Welcome to Litsy!

...beautiful, tragic, funny,...There's even a plot twist -- handled deftly by Akbar, without resorting to clichéd sentimentality. ... lays bare themes of addiction, abandonment, artistic impulse, religiosity, media filters, racism, sexuality, and yes-- martyrdom-... like one of those rare honest conversations one might have with a close friend #TOB2025
Full review: https://readingrantsandraves.blogspot.com/2025/10/2025-43-martyr-akbar.html

I gave myself one day to read this before it's due back at the library. ? I just spent 6 hours grading 8th grade writing, so I'm very excited to have some "me time" for the rest of the night.

Finished this one earlier this week, just in time to attend an author signing on Tuesday.

The book itself was phenomenal. Hearing Kaveh Akbar (who is an absolute delight) speak made me love it even more.

This weeks read💛🖤Martyr!

Top row: books that I've had on hold FOREVER.
Bottom row: this week's assigned reading for my Materials for Youth class. 🤓

I read a few books, Two #1001Books. Fresh Dirt from the Grave was mostly set in #Bolivia for #FoodandLit. It and Voyager are #WomeninTranslation. Patsy worked for #LGBTQIA2025 bingo and Three books were for #192025. Martyr! was just because I had been recommend it so many times.

This was such a unique and quirky read, both funny and philosophical. What is required for your life to be considered meaningful, valuable, worth living? What might we be missing that is right in front of us? This was a fun read am grateful to the author for the vulnerability he took in writing Cyrus‘s character. This was a fun and enjoyable read. I would highly recommend for readers who enjoy character-based literary fiction.

#BookBracket2025 was very hard for July! I read six 5-star books, including two audio adaptations of all-time favourites, Anne of Green Gables and Dykes to Watch Out For, plus TJR's 1980s lesbian astronaut book and Alison Bechdel's brand new graphic novel. I decided Martyr! was the winner because it's so beautiful/complex, but I had to sneak in DTWOF as a wild card because it was so well done. It was so fun seeing my old comic friends in new form!

Don't know how to describe this except as a masterpiece, one of the best books I've ever read. It's got the most beautiful, insightful, poetic writing and deep feeling for its characters and their crises (material, spiritual, existential, relational). Reading this only once feels like just scratching the surface of its meaning and beauty. Also: queer love!!

"Love was a room that appeared when you stepped into it. Cyrus...stepped."

Reading this book kind of makes me feel drunk? In a good way.

Great books this month, however I‘m the only one in my Bookclub who didn‘t love Martyr!

I started off really enjoying the book but as it progressed it lost the plot completely. The premise is about living a meaningful life and finding meaning through art, relationships and faith, and defining meaning for life through death (as the title suggests) but the author gets distracted by the frivolous and places emphasis on characters who are inherently meaningless or unlikeable that the message never truly lands.

February 2025 Book #5

I really enjoyed this book but I understand is not for everyone because is slow, maybe story was dragged a little bit and some convenient actions present that helped that ending. I usually don‘t like or enjoy stories about addictions, maybe too close to work, but there was something in the writing style that I loved, how author described the characters, that self talking, reflection, so deep, so many wonderful quotes⬇️

Not at all what I was expecting. There were instances that were deep and poignant, followed by what felt like a surface level YA novel. This one was not for me.

I feel like I‘ve been reading this book for so long! Life has been busy. I was hoping to wrap this one up today during my lunch break, but then we had to shelter in place due to a tornado warning. Let‘s try this again.

I enjoyed listening to this, at times it was almost meditative. The talk about art and being compelled to create and adrift when there was no inspiration was so interesting, listening to the struggles of addiction was hard. A quote that stood out for me that came from the Koran “Action will be judged by intention”. I‘d like to ask a few people in power about this. It was disjointed at times

Cyrus vainly sets off on a quest to die for his beliefs, but the real way to give meaning to one‘s existence is to live—not even to create art as much as find beauty and grace in any small world we‘re lucky enough to find ourselves.

29 Mar-20 Apr 25
Beautifully written and quite a compelling read.
Akbar tells the story of Cyrus, an Iranian-American whose mother was killed when the US shot down an Iranian passenger plane and who is trying to understand the nature of martyrdom in the context of his own life and addiction.
A little predictable but nevertheless a compelling and provocative read and so beautifully written.

Next Lego set

I finished my telephone box and put it with my ‘set in the UK‘ books

A young man is trying to make some sense of his mother‘s senseless death many years ago. In order to make sense of it, he‘s thinking of writing a book about martyrs. When he learns of an art exhibition where a woman is making her last days into art, he thinks that will be a good point for his book.

This book was completely different from what I expected, but ended up loving it

“From the Palace of Dariush,” said the caption underneath, “Older than the Roman Colosseum!” Some solace in history, perhaps, knowing other civilizations had also destroyed themselves. In fact, the record seemed to suggest such destruction was inevitable, the endpoint of every people.”

What an intense and different novel, exploring art, the world, love and the life death continuum.
I found it tough at times in it's bleak honesty but alongside that, such gorgeous writing.
Will remain with me.

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ Because of how his mother died, Cyrus becomes obsessed with the concept of dying a meaningful death. Or perhaps, with living a meaningful life. A clever and introspective study of grief. Full circle creativity, and flawless execution, lead to its much-deserved critical acclaim. Wholly unique. I loved it!

#LitsyToB25 Martyr! is our winner today. Only Tracy, Holly and Theresa voted for Rejection. Short stories and the tournament aren‘t always a good match.
And we do agree with the #ToB25 judgment today so in both tournaments we‘ll see Martyr! continue.

Yes, I loved this novel.

The smartest, most creative, most real book I have read in a very long time. Don't worry about death. Sacrifice yourself to life. Cyrus will always be a part of my heart. The way Akbar wrote about historical martyrs through poetry was ingenious. Cyrus's dreams were beautiful and added so much to Cyrus's quest. It made me ashamed of being American (not owning up to killing 278 Iranian people), but there is hope. You just can't quit searching.

⭐️⭐️💫 Unpopular opinion, but I didn‘t connect with this at all. Found the MC self absorbed and as a result just didn‘t really care about his obsession with martyrdom or any of the side stories from the other characters. I kept thinking “I don‘t care!” to myself and bumping up the playback speed to get it over sooner. Glad others enjoyed it more than I did! #ToB25

This is among my favourites of the #ToB25 books I've read so far. The writing is beautiful, there were interesting and unexpected twists, and I spent some time mulling over the ending. Looking forward to the #LitsyToB discussion.

#gottacatchemall (Emolga: yellow cover) @PuddleJumper

Bloody brilliant, magic, whimsical. He has a powerful and unique voice, will definitely reread because it has so much content and subtle beauty, existential questions and more. Anyone else read this? Would love to hear your thoughts #martyr #kavehakbar #brilliantbook

I am enjoying this so much—my first big read of 2024.

There's not a lot I can say about this one without giving spoilers, but I can say that I really appreciate how it's written, and I'm looking forward to discussing the ending with my book club. It's not my favorite from the #tob25 shortlist, but I do like it.

This was excellent. Happy to finally be pleased with a #tob25 entry after a couple letdowns in a row! It‘s cleverly pulled together and the writing is beautiful (would expect nothing less from a poet author).

So depressing to go back to subzero temps today. I will miss the sun 🌞. 📸: San Jose del Cabo MX

First day of winter quarter should be acknowledged with a trip to the bookstore.

For those doing #ToB, Martyr is 99p at the moment!

@BarbaraBB

58 total books read, my top five fiction for 2024 is pictured. I feel like I read a lot of books but was only truly in love with very few! Anyway, cheers Litsers!! 🍻

Akbar‘s writing is really something special! 🌟🏅

Wowza, the writing. Some chapters were absolutely magical and others, I wasn‘t even sure they needed to be there (but they do, and people smarter than me will relish in them). What a way to end my 2024 reading! Glad I stuck with this one.

🗡️

In the animal world, a broken leg meant you starved, so a healed femur meant that some human had supported another's long recovery, fed them, cleaned the wound. And thus, the author argued, began civilization. Augured not by an instrument of murder, but by a fracture bound, a bit of food brought back for another.

And this is why I cannot make my best of list until Jan 1!! I loved this, the writing is wonderfully poetic, I need to buy a copy so I can mark it up, I wanted to highlight so many lines and paragraphs. I loved all of the characters. Cyrus was a mess but he was an endearing mess.
This has been on so many best of lists and it deserves all the praise it is getting. I loved this

#weeklyforecast

I am so close to finishing Martyr! I am loving it, have less than 100 pgs and it was due back yesterday so hoping to finish today.

I am 20% into We Could Be Rats the new Emily Austin and I am not loving it as much as Fact About Space but will push on.

Want to get to Poor DEER bc Empires both are due back this weekend and so many people are waiting!

My audio for my walks is Worst Hard Time by Egan about the American dust bowl

Persian Mirror Art
"I think about this a lot Cyrus. These centuries of Persians trying to copy the Egyptian vanity, really their self reflection. How it arrived to us in shards. How we had to look at ourselves in these broken fragments, and how those mirror tiles found themselves in all these mosques, the tile work, these ornate mosaics. How those spaces made the fractured glimpses of ourselves near sacred."

Akbar has an amazing use of words. The way he lays out and describes Cyrus' descent into alcoholism is heartbreaking, gorgeous and understandable.

"But Cyrus's true love, his bedrock, his soulmate, was alcohol. Alcohol was faithful, omnipresent, predictable. Alcohol didn't demand monogamy like opiates or meth. Alcohol demanded only that you came back home to it at the end of the night."

Martyr! is an absolute pleasure to read. Cyrus‘ struggle with his identity and history makes for truly compelling reading 😊

Recently found quote in my camera roll ❤️

I know of KA primarily as a poet: always creative, always interesting, sometimes very moving, sometimes just plain baffling. This book was all of those things by turn. Or all at once.
Cyrus is colossally self-absorbed, but is aware of the fact. I wanted good things to happen for him.
Structurally, I'm not entirely convinced it worked, but KA makes for a dazzling, rhapsodic novelist. I enjoyed his book very much.

I‘m going to be thinking about this one because there is a lot to chew on.

Is this a perfect novel? Nope, in fact there are elements I don‘t appreciate and frankly I‘ve read better debut novels. However Kaveh has a very distinctive creative voice that isn‘t forgettable. This won‘t be a spine on the shelf I‘ll wonder whether I‘ve read.