The biology ain't biologying. Half of the people in this book are anemic and there isn't one explanation how they cope. Love the queer rep though
This was almost aggressively mid. The world in itself is quite interesting but sadly neither the story nor the writing do it justice. The characters seemed bland and had no chemistry and OH MY GOD was it predictable! There were a few surprises in the last ten pages but the other 480 pages had me deeply annoyed. This could have been greatly improved by some stylistic tweaks (surprise, always telling the readers everything 5 times and having no built-up suspense kinda kills a book). 3 stars because I still found myself wanting to finish it (and hoping something would finally happen??) but I probably won't read the second one. a small <spoiler> also the ghostings were way more interesting than everyone else?? why did we only get so little of their story? why don't they bloodwerk anymore? maybe the book should have been about their resistance as it seems a lot more interesting than the actual story. their language and faith was more refined than everything else and i was way too invested in hassa </spoiler>
Sylah, Anoor, Hassa. Drei Frauen, alle in derselben Stadt geboren und dennoch könnten ihre Lebensumstände unterschiedlicher nicht sein. Die Gesellschaft in „The Final Strife“ ist eine Drei-Klassen-Gesellschaft und die Farbe des Blutes bestimmt die Klassenzugehörigkeit. Das Leben in der von Saara El-Arifi erdachten Welt ist grausam. Das Worldbuilding hat mir richtig gut gefallen. Aktuelle Themen wie Rassismus, Kolonialismus und queerness finden sich in der Geschichte wieder und so ist das Ganze nicht nur eine spannende Fantasygeschichte mit drei vielschichtigen weiblichen Hauptfiguren, sondern auch ein aktueller und politischer Kommentar. Ich hab richtig Lust auf Band 2, der demnächst erscheinen wird. PS: Meine Lieblingsfigur war, mit kleinem Abstand, Hassa. Und eure?
