Book Review: The Final Strife by Saara El-Arifi

• Title: The Final Strife
• Author: Saara El-Arifi
• Year: 2022

Some site I was reading (maybe io9?) had a list of books coming out in the next few months. The Battle Drum was included on it. It looked like something I’d enjoy, but it was the second book in a series. Thankfully, the SFF acquisitions librarian at my local public library is very good at his job, so they had The Final Strife, the first book in the series, on the shelf.

This book is a chonker. The hardback I checked out was nearly 600 pages long, all told. Despite that, it never felt like a long book. The plot had good pacing, as did the plot point reveals that El-Arifi sprinkled throughout the work. The characters and world building were fantastic, which helped to keep the pages turning much later into the night than they should have.

By the end of it, I was grateful to know that I wouldn’t need to wait more than a few weeks for the second book to be available. I’m very interested to see how things work out for Anoor, Sylah, and the Ghostings.