I think Saara El-Arifi is one of the best epic fantasy writers of our generation. I feel lucky to be alive at the same time as her.

The way she depicts war, both from the scale of the entire world to singular people, is magnificent. There is so much history and magic to be found within this fantasy world, always new layers to peel back, and it makes me want to explode. I love these books so much.

Thanks to NetGalley for the ARC

Rarely have I ever found such an incredible trilogy where all 3 books are equally phenomenal....but my god. My heart was racing, my eyes were crying, my heart will never be the same. This was so, so good and the ending leaves room for so many more stories, nothing is wrapped with a perfect bow, but it's SATISFYING even if I am BROKEN.

The slow pacing in the Final Strife was not a problem in The Battle Drum and again in The Ending Fire, it's banger after banger. There are several POVs and they're all equally good and all had my attention fully gripped. The writing was so good and while I'm not sure I'll ever recover, I loved every second.

El-Arifi has really mastered her craft with this series - the characters are rich and complex and she really dives into their motivations and their development and forces them, and us as readers, to challenge why they are who they are and who they want to be moving forward. Our characters are in drastically different places and scattered across the world with this one and we see so many different sides of them as they discover new aspects of themselves. I'm not sure with a gun to my head I could pick a favorite, they're all done so well.

I have so much respect for how she brings so many characters and plots to fruition and ties the together in a way that isn't tied with a perfect bow, but feels real and respectful to the loss and dangers our characters have faced. Please read this trilogy....it's so dang good.

"Rebellions are like fires—something needs to burn to make a flame."

ARC provided via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review. All opinions expressed are my own.

➳ 4.5

TW: ableism, abuse, addiction, alcohol, blood, child death, classism, colonization, confinement, cursing, death, death of a loved one, domestic abuse, drug abuse, drug addiction, emotional abuse, genocide, gore, grief, gun violence, hate crime, injury/injury detail, medical content, murder, mutilation, panic attacks/disorders, physical abuse, police brutality, ritualistic sacrifice, religious extremism, self harm, sexual content, slavery, suicidal thoughts, suicide, torture, trafficking, violence, vomit, war, xenophobia.

Saara El-Arifi deserves every kind of award because how is every book she writes fantastic?

I'm actually incredibly emotional to be at the end of this trilogy, but here's my attempt at writing a coherent review (kindly ignore the distant sounds of my sniffling, please <3)

There are no words for how excited I was when I got approved for this ARC and I can only say that it met every single one of my expectations. Every ounce of excitement I felt for this book was rewarded with the kind of story deserving it. Even with me being locked in a horrendous reading slump, I was either reading this or thinking about reading it.

The story picks up just a bit after where The Battle Drum left off, with our characters each dealing with their own challenges as obstacles upon obstacles get thrown their way. We follow some characters to explore parts of the world we haven't seen before (each beautifully crafted) and others to more familiar places.

One of my favorite aspects was the way each of the main characters was given some sort of closure (or not) of a full-circle moment without the book ever feeling like it was trying to force me to experience that 'end-of-series' emotion that so many finales seem to attempt to manipulate their readers into feeling.

I will admit to struggling with Anoor's naivety a bit more in this book than the previous installments - but I also can't pretend I don't understand the decisions she made or the path that led her to where she was in this book. She was in character the entire time, it was just a bit tedious to read about.

My only other (slight) criticism is that I almost felt as if this book was too short or rushed. That isn't to say that I think it wasn't well-crafted but rather, I wish more time had been given to certain experiences/developments/characters. There were so many things going on in this book and not a single page was wasted; I just wish it could have been a bit longer.

That aside though? This is the kind of finale that makes you feel a bit hollowed out at the end, which is one of the biggest compliments I can give it. I love this series so, so much and it's really bittersweet to know that it's over.

I'm wholeheartedly grateful for the chance to read this and I can't wait to read every book Saara El-Arifi writes from now until the end of time.

Overview:
A solid ending to the series, though not as solid as I was hoping.

Re-Readability:
I will absolutely re-read this entire series, probably several times.

Writing:
Saara El-Arifi's authorial voice isn't anything particularly stand-out for me personally, but it's perfectly serviceable. Pretty straight-to-the-point, with a few nice turns of phrase here and there. Works for me!

Characters:
The characters in this series are not characters I feel really connected to or invested in. Aside from Hassa. Hassa is great.

Sylah is just kind of whatever for me. She's cool. I don't have a problem with her really. She's an interesting enough character. I don't really love the whole "I'll let the whole world burn in order to save you" kind of romance, and that's what we have here with Sylah & Anoor... especially coming from Sylah toward Anoor. So that's annoying from time to time, for sure.

Jond is incredibly "just there" for me. In the first book I hated him. In this book he was fine. He's not especially interesting to me, I suppose. And holy god his idiocy in this one with being unbelievably oblivious to how another character felt about him... I mean it when I say "unbelievable." I didn't buy it. I don't think he's actually the type of character who would be that idiotically dense.

Anoor. My god. The kind of character I really cannot stand. Completely, ridiculously gullible... going beyond just "believing what people tell me" and blatantly IGNORING things that are RIGHT IN FRONT OF HER FACE. Never truly having doubts about the cult indoctrination she was receiving... way too easy to manipulate... once again, a bit unbelievably. I think Anoor's arc could have been far more compelling in this, if the indoctrination had not been so unfathomably easy.

Plot:
This one felt so much more character-focused, and in a series where I don't feel that much toward the characters, that made me slightly less invested overall.

The religious zealotry/cult indoctrination stuff could have been so much more compelling if it was executed a bit better, in my opinion. It was still compelling enough and interesting enough. However, it was too easy to do, and it was way too obvious to us as the readers too.

The final battle also could have been done a bit better, in my opinion. I don't think we needed SO MANY short chapters from random characters we'd never had POVs from before... and oh my good god having that Shola chapter right before Olina's chapter REALLY watered down that whole reveal.

All that being said... I'm so glad Hassa got to technically strike the final blow against the Zalaam and play such a pivotal role in liberating her people! And overall in a general sense, I still liked the plot here. Despite my many gripes, I did NOT hate it. :-)

Absolutely fantastic final installment I really do love everything about this series. It has great world building, lore and characters to root for. Absolutely incredible and perfect. Highly recommend and will be rereading for a long time to come..

What an outstanding ending to such a superb fantasy series! This was absolutely stellar. It was definitely a very satisfying ending. The world-building continued to be amazing, and all the plot points were wrapped up beautifully. I loved all the character growth we saw in so many characters and all the fantastic character arcs. I'm sad to see the end of this series because it was so good, but this was the perfect conclusion.

AHHHHHHHH!!!!! This was everything I wanted and more!!! I’m just so sad it’s over now 😭
I genuinely loved how each character came into their own and was able to stare their challenges down. I’m genuinely going to miss this world, and I only wish I could have more of them.

Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for an advance copy in exchange for an honest review.

After eagerly awaiting the end to this trilogy for over a year (I was lucky enough to get an eARC of part 2 as well!) I'm sat here sort of dazed after the ending! A lot of the book was given to getting the POV characters back together so that an almighty battle could occur to overthrow the Zalaam and end the global problems such as floods, tidewinds etc that using bone marrow for powering magic had caused. Anoor went off with her grandmother at the end of book 2 as she was declared to be "The Child of Fire" - I love Anoor as a character but all throughout the series she has been shown to be incredibly naive and that doesn't stop in this book. Sylah has made her way back to the Warden's Empire after failing to defeat the Tannin and is feeling down in the dumps when she realises that Anoor has left to go off on a spiritual quest, this upsets Hassa who thought that Sylah should get on with the larger plan at hand of helping battle the people seeking to continue the history of segregation and servitude that has befallen people purely due to the colour of their blood. Jond is still hanging around with Kara and a cat he rescued (because sure, why not). So when the battle actually happens, down to it being largely essentially robot based the overall genre of the book seemed to flip - magic has been used for weapons throughout the series but now it's used en masse to have thousands of spider monsters wanting to trash the place and kill everything in sight as well as a SUPER ROBOT that will be powered by a sacrificial lamb. It was really strange to me that from something so historic fantasy feeling in the previous two parts that there was such a focus on these mechanical creations - I know they'd been introduced in book 2 but the scale of them was immense and what was the endgame for the Zalaam if they won? Just that they'd have cleared out all the non-believers and could just sit around praying to a God that really really enjoys sacrifices?! I did really enjoy the book, but did feel that section was quite jarring. I loved the extended POVs we got for the great battle, and I loved that there was a clear ending for all our main characters throughout the series.

The absolutely amazing end to an amazing story and an amazing series! I felt the ending was a bit rushed, but otherwise great!