This novel was beautiful, unique and startling. You can absolutely tell that the author is a poet as the writing was so beautifully lyrical and moving. The story won’t be for everyone due to trigger warnings (suicidal ideation) but it’s a gorgeous novel with a a profoundly moving message.

*Thank you to Net Galley for the advance copy of Martyr! by Kaveh Akbar.

I wasn't so sure when I first started reading Martyr! that I was going to love it but MAN did that change fast. Cyrus Shams is the main character — a college student in his 20s, the son of Iranian immigrants (both now deceased), living in the Midwest. Cyrus is having a bit of an existential crisis as the book opens. He is also a poet, recently enamored with the idea of martyrs.

In this novel, Kaveh Akbar tackles sobriety, family, culture, family secrets, self-discovery, grief, art, language, and martyrdom (of course). Stylistically, the novel was not the most straightforward, but it was still very enjoyable. I would absolutely read more by Kaveh Akbar in a heartbeat.

This is a book I see myself rereading once a year. Akbar is a poet, a truth that is immediately apparent when you start reading. Cyrus is a young man, an alcoholic, an addict, a recent orphan, an Iranian immigrant to America, an artist. Should he add "martyr" to the list? And how does one die in a way that ensures martyr status? He has lived his whole conscious life in America, knowing that his mother died on her first plane ride ever when an American missile "accidentally" vaporized everyone on her flight. This death, the recent death of his father, his uncle's....unique role on the battlefield, and history books full of martyrs fuel his obsession with death and dying.

This isn't a book I expected to have a big twist, and I was not looking for it, and I did not anticipate it, so it absolutely DESTROYED me. I had to stop reading and sob and reflect for a good 15 minutes. It is such a beautiful, poignant, relatable story, trying to find meaning in life and death. And I don't think I've ever read a story about that search for meaning that was quite so stunning in language. It is raw and insightful and incisive and messy and selfish and hilarious. The side quest of Zee and Cyrus was icing on the cake for me. I might start it again right now, actually. BRB.

In his debut novel, "Martyr!," poet Kaveh Akbar weaves a powerful nonlinear narrative that explores the complexities of coming of age through the eyes of Cyrus Shams, a young Iranian-American writer newly sober and mourning the deaths of his parents. Akbar details both Cyrus’s struggles and those of his loved ones with insight and empathy, crafting a story that feels both timeless and relevant.

While the novel's time-hopping, perspective-shifting structure has become increasingly common in contemporary fiction, Akbar employs it with skill and purpose, using it to highlight the ways in which our experiences shape our identities and relationships. His prose, honed by years of poetic practice, is striking in its ability to capture the nuances of the human condition. It’s also funny as hell, from his observations on academic life to Cyrus imagining his dead mother in conversation with cartoon character Lisa Simpson.

"Martyr!" is an impressive debut that establishes Akbar as a talented novelist with a distinctive voice and a bright future in literary fiction.

Kaveh Akbar is brilliant. I love novels by poets of a semi-autobiographical nature, and this debut doesn't disappoint. It's about Cyrus, a young Iranian American struggling with drug abuse. Akbar's writing is assured, stylish, and at times very beautiful.

Thanks to NeGalley and Knopf, Pantheon, Vintage, and Anchor | Knopf for the opportunity to read Martyr! By Kaveh Akbar. This is not a novel for everyone. For me, the poetic writing was enough to sweep me away. I loved it

Engaging and wildly entertaining, Martyr! will undoubtedly be considered one of the best debut novels of the year because it focuses on very specific stories while discussing universal feelings. It celebrates language while delving deep into human darkness. It entertains while jumping around in time and space and between the real and the surreal like a fever dream. It brilliantly explores addiction, grief, guilt, sexuality, racism, martyrdom, biculturalism, the compulsion to create something that matters, and our endless quest for purpose in a world that can often be cruel and uncaring. Akbar was already known as a great poet, but now he must also be called a great, fearless novelist.

DNF at 10%.

This was not for me. I kept waiting for it to be funny but it just left me feeling sad. TLDR, I have trouble reading books about alcoholics sometimes, especially if the MC is a man. Too much trauma for me to personally deal with.

Thank you to NetGalley for this ARC.

Reviewed for Library Journal:

"Following two exceptional poetry collections (Calling a Wolf a Wolf and Pilgrim Bell) Akbar’s debut novel arrives with plenty of expectation. Yet even within the celebrated history of poets undertaking prose fiction, this title stands out as a work of uncommon artistic assuredness and vibrancy. The sense of life that permeates the novel’s pages is perhaps ironic, given the material concerns Cyrus, a young Iranian American poet in recovery who is consumed by a desire for death, if only he could find surety that his life has contributed value to the calculus of the shared cosmos. But Akbar’s debut is more than mere existential ponderance or addiction saga or tale of arrested development short-circuited by personal calamity—it’s a work that understands, and poignantly, painfully, details how all such narrative threads can only ever be part of the larger story of, what Akbar calls, the “now-ness” of living. As carried through by his poetic pen and perspective, the novel is also rich in humor, sharp observation, and a plea for self-love, and all bleakness balanced by a tenderness that generously insinuates itself like sun through shut blinds.
VERDICT Akbar delivers a delirious but moving portrait of one man’s personal reckoning, the novel’s profound affection for life fully earning its title’s bold exclamation."

I don't understand all the hype and praise surrounding this book. The story and writing are pretty mediocre. I didn't find anything special about our main character. I found him insufferable and immature. Parts of this book were interesting and emotional but overall, I don't think this book is memorable.

Martyr! was a beautiful poetic novel about the main character's struggle with his inner demons. I appreciated the honest look at drug abuse.

Martyr! by Kaveh Akbar is an inventive, exceptional novel that will absolutely be one of my favorite books of the year. Shifts through time and character perspective add layers and depth to this story that you will not predict, including a banger of an ending. As someone who doesn't typically re-read books, I wanted to restart this one almost immediately after finishing it. Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for an ARC in exchange for an honest review.

This is such an interesting portrayal of grief, addiction, identity, art, and more. It took me a while to get into but once I did I was so invested. And the ending was fascinating! Would recommend if you enjoy litfic.

Martyr is an interesting mediation on just that -- what it means to die for a cause and how to pick a cause if you're lost. It's a somewhat backwards approach, but it certainly works as we follow Cyrus through dealing with his lost mother, distant father struggling to make a life for them, and collection of friends. He eventually finds himself at a fascinating performance art piece visiting a dying woman in a gallery to try to get some purpose.

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.