This is another irrevocably life changing work of prose. There are so many themes to talk about, grief, love, sobriety and addiction, martyrdom, depression, it’s so difficult to know where to start. I will have to reread this because I know I missed pieces and ideas.

The prose read like poetry and I’m glad I had a physical copy to annotate. I liked all the POVs, I loved that it jumped between time periods and characters but ultimately came back to Cyrus. This is so philosophical and emotional, I had to take breaks and feel what was written. I loved that the plot was broken up with pieces of Cyrus’ writing, communications from the US and Iran, definitions, dreams and more. It was really ambitious for a book with less than 350 pages but it came together beautifully. I loved the conversations between Orkideh and Cyrus and while the twist was heavily foreshadowed in the chapters before the reveal, the reveal was still heavily impactful. 

I found myself heavily relating to Roya and Cyrus. The idea that wanting to die and not wanting to live anymore are to separate things, the former being an action and the latter being a passive way of being corresponds to conversations I had with my therapist for years. I also heavily relate to Cyrus’ obsession with being good and martyrdom and what those things mean and what they do, because who really wants to die and have their life be meaningless.