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A review by paragraphsandpages
The Final Strife by Saara El-Arifi
4.0
I would like to thank the publisher, Netgalley, and the author for the ARC of this book. I read an advanced copy of this book, so the final edition of the book might be slightly different. All thoughts and opinions are my own, as always.
I honestly love that we’re getting more and more LBGTQ+ adult fantasy written by BIPOC authors, and when I saw this available on Netgalley, I knew I had to snap it up. It sounded like exactly my sort of thing, from ideas of magic to the trials meant to choose the empire’s next leaders. I love competitions, I love strong female characters, and I love queer stories!
This book ended up taking me a while to get through, but honestly it was no fault of the book itself. It’s honestly an extremely dense and long book, and while it’s done well, it just required way more focus and attention than I had at the moment. I managed to read this in stolen snippets between my million other things to do, but I still enjoyed this a lot nonetheless! It’s definitely a book that needs your time and patience to get to where it’s going, but it’s honestly so worth it for it all, especially that ending!
I loved our main characters a lot, from Sylah to Anoor to Hassa. It took me the longest to warm up to Anoor, because she came from a place of such privilege in many ways and was very naive to it, but it also made her overall character arc so far very satisfying! I adored Hassa the most, and I really hope she plays a much larger role in the later books. She was always present, but we weren’t in her head as much (though this makes sense now knowing the rest of the story). Sylah I also found myself drawn to very quickly, even if she can be quite frustrating as a person and as a character/narrator. She’s reckless and emotional, but it’s written so well that you begin to feel so strongly for her, for all her pain. You understand her every time she reaches for her joba seeds, even as you’re begging her not to take it.
The world was also incredibly deep and vast, and I feel as if we have only touched the tip of the iceberg. The final chapters crack the world wide open for us, and I can’t wait to explore it further in the rest of the trilogy. There was just so much here, and what we knew of it so far felt used to it’s fullest. It’s a world full of stories and pain, and I loved how clearly it was woven into the fabric of the novel. You can feel the pain and rage in the stories that the griots told, either in person to the characters or in the pauses between chapters.
I honestly really enjoyed this, and reflecting on it through this review has really revealed just how much. I can’t wait to grab a finished copy of this, and see where the rest of this series goes later!
I honestly love that we’re getting more and more LBGTQ+ adult fantasy written by BIPOC authors, and when I saw this available on Netgalley, I knew I had to snap it up. It sounded like exactly my sort of thing, from ideas of magic to the trials meant to choose the empire’s next leaders. I love competitions, I love strong female characters, and I love queer stories!
This book ended up taking me a while to get through, but honestly it was no fault of the book itself. It’s honestly an extremely dense and long book, and while it’s done well, it just required way more focus and attention than I had at the moment. I managed to read this in stolen snippets between my million other things to do, but I still enjoyed this a lot nonetheless! It’s definitely a book that needs your time and patience to get to where it’s going, but it’s honestly so worth it for it all, especially that ending!
I loved our main characters a lot, from Sylah to Anoor to Hassa. It took me the longest to warm up to Anoor, because she came from a place of such privilege in many ways and was very naive to it, but it also made her overall character arc so far very satisfying! I adored Hassa the most, and I really hope she plays a much larger role in the later books. She was always present, but we weren’t in her head as much (though this makes sense now knowing the rest of the story). Sylah I also found myself drawn to very quickly, even if she can be quite frustrating as a person and as a character/narrator. She’s reckless and emotional, but it’s written so well that you begin to feel so strongly for her, for all her pain. You understand her every time she reaches for her joba seeds, even as you’re begging her not to take it.
The world was also incredibly deep and vast, and I feel as if we have only touched the tip of the iceberg. The final chapters crack the world wide open for us, and I can’t wait to explore it further in the rest of the trilogy. There was just so much here, and what we knew of it so far felt used to it’s fullest. It’s a world full of stories and pain, and I loved how clearly it was woven into the fabric of the novel. You can feel the pain and rage in the stories that the griots told, either in person to the characters or in the pauses between chapters.
I honestly really enjoyed this, and reflecting on it through this review has really revealed just how much. I can’t wait to grab a finished copy of this, and see where the rest of this series goes later!