A review by emk5
The Final Strife by Saara El-Arifi

slow-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Plot
  • Strong character development? No
  • Loveable characters? No

3.0

I think 3 stars is pretty generous. I wish more of this book focused on Hassa. I don't think Sylah needed to be likeable, and...she very much wasn't... 

The world building was good but frankly not enough for me to want to read the other books in this series. At some point I wrote down a note of "I'm supposed to dislike Sylah and Anoor right???" Anoor was a more believable(?) character than Sylah but still extremely naive and cliche! Verbatim from Anoor: "the prison she would build would be bigger" after being horrified by the size of a cell??! 

Sylah was frankly really immature and selfish?? For a lot of the book she kept being like "she (name redacted for spoiler) stole my life from me/that should've been mine etc" even though the Sandstorm carried out the BABY SWAP! They were babies!!! Or if this was trying to show that her "upbringing" didn't give her "the heart of a Duster" I dunno, it didn't land. Maybe the author is playing 3D chess and I was reading checkers...

One of my main gripes is it was really unclear how Sylah and Hassa are "friends" (Sylah is not a friend to Hassa!!!!!)

ALSO NONE OF THE ROMANCE WAS BELIEVABLE. I did think it was funny that we got a fairly thorough sex scene between Sylah and (redacted) but basically faded to black for Sylah and (redacted)!!!!!
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