What a refreshing novel - so many topics are explored and the ending is fiction at its best. Cyrus is a young man working his way through multiple issues. Family, addiction, art and friendship are all explored and the reader will come to root for Cyrus as he follows his path to an artist living her end days at a museum.

A really unique and special novel, although the constantly changing timelines and perspectives were overwhelming at times.

The Martyr! is a beautifully written albeit eccentric and esoteric novel which explores the search for one’s meaning in life and death. It’s an honest look at the human search for meaning in the face of depression, oppression, cultural identity, addiction, intergenerational loss and trauma, poverty, gender and sexual identity and so much more. It delved into dark places with sprinkles of lightness and humor. It was definitely not a light read! This novel is thought provoking and philosophical, exploring many existential questions such as the meaning of “goodness”. Is goodness the absence of actions which lead to negative consequences for others, or does it require intentional acts of “goodness”?

In my experience, this book started out strong, dragged a bit in the middle, and ended strong (and somewhat confusing). At times it felt as though the author tried to throw too much into the span of this novel. That being said, I enjoyed the experience of this novel, and I would recommend it to others.

Thank you to NetGalley, Kaveh Akbar, and Knopf Publishing for sharing this free ARC digital copy.

This is a touching novel about a young Iranian American who wants his life to have meaning. His story is sad and touching. His father has died and his mother died when he was an infant. He tries to make sense of his newly sober life.

An exquisitely crafted and gut-wrenching journey through queer and immigrant identity, addiction, grief, and everything in between. So many parts of this book simultaneously lit up the parts of me that want to laugh and want to cry. The relationships are realistically drawn and the dialogue is unbeatable—in audiobook form (I read this both ways), it reads as perfectly as a film script. Though my praise for this book seems rather bland, my feelings for it are anything but. I just feel like I got to live in the mind of a very messed up, very relatable narrator and like his pains and joys were mine. It’s the kind of reading experience that I grieve being over. I just want to crawl back into Cyrus’s pov. Don’t miss.

I struggled to start this book but once I did (!) I couldn’t put it down. The witty wry sense of humor carried the story along and helped Akbar’s Cyrus deal with all the difficult things tossed his way.

And when I say difficult things I mean DIFFICULT things so be sure to note the cw before you decide to start reading.

cw: suicidal ideation, parent death, drug addiction, alcoholism, suicide, depression

I finished this book a while ago, and still think about constantly. It's so dynamic, clever, and relatable. Highly recommend.

Thank you to Net Galley and Knopf for the ARC in exchange for my honest review. I have enjoyed the poetry of the author and was excited to read this book of fiction. I tried starting it several times but couldn't get into it. Just recently I tried it again and I very much enjoyed this original story following Cyrus Shams, son of Iranian immigrants who has lost his way and is an addict and poet. At a young age his mother's plane was shot down above Tehran and his father worked a job at a factory farm...all so far from their American dream. Cyrus is on a search for why this happened to his mother, how it has affected his life and what all of this means. His search leads him to a artist who is living out her final days in the Brooklyn Museum and who could be the answer to all his questions. This was something completely different coming from a perspective filled with creativity and uniqueness for how a story is told.

Cyrus Shams is at a standstill in his life. He seems to be recovering from a life of loss. His mother was killed when her plane was shot down over Tehran. His father raised him in the U.S., working 6 days a week at a chicken farm to give Cyrus a decent life, then died when Cyrus went to college. Cyrus is a recovering alcoholic and poet with an obsession with martyrs and with giving meaning to life and to death. So he decides to write a book about martyrs. When he hears about a terminally ill artist whose final exhibit is to die at a Brooklyn museum, he goes to NY to speak with her and his world opens up as a painting -- and secrets -- are discovered.

"Martyr!" is a brilliant book about about a young man on a quest. I loved Cyrus, even when I wanted to shake him. I also loved his friend Zee, who was sort of the Sam to his Frodo. The ending was wild and I loved that, too. All around, this was a beautiful story.

I’m a little late to the party but I was so impressed with author Akbar’s gifts as a writer, perhaps more impressed than I was by this debut novel as a whole. The sheer energy and enthusiasm of his writing got me through chapters that seemed less than essential. His struggle with the power, and limits, of language was more compelling than some of his observations of the immigrant experience, which I thought were fairly generic.

In a bit of slight-of-hand, ultimately the book’s hero is Cyrus’s mother, who I initially thought of as a secondary character. Her own journey is remarkable and thrilling.

Sometimes you are swept along by a writer almost exercising an act of will. It might be easy to quibble with some of this book but any such nitpicks are overwhelmed by Akbar’s absolute talent.

Many thanks to NetGalley and Knopf for the advance readers copy.

An absolute stunner of a book. Funny and touching, I loved the narration and characterization across the board.

"Martyr!" Is a patchwork of points-of-view and levels of potential. It was hard to get going on it, but I did make it through. My thought: it needed more editorial work in development to bring all those elements together. What's good: Cyrus' struggle with addition is poignant as well as exasperating, and some of the writing is truly fine. I still think that Martyr! Will be up for awards. I just wish it was all it could be.

Thanks to Knopf and NetGalley for digital access to Kaveh Akbar's fiction debut in exchange for an honest review.

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.