't like: the characters are a bit flat, things become very melodramatic at times, and the characters' mood swings a lot very fast. 
The ending was quite interesting, but the juvenile feel of things is putting me off continuing with this series. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Torture and Colonisation

Moderate: Drug use and Classism

Minor: Ableism, Addiction, Body horror, Confinement, Fatphobia, Genocide, Racism, Police brutality, and Kidnapping

_autumnreads_'s review against another edition

5.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Body horror and Torture