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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]Finished Kaveh Akbar’s Martyr! It was an uneven read. There were some parts that were really beautifully written; the chapter from the perspective of Cyrus’s uncle, riding a horse on a battlefield, is stunning. I enjoyed the poems that began each chapter. I was not familiar with Akbar as a poet before this, but I will definitely check out his works in that genre.

However, I couldn’t relate to the main character (Cyrus) at all. His chapters felt like reading a bored and [b]spoiled young adult from Brooklyn’s LiveJournal. [/b]The twist at the end I found to be farfetched and rather silly. Akbar’s touches on a lot of themes (love, loss, grief, American-Iranian relations and politics, martyrdom, among others). Yet none of them are really explored in depth, and so the narrative feels incomplete. Overall 3/5 stars for the book but 5+/5 stars for the poetry.

Now reading The Master and Margarita by Mikhail Bulgakov. Someone on here recommended it. It’s terrific so far.[/quote]

Ha! LiveJournal! Thanks for that visual, PP![/quote]

I'm the Martyr/Master & Margarita OP... heh, the main character honestly sounded like me in high school complaining about how my life was SO HARD and how NOBODY UNDERSTANDS on my Xanga. Akbar is a wonderfully gifted poet, and there were parts of the book that almost made me cry because they were that beautifully written. But I grit my teeth in annoyance every time the narrative shifted to our main character.

Re: the M&M... I love Russian literature as well and this has been on my list for a while. I'm about 60% through. Normally I whizz through books and read rather quickly, but I can't do that with Russian lit; I find myself reading the same sentence or paragraph several times, to soak in every word. [/quote]

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