i loved this book! i always love when poets write novels, and i think the way this book is experimentally structured pulled me through. it really picked up in the second half.

This is such a lovely novel. Cyrus is many things: queer, first gen, a recent college, a poet, and newly sober. Though Cyrus has some good friends, he is lonely and bereft of family. His life experiences have left with an obsession with martyrdom and a desire for a meaningful death. These questions fuel the novel.

The writing is good and it's easy to be swept into Cyrus' world. But, the book fuses many POVs and as the novel progressed, I felt as if we could have culled some of these perspectives and instead spent more time on Cyrus.

There is no doubt that I missed something with this book, but the ending was CONFUSING. I'm still not sure what happened there...

I requested Martyr as background reading for a review we ran on BookBrowse. Sadly, as yet, I have not had time to read it, but our reviewer gave it 4-stars and we featured it as one of four "top picks" of the week:
https://www.bookbrowse.com/mag/reviews/index.cfm/ref/bp303360/martyr#reviews

"Martyr!" by Kaveh Akbar is an interesting, dark, and unexpected novel. A life following major trauma leaves the main character lost and vulnerable. Unexpected draws and conclusion in this novel, as well as topics including art, depression, and addiction, was melancholy yet unique. Thank you NetGalley, the author and publisher for the review copy. All opinions are my own.

I think Akbar has a lot of talent and there were some lines that blew me away. I liked the discussion of martyrdom and what it means to build a life. However, I did not like the twist in this at all. It was so obvious that I thought it couldn't possibly be that. That choice made it feel a little cheap.

I found out about this book through word of mouth. People started sharing how big of a masterpiece it was and I eventually became interested and requested it. It's my first Kaveh work. The book is a book, not A Book, which I wanted it to be, A Book, I mean. The book has fantastic moments yet as a whole, I didn't enjoy it as much as I wanted to. I still recommend it because it's good, but not amazing as I wanted it to be. Many people have loved it, though, and that's lovely. Congrats to Kaveh on his debut novel!

Cyrus Shams is newly sober, sometimes suicidal, fascinated by martyrs and death and the cultures which honor them though for varying reasons. He's obsessed with his plan to write a book of poems celebrating them. His mother was killed in a plane crash when he was 5, her plane senselessly shot down by the US military, the country which Cyrus now calls home. His father left Iran and immigrated with Cyrus, only to live out the rest of his life working long hours at a Midwestern chicken farm before dying when Cyrus was in college. Cyrus is now a sometime poet, addict, drunk, determined to solve existential questions of loneliness, abandonment, and belonging, in the company of the family of sorts he has cobbled together out of other former addicts and misfits, including the young man he lives with who is his best friend and occasional partner.
He's exploring the life of his uncle, who as an Iranian soldier was forced to play a role of the "angel of death," riding a horse around a battlefield at dusk to comfort the dying. When he hears of a terminally ill Iranian painter living out her final days and hours holding court in a Brooklyn art gallery, he's fascinated--what can she teach him about death? Plus one of her paintings depicts a similar scene to that described by his uncle. He goes to visit her. The two connect in a deep mysterious way, and while he does get some answers, he also gets more questions.
Martyr! is an unusual book. It starts really slow and it ends very oddly, but it's worth the read. The poems that Cyrus is writing are gorgeous, and his musings on life, death, the meanings and connections we make or miss, are raw and honest and often amusing. I enjoyed this book, and I recommend it!

This book is just everything to me! It’s brimming with complex characters, moving themes, and finally a relatable self-destructive queer character. I instantly made it my book club’s next pick.

The main character’s antics and the author’s writing style are features you will likely either love or hate. For me, the tale of Cyrus and his storytelling style were off-putting, hard to relate to. While the fiction is meant to be humorous, satirical, it just didn’t hook me.

Whewwww, now this is a BOOK. I didn't know what to expect when diving into poet Kaveh Akbar's first novel MARTYR! but it was a delightful, meaningful, and wild ride.

Cyrus is a recovering alcoholic, a lost poet who is trying to find inspiration for this art despite his meaningless job, and looking back on his life as an Iranian-American. He lost his mother as a baby when her plane was shot down by America on the way to Dubai, and his father brought him to America shortly after to start a new life. With his father now dead as well, he begins a meditation on his upbringing, and his losses, by travelling to New York to see an Abramović-esque performance by another Iranian artist at the Brooklyn Museum.

Told in different POVs, but with Cyrus as our center of gravity, Akbar does an incredible job building characters and stories that make this book very hard to put down. The twist at the end was shocking and fantastic, and the ending of the book fantastical and surreal. I put it down a few days ago and it has still stayed with me. It is a book that I think would greatly benefit from a re-read, something I rarely do but have a feeling I may revisit this one - that's honestly the best kind of review I can give!

Not for me. This reads like a fever dream. I don't care enough about the underlying story to deal with the way the story is being told. Thanks for the advance copy from Net Galley.

I put this book down for a day and a half, because I hated it and dreaded coming back to it. Because so many people loved it I thought I should keep soldiering on. But when I tried again, I still hated it. Finally abandoned. I received a free copy of this book from the publisher.

What do we do with ourselves after tragedy? Akbar's story is about finding your purpose in the face of feeling like it is all over. How do we overcome? What a brilliant story that pulls you right in and keeps you there.

This was a book I picked up and put down several times. I kept thinking I just wasn't in the right place to read Cyrus' story. When I hit a reading groove, I was able to immerse myself into the story, but it just wasn't a story that drew me in and held my interest. Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for the ARC. It might be a story I pick up and revisit at a different time in my life, but for now-i had to set it free.

This book's poetic roots are evident, offering a mixed bag of beautifully crafted passages and a meandering plot, especially when the narrative hits New York City and stumbles into a massive, yet unconvincing plot twist. The use of multiple perspectives—Cyrus's family members—adds little due to their lack of development, with Roya's character being notably thin despite her significant role. The frequent dream sequences further dilute the story, failing to introduce new insights or progress the plot. However, Cyrus's poetry emerges as a highlight.

The focus on martyrdom as a central theme feels misplaced and repetitively explored, without effectively connecting Cyrus's internal struggle from depression to a quest for martyrdom. This portrayal strikes as overly analytical and somewhat unfaithful to the genuine complexities of such mental states.

The conclusion left me feeling detached, the intended emotional crescendo falling flat due to the superficially developed relationships between Cyrus, Orkideh, and Zee. These bonds, meant to be transformative, feel contrived, serving more as plot devices than genuine connections, undermining the story's emotional impact.

Cyrus Shams is typical American 20-something: delusions of artistic grandeur (he's an aspiring writer who spends very little time writing), tumultuous relationships, a substance abuse disorder. At the same time, he's haunted by the ghosts of his Iranian heritage: his mother, murdered by the U.S. government on Iran Air Flight 655; his father, a factory farm employee, trapped in the capitalist hellscape of his adopted land; his uncle, a veteran of the Iran-Iraq war--who, dressed as a Koranic prophet, traversed battlefields on horseback to comfort dying soldiers. What Cyrus seeks is a meaningful death; hence his obsession with martyrdom. When he hears about Orkideh, an Iranian artist dying of cancer and in the process of completing her final work—a performance piece called Death-Speak, where she holds court in an empty museum gallery, conversing with anyone who wishes to engage—he is convinced he's found the perfect guide to accompany him on his search. On meeting, Cyrus and Orkideh develop an immediate rapport. But she swiftly disabuses him of the notion that her death is more noble or meaningful than any other--or, indeed, that Death has any meaning at all. Cyrus' journey ends in a paradoxical revelation: rather than ending in death, everything, in fact, ends in life. The big twist on which the plot turns requires quite a suspension of disbelief--but why not? The book itself is a series of ever-deepening and widening connections between people, places, and eras; to reject the tale out of concerns about "plausibility" seems to miss the point. While sometimes too ambitious, overstuffed with characters, numerous smaller plot twists, and Big Ideas, it's still an enjoyable debut novel, with elements of philosophy, poetry (chapters are bookended by Cyrus' poems) and pop culture (Akbar exhibits a wide-ranging passion for music). I'm interested in what he writes next.

2.5-3 stars
I didn't love this book even though I kind of expected to. The main character, a gay Iranian-America addict and poet, was immensely annoying. Even though he was 30, he was so whiny and self-centered that he seemed more like a 13 year old. He was obsessed with being a martyr so that his life would have meaning--why not go out and live a meaningful life, helping others, working to improve the environment, something, other than drinking all night every night with his friends.

I did like the parts about his mother, his father, his uncle, etc., for the look at their lives, personalities, and cultural influences.

Thanks to the publisher and NetGalley for a free e-ARC of this book.

What an incredible book. Hilarious, full of heart, smart, wry -- i'll recommend this to everyone I know.

A study of character, identity, death, and worth that continually hits you with unexpected insights. Cyrus Shams takes readers on a multi-generational, international tour of deep topics while also feeling like a very personal conversation. It's not just his story, but that of his parents and even, to a certain degree, that of many binational young people who often feel divided and unwelcome in both their identities.
It took me a minute to figure out how I felt about this book because it's one of those that hits you with something that makes you stop and think in a way that completely takes you out of the story. I am not a fan of books that practically kick you out of the narrative, but the way that Akbar writes by jumping from character to character helps ease that a little bit. Not to mention, that it's impossible to walk away from it without having some deep thoughts about the things said within it.

Very happy thanks to NetGalley and Knopf for the thought-provoking read!