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My answer: The erus! These are lizards-like creatures you ride like horses. For some reason, I find this concept incredibly fascinating, and I wish we had more of these creatures in the story. Anoor, a Duster child left behind as a decoy when the Ember children were stolen, has lived her entire life knowing she is different, that she needs to hide who she is. And it’s not easy being a Duster when your “mother” is the Disciple of Strength, soon to become Warden of Strength. When Anoor crosses paths with Sylah, she decides to enter the Akitbar herself and prove everyone wrong – Anoor wants to create change from within, but to win the Aktibar, she needs Sylah’s help. As the empire begins a set of trials of combat and skill designed to find its new leaders, the stage is set for blood to flow, power to shift, and cities to burn. — from the publisher Allegory, folklore and history Why would an oppressor provide.... disability accommodations? Wouldn't the thing to do just be...not cutting their hands off in the first place??? And I know someone reading this might be like...you expect logic from oppressors, dear, sweet Peachy? Thats cute!
The Final Strife by Saara El-Arifi was one of my most anticipated reads of 2022, and unfortunately one of my biggest disappointments.
A beautiful sapphic story that speaks of revolution, oppression, and addiction: this is a truly remarkable debut from Saara El-Arifi! This is not for the fainthearted, but El-Arifi does a great job of conducting a painstaking exploration of classism, racism, and so much more.
However, the flame of hope may yet be rekindled because Sylah wasn’t made to sparkle, she was born to burn. The protagonists are flawed but made me want to root for them desperately. Hassa was such an interesting character, and I longed to hear from her perspective more, as a Ghostling who had so many secrets of her own. Sylah was physically powerful yet bore the scars of her past in her debilitating drug addiction, lost to oblivion until she meets Anoor. And Anoor, sweet Anoor, had the best BAMF character growth in this story!! Her privilege and sheltered upbringing never negated her true self, and the more she learns, the more she gains empathy and resolves to shake things up in the Empire. The characters are all one dimensional and boring. There’s barely any traits or personality separating them from each other. They could all be the same person. This book, the first in a trilogy, follows Sylah, a red-blooded Ember stolen by blue-blooded Dusters when she was a baby and raised to infiltrate the Ember ranks and bring the empire down. There are three main character in this book – all female and of different castes: Sylah (Ember), Anoor (Duster) and Hassan (Ghosting). The twist is, that Sylah and Anoor grew up in the ‘wrong’ caste. Sylah is one of the Stolen, the twelve two-year-old Ember children who were swapped by the rebel Sandstorm for Duster children (such as Anoor). Most of the changeling Duster children were discovered and killed, but Anoor’s Ember mother could not have her reputation tarnished by admitting that the Sandstorm had infiltrated her home, so kept Anoor’s secret. Sylar was brought up by the Sandstorm to help lead the revolution and to topple the Embers:
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El-Arifi writes beautifully. I’m usually a big-time highlighter, but I went a little heavier than usual with The Final Strife. I’d like to share a few of my favorite quotations. Of course, be aware these are from an advanced, unfinished copy. Sylah was born with the red blood of the elite that would enable her to do blood magic, but she never learned the runes since she was kidnapped by rebels. During the Night of the Stolen, this group sneaked into the homes of several noble families, swapping Sylah and the other highborn children with their own blue-blooded babies. These revolutionaries raised the children they abducted to understand just how terribly those with blue blood were treated: they were forced to do manual labor, such as working plantation fields; they could be brutally executed without a fair trial; and they were impoverished. The rebels also trained the children, preparing each of them for one of the tournaments to determine the next Warden of one of the four guilds—strength, truth, duty, or knowledge. Sylah was a strong fighter and an especially promising candidate for a future Warden of Strength, but the rebels’ plans to install these children in positions of power someday failed when they were discovered and massacred—except for Sylah and her mother, who alone managed to escape. Filled with grief over the loss of her loved ones and destiny, Sylah lost herself in drugs and became an addict, earning money by fighting in the pits run by the so-called fifth guild leader, the “Warden of Crime.” She’s especially wistful when the tournament she was supposed to enter draws near, but she has an opportunity to influence it after all—even if it’s not how she’d always imagined—when she breaks into the rooms of the Warden of Strength’s daughter and meets Anoor. I think where this fell down for me, personally, was that I wasn’t so in love with the writing style that I could deal with this. I had to start skimming just a bit, so I could get to the action again. That, and the love triangle. There’s also so much dialogue and inner monologue that I felt was unnecessary. Also, one supposed main character barely shows up too so not sure why this was mentioned in the synopsis. The audiobook was almost 20 hours if that tells you anything. I won’t be continuing this series and it wasn’t bad - just not for me. I seem to be an outlier here so don’t listen to me if you want to read this one but honestly, I was too bored.
Sylah believes only what Sandstorm told her – that all Embers were bad. Anoor had a very sheltered upbringing – but a very keen curiosity and sense of fairness, and through Sylah discovers much about the privilege and destitution of the outside world. Both learn so much from each other, and become better people because of it. They also learn a truth about the empire, that they never in their wildest dreams would have considered possible. Hassan, as the lowest of the low, and as an unseen and ignored servant to Embers, sees all layers. there’s a tournament and wind of blue sand killing every person and thing in it’s path. there’s lies and secrets and hurt and comfort and bargaining and chosen ones and giant lizards. and, there’s the blood magic of the embers, haunting and gruesome and so integral to the world. Epic in scope, its worldbuilding as intricate as filigree. The Final Strife sings of rebellion, love, and the courage it takes to stand up to tyranny, following three women whose journeys will keep you gripped to the last' —Samantha Shannon, Sunday Times bestselling author of The Priory of the Orange TreeI absolutely loved The Final Strife, the first instalment in the Ending Fire trilogy. EL-Arifi has blown me away with her talent for storytelling.
The sapphic romance between Anoor and Sylah was a sweet, slow burn, and was honestly so cute my heart couldn't take it!!! The nature of the book is dark, but the lightness in their relationship was like a beacon in the dark and I loved to see it. At least until the ninety percent mark when the reader discovers why shit hasn't been adding up the whole time. When we got this twist though it definitely felt like we were following the wrong character for this story. Yes, there were breadcrumbs along the way and I think that a reader could see this shit coming from a mile away because even my dumb ass was seeing that the math wasn't mathing. Some of that I definitely was intentional, and so I don't hold it against the book for telegraphing the twist for some way, I'm happy when books are like that and the revelation feels earned. Here though reading that made me want to just read that book and not so much the one I had been.Because what if that don’t understand, what if they don’t understand and in doing that show that they don’t understand the piece of you that also lives there. Sylah was destined to win the trials and be crowned Warden of Strength. Stolen by blue-blooded rebels she was raised with a Duster’s heart; forged as a weapon to bring down from within the red-blooded Embers’ regime of cruelty. But when her adopted family were brutally murdered those dreams of a better future turned to dust. Even with three strong protagonists, I generally found the supporting characters memorable, as they are given clear personalities and well-thought-out roles. I just wished we had more of Jond's character as there is so much I wanted to know about his life - but maybe this will be revealed in the next book. Anoor is a rarity, having reached young adulthood after being left in another child’s place on the Night of the Stolen. Although most parents killed the replacement children, the Warden of Strength at the time did not. Too many people would question her ability to protect the empire if they knew she had failed to protect her own daughter, so she hid the fact that her child was taken. She raised Anoor as her own, sending her to an elite school and arranging for her to mix a dash of her blue blood into a servant’s red to do blood magic. However, the Warden despised Anoor and made it clear she resented her for not being her trueborn daughter. Wishing to prove herself after a lifetime of abuse and belittlement, Anoor enters the tournament that will decide the next Disciple of Strength, who will prepare to succeed her mother when her term ends in ten years. But when she agrees to teach Sylah blood magic in exchange for being trained for the various strength trials, Anoor comes to realize just how sheltered she’s been from the horrors the other classes endure—and determines to win so she can better their lives, blue- and clear-blooded alike.
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