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A review by books_ergo_sum
The Final Strife by Saara El-Arifi
adventurous
1.0
I spent 90% of this book filled with rage because this story read—to be perfectly honest—like a 19th century eugenics narrative 🫤
My specific thoughts on that involve important plot points so I’ll put them behind spoiler tags.
But non-spoiler tldr, this was a very ‘Myth of the Metals’ (you know, from Plato’s Republic) style fantasy setup. Three types of people, three hierarchical roles in society. Except it wasn’t a myth? It involved inherited traits, specifically racial features and blood colours: an elite class (red blood), a working class (blue blood), and a slave class (clear blood).
Immediately. Sceptical. But what really turned this into eugenics/caste system apologia was a plot element that turned this into a whole “nature vs nurture” thing.
And we were kinda going hard on the nature side??? With castes, inherited races, and slavery. No.
That changed at the end? Maybe? But the change involved too illogical of a plot point to remove any of the “this book is eugenics?!” anger. It just transformed that anger into a “that reveal was nonsense!!” anger.
And I had some other issues:
▪️ a romance plot with someone she called her sibling 🫤 Plus, very out of the blue and cringy sexy times all around
▪️ love a bi love triangle. But this was less of a love triangle, more of a cheating trope (minus any grovel) situation
▪️ didn’t love that the slave class POV was the least centred in the story. I think it was actually because this POV had a lot of information that the author was trying to keep from the reader to manufacture reveals. But the result was that the character had a Mammy from Gone With the Wind vibe—mostly there to facilitate the stories of the non-slave POVs, which I don’t want to read in 2025
▪️ a trial with tasks… and yet I felt nothing
▪️ abrupt “I love you”s from everyone
▪️ clunky world building
▪️ this book was fatphobic and tried to gaslight me about it (forcing Anoor to diet and talking about her eating in almost every interaction while simultaneously lusting after and “celebrating” her curvy body was getting on my last nerve)
For me, this book just didn’t hang together well. So many of these ideas—okay on their own—had terrible emergent properties when combined, if that makes sense.
Potential spoiler for the 20% mark: The main premise of this story is a girl with red blood and a girl with blue blood were switched a birth. You know, [insert nature versus nurture debate here]. And we went with nature?
I wish the “biologically lower class” girl raised with privilege had just had privilege person traits. We should have made her a snooty biatch. I wish she had been like a District One person from The Hunger Games: ruthless, self-important, and unfairly advantaged.
But no. Sure, she was spoiled. But she was also credulous and not particularly strategic, noting like her cut-throat and terrifying aristocratic pretend mother. Moreover, the author took great pains to tell us that she was also inelegant and unrefined. She wanted five layers of ruffles on her dress when the fashion was one. She also—and here’s where the fatphobia comes in—“ate too much” and we scrutinized her eating choices CONSTANTLY. It was giving… ‘you can’t make a silk purse out of a sow’s ear’ 🫤 Like, her low class blood showed through, despite all her social advantages.
Our red-blooded heroine raised lower class, by contrast, was highly strategic. She had a twisted sense of honour, sure. But she was so honourable that it often got her in trouble with other blue-bloods. She was scrappy and resourceful (could be from her upbringing, could be innate). She was addicted to a drug and, though characters insisted her addiction was a personal failing, it felt more like a foil to the author’s real point: drug addiction is a social illness of the blue-blooded class that nurtured her, not her personal fault (unlike our other FMC’s interest in fatty foods). She was impulsive, but as the main driver of the plot, her boldness was constantly rewarded.
Within the fantasy world, the kids of the “best” rulers also ended up ruling and there was a hint of “is this nepotism?” (and therefore bad?) cultural critique. But the switched at birth trope snuffed that critique right out. The theme of the first 90% of the book was no, it’s not nepotism—it’s aristocracy-by-birth so pure that blood really does dictate character, even when someone with elite blood is raised in the gutter.
Spoiler for the 90% mark: The ‘everyone is naturally equally magical’ reveal was my least favourite type of reveal, stylistically. I hate that Anoor “always knew she could bloodwerk” and yet, she never had that thought while she was the POV and she was a) wishing she could bloodwerk? b) lamenting the inconvenience of having to use someone else’s blood to bloodwerk? or c) being shocked that the standard ideology about blood hierarchy everyone repeated was false? I call bullshit. If she knew this enormous secret and we were in her head when the topic came up multiple times, she should have thought about this “reveal” WAY earlier than the 90% mark
My specific thoughts on that involve important plot points so I’ll put them behind spoiler tags.
But non-spoiler tldr, this was a very ‘Myth of the Metals’ (you know, from Plato’s Republic) style fantasy setup. Three types of people, three hierarchical roles in society. Except it wasn’t a myth? It involved inherited traits, specifically racial features and blood colours: an elite class (red blood), a working class (blue blood), and a slave class (clear blood).
Immediately. Sceptical. But what really turned this into eugenics/caste system apologia was a plot element that turned this into a whole “nature vs nurture” thing.
And we were kinda going hard on the nature side??? With castes, inherited races, and slavery. No.
That changed at the end? Maybe? But the change involved too illogical of a plot point to remove any of the “this book is eugenics?!” anger. It just transformed that anger into a “that reveal was nonsense!!” anger.
And I had some other issues:
▪️ a romance plot with someone she called her sibling 🫤 Plus, very out of the blue and cringy sexy times all around
▪️ love a bi love triangle. But this was less of a love triangle, more of a cheating trope (minus any grovel) situation
▪️ didn’t love that the slave class POV was the least centred in the story. I think it was actually because this POV had a lot of information that the author was trying to keep from the reader to manufacture reveals. But the result was that the character had a Mammy from Gone With the Wind vibe—mostly there to facilitate the stories of the non-slave POVs, which I don’t want to read in 2025
▪️ a trial with tasks… and yet I felt nothing
▪️ abrupt “I love you”s from everyone
▪️ clunky world building
▪️ this book was fatphobic and tried to gaslight me about it (forcing Anoor to diet and talking about her eating in almost every interaction while simultaneously lusting after and “celebrating” her curvy body was getting on my last nerve)
For me, this book just didn’t hang together well. So many of these ideas—okay on their own—had terrible emergent properties when combined, if that makes sense.
Potential spoiler for the 20% mark:
I wish the “biologically lower class” girl raised with privilege had just had privilege person traits. We should have made her a snooty biatch. I wish she had been like a District One person from The Hunger Games: ruthless, self-important, and unfairly advantaged.
But no. Sure, she was spoiled. But she was also credulous and not particularly strategic, noting like her cut-throat and terrifying aristocratic pretend mother. Moreover, the author took great pains to tell us that she was also inelegant and unrefined. She wanted five layers of ruffles on her dress when the fashion was one. She also—and here’s where the fatphobia comes in—“ate too much” and we scrutinized her eating choices CONSTANTLY. It was giving… ‘you can’t make a silk purse out of a sow’s ear’ 🫤 Like, her low class blood showed through, despite all her social advantages.
Our red-blooded heroine raised lower class, by contrast, was highly strategic. She had a twisted sense of honour, sure. But she was so honourable that it often got her in trouble with other blue-bloods. She was scrappy and resourceful (could be from her upbringing, could be innate). She was addicted to a drug and, though characters insisted her addiction was a personal failing, it felt more like a foil to the author’s real point: drug addiction is a social illness of the blue-blooded class that nurtured her, not her personal fault (unlike our other FMC’s interest in fatty foods). She was impulsive, but as the main driver of the plot, her boldness was constantly rewarded.
Within the fantasy world, the kids of the “best” rulers also ended up ruling and there was a hint of “is this nepotism?” (and therefore bad?) cultural critique. But the switched at birth trope snuffed that critique right out. The theme of the first 90% of the book was no, it’s not nepotism—it’s aristocracy-by-birth so pure that blood really does dictate character, even when someone with elite blood is raised in the gutter.
Spoiler for the 90% mark: