Book Review: The Final Strife by Saara El-Arifi

The Final Strife by Saara El-Arifi

Book title: The Final Strife
Author: Saara El-Arifi
Genre: Fantasy
Published: June 23, 2022
502 pages
My rating: 4/5

“If your blood runs red, go straight ahead
If your blood runs blue, you’re not coming through
Translucent hue, who are you, who are you, who are you?”

The Warden’s Empire is divided by blood: the red-blooded Embers rule over the blue-blooded Dusters and the clear-blooded Ghostings. Sylah Alyana, a twenty-year-old Ember, was stolen as a baby and forged into a weapon to change the empire from the inside – until her adoptive family was killed. Anoor Elsari has been told her whole life that she is worth nothing by her mother, the Warden of Strength. But when Sylah crashes into Anoor’s life, Anoor is determined to show her mother wrong by entering Aktibar, a competition where the next Wardens are decided.

The Final Strife is an adult fantasy and the first book in The Ending Fire trilogy by Saara El-Arifi. The story is told from four points of view: Sylah’s point of view is the most prominent, followed by Anoor’s. Small parts of the story are also told from the points of view of Hassa, a Ghosting transwoman, and Jond, Sylah’s friend and part-time lover.

This book had an intricate and unique worldbuilding with African and Arabic influences. There’s a lot of worldbuilding, but for the most part it felt organic and not infodumpy. I loved the feisty and determined female characters, the queer normative world, and how the themes of racism, violence, and oppression were handled. I also really liked the fact that Sylah misses her opportunity to enter the Aktibar competition and instead mentors Anoor. It was nice that the chosen one trope was subverted by having her miss her calling. That being said, the competition was the least interesting part of the book, as it was pretty obvious who the four finalists were going to be (I mean, they were the only named competitors!) and the end result was predictable as well.

The competition aspect made me worried that this book would fall into some of the young adult clichés, but luckily that wasn’t the case. Sure, there are similar tropes as in young adult books à la The Hunger Games, but this book is clearly adult (or, new adult, as the main characters are all in their early twenties). Readers who like young adult fantasy will probably enjoy this book as well, although I wouldn’t recommend it to very young readers, as there are a few (non-graphic) sex scenes and a fair bit of swearing.

The book would have benefited from a few more rounds of edits to tighten the story. There's no need for this story to be 500 pages in tiny font. There was a lot of unnecessary repetition and some headhopping, and the beginning of the book dragged. I don’t think all of the worldbuilding in the early chapters was absolutely necessary. The beginning of the book could easily have been condensed. Part of the problem was that I don’t enjoy reading about characters who have substance abuse issues, although I thought Sylah’s drug abuse and her withdrawal symptoms were handled well.

I also don’t think the book needed four point of view characters. Jond’s point of view added nothing to the story and his scenes could have easily been written either from Sylah’s or Anoor’s point of view. Hassa was a fascinating character, but her point of view was so underutilized it could have easily been cut as well. I also would have preferred it if each point of view had been limited to individual chapters. Now the narrative jumped haphazardly from one point of view to the next, which caused a bit of a whiplash effect whenever the point of view switched. Not to mention that Sylah’s point of view dominates the early part of the story to the extent that I thought the whole book was going to have only one point of view. A more balanced approach and more early page time to Anoor (and possibly Hassa) would have worked better.

The relationship between Anoor and Sylah was enjoyably slow burn, but I would have wanted there to be something more. It seemed at first that they were just going to be friends, and there wasn’t enough pining to merit the sudden “I love yous” at the end. Also, if I had known in advance that this book was marketed as a lesbian love story, I would have been really confused about Sylah’s and Jond’s sexual relationship. But at least the book doesn’t fall into the “bisexual are cheaters” stereotype (*cough* Lies We Sing to the Sea *cough*), as Sylah breaks up with Jond before getting together with Anoor.

After the slow beginning and debatable training montages and trial scenes, the book got better towards the end. For that reason, I’m giving it four stars.