Martyr! by Kaveh Akbar got a lot of buzz this year! I thought I was bound to like it since so many of my most trusted book friends had glowing reviews (including Obama). Unfortunately, it fell a little flat. I liked the writing at a sentence level. Akbar’s skill with language is undeniable and it’s clear he’s a poet. But the plot lacked tension, the story was scattered, and the ending felt too contrived to fully resonate. It’s told from different perspectives, and I didn’t care much for the imagined conversations between the different characters and people from history. Overall it failed to elicit any strong emotions from me.