Reviews with content warning for Drug use - The Battle Drum

I'm a pretty visual person, so seeing stories play out in my head as I read isn't a new thing. However, this book was probably the clearest I could ever see a story in my mind. I still gave the first book, The Final Strife, 5 stars but somehow the sequel was leagues above even that book. You learn so much about the politics of this world in the first book, but the second is such an exciting and thrilling adventure. If it wasn't for my Lexapro I would have bawled in several places in this story. Alas, my Lexapro has a lockdown on my tears.

The last line of the book?!? I read an ebook from the library, so my last line was italic. However, my partner read a Kindle version and the final line was in quotes. I checked a US hardback and it's in quotes too. This makes a huge difference in the ending, so I need to know why my copy was wrong!!

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alilbitofeveryth1ng's review against another edition

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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

4.25

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barda's review

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adventurous challenging dark mysterious sad tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? No
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

2.75

I'm very frustrated by having to rate this book so low, but I definitely didn't enjoy it as much as the first book.

The first book had some flaws, but I still broadly enjoyed the characters, the setting, and the worldbuilding. While this second book fixed my biggest pet peeve of rapidly switching POV's (this one had the more standard format of a chapter only having one character's POV), it felt like this one was actually more confusing than the first one, and that the author lost plot momentum from the first book.

The characters just weren't as likeable in this book. I still really enjoyed Hassa and she's easily a stand-out character, but Jond was just boring and Sylah was not in the book enough for me to judge her characterisation. Anoor, however, I was the most disappointed in. Like Sylah, it feels like she barely has any screen-time in this book, but most egregiously she seems to regress in all of her character development that she gained in the first book. I hate to criticise characters who make seemingly stupid mistakes, as oftentimes they'll be realistic mistakes that you might expect one to make, but Anoor keeps making mistakes over and over and doesn't seem to learn from the negative impacts of these. She's incompetent and seemingly regains her naivety that she grew out of in the first book. This makes the twist

of her being the Child of Fire also come out of left-field, as she goes from being exceedingly naive and sad to suddenly angry and wanting revenge over the space of a chapter

.

The plot certainly had some interesting bits, particularly with the Academy and how the cultures of the mainland work. I did also broadly enjoy the plot reveals towards the end of the book; however, they were all suddenly shoved into the end of the book leaving little room for the characters to breathe, and many of the plot twists could have been revealed and solved earlier if characters simply communicated with each other (

for instance, with Jond not telling Sylah that the other disciples were Sandstorm - what was his reasoning for not telling this to Sylah in the first place? It's not really explained in the text

).

Broadly, this book's usually interesting plot was dragged down by its characters and overall characterisation. I still might pick up the next one when it comes out as I think the mysteries that have been set up are worth reading, but I do hope that the author can figure out where they want their characters to go.

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azrah786's review against another edition

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4.5

[This review can also be found on my BLOG]

**I was provided with an ARC through Netgalley in exchange for an honest review**

CW: violence, blood, injury, death, child death, murder, miscarriage, body horror, self harm, addiction, drug use, emotional abuse, physical abuse, sexual assault, torture, confinement, religious bigotry, colonisation, slavery, medical content
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A good sequel expands the world, continues the story on from what came before and keeps you engaged. The best sequels twist the additional world building and the new direction of the story in such a way that it circles back to everything that came before and sneakily links everything together so perfectly that you’re left floored. That is exactly what Saara El-Arifi has done here.

The Battle Drum is a phenomenal follow up to the fantastic The Final Strife.

We return to the Warden’s Empire and the malevolent Tidewind with a handful of new mysteries unravelling, splitting the 3 primary protagonists on journeys of their own. Anoor as the newly appointed disciple of her mother, the Warden of Strength, wants to use her position to help all the people of the nation, not just the ruling class, but suddenly gets accused of a murder and has to work to prove her innocence. Hassa, as ever working in the shadows is also still in the Warden’s Empire and stumbles across another string of dead bodies with their own mystery. And Sylah has of course set off beyond the borders of the Empire to uncover the secrets of the outside world and hopefully find help to stop the Tidewind before it destroys all.

“The world is broken, but like an eggshell, life can bloom from broken things.”

Rejoice because there is a handy recap at the beginning of the book to catch us up to speed with the key events of book 1! Though I personally felt all was immediately familiar anyways as El-Arifi’s storytelling immediately sucks you back in. Through Sylah’s mission as well as Anoor and Hassa’s personal quests we’re introduced to new places, new faces and new reveals about the deeply rooted history of the world and it is all wonderfully compelling.

There are some additional perspectives added to the mix too, one being a known character who supplements Sylah’s chapters well and another point of view from a character all new, an outsider, who adds much in terms of intrigue, worldbuilding and the magic which is meticulously expanded on in this sequel.

It’s always fascinating to see when an author shows how multifaceted their magic system is through how it is interpreted and used differently across cultures and locations in their stories. At times it did feel like there were a lot of moving parts in this book but trust me the way everything falls into place is so so clever just be patient with it, I’m definitely not getting over it anytime soon!

Some things to expect from the first book that are the same here are that sometimes the chapters aren’t chronological and will take you back in time a little but this doesn’t throw you off too much. In fact past and present work hand in hand beautifully in the story but I shall say no more.

“Forgiveness should never be requested. Only granted. Work for it.”

The characters and their development are again equally frustrating and fascinating to follow. Anoor probably annoyed me the most out of everyone with how naïve she seemed at times but as I mentioned before when everything clicks into place just wow I have so much to say but also want to keep my mouth zipped because spoilers…

Hassa is still my favourite character and I thought I’d end this review by stating that Saara El-Arifi I do not forgive you for chapter 50, HASN’T MY BABY SUFFERED ENOUGH!?

Anyways, I enjoyed this sequel immensely and will now be eagerly awaiting news on the big finale that is book 3 because it is without a doubt going to be epic!
Final Ratings – 4.5/5 Stars

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haylzno's review against another edition

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adventurous challenging emotional tense fast-paced

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

4.5

Wow. Just WOW.
So many of the questions we were left with in book 1 were answered in this sequel and it was just so satisfying to start to put the pieces of the puzzle together and start to see the bigger picture.
That twist at the end?!?! Absolutely floored me.
I'm enjoyed that we got multiple POVs in this book vs. the (almost) singular POV from book 1.
We are introduced to a new character in this book and her POVs made me truly angry. There are certain tropes used that I am personally not a fan of. But regardless of how I feel about those tropes, they added a lot of substance to the plot and it served the story well!
Battle Drum picks up almost immediately where Final Strife left off and we are thrown into the thick of it right away which I loved. Final Strife took me a second to really get into but Battle Drum stole my interest from page 1.
I also adored the world building we got in this sequel. I need fan art of the giant mushrooms IMMEDIATELY.
I cannot waitttttt for the third book. I NEED ANSWERS SAARA

Thank you to netgalley, Penguin Random House and Saara for a copy of an eARC in exchange for an honest review

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