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A review by simonmh
The Final Strife by Saara El-Arifi

adventurous hopeful mysterious fast-paced
  • Diverse cast of characters? Yes

4.25

I really enjoyed this book. It has some interesting mysteries, political maneuvering, and world building that I like, but is a few steps less bleak than something like Game of Thrones (though I still wouldn’t recommend it if you want something light/without violence).

I have a few quibbles:
  • The technology of the world just doesn’t feel quite right to me. Like, they have carriages and items seem to be produced by artisans rather than factories, but they have healers who talk about neurotransmitters, pneumatic tubes to send things over long distances, and latex is a big part of their economy. Maybe this is just my imagination not visualizing it properly, but it just felt a little incongruous.
  • This is a book that’s more-or-less about trying to end a caste system, but the people in the lowest caste have the least representation and the book makes their perspective the least central. I’m hopeful the sequel will make up for that, but it felt like we were told how poorly this group was treated while simultaneously having the narrative minimize their presence as much as possible. I think some of that was for the sake of the mystery, but it was still kind of a bummer.

I still enjoyed the book quite an bit and am planning to read the sequel, but those two things just rubbed me the wrong way as I read it.
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