fatma’s review of Martyr! > Likes and Comments
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yeah me too i feel like in my head it was poised to become a 5 star read but it was a bit scattered in the execution i think...also lol yeah but u know what after like a million DNFs last month my mindset lately has just been "at least it wasnt a DNF" 🤷♀️
xcited for ur thoughts… sometimes the books we are the most hyped for burn out more for us than if we hadn’t had any precursory expectations. that’s how I feel lately
At least it wasn't a DNF! Ha! I know what you mean, fat! Great review, you've taken it off my radar, don't be sorry.
Per usual, I agree with you on everything
i was really expecting it to be amazing given the amount of hype this book has received already (and its not even 2024 yet) but it was just very underwhelming. felt like a debut novel, and i dont mean that positively 😬
I haven't finished yet but I get what you mean and I wonder if this is something that just sort of happens when a poet writes a novel, where the narrative connections are a little fragile, because a poet hasn't relied on them in the past, or used those muscles very much in poetry.
Much like when a writer known for screenplays writes a novel, and the novel's scenes seem like floaty spaces to me where they don't have enough detail on the page for me to imagine them, because screenplay writers have never needed to fill out those details before.
yeah i think youre absolutely right - the writing style/language can only do so much before you start craving a plot/a narrative thats really gonna keep you engaged for the whole story. i also feel like sometimes with these kinds of debut novels authors have so many ideas and things they want to include that it ends up making the story feel a bit overstuffed. like the ideas arent even bad, but more that theres too many of them and, because of that, they dont feel as fully fleshed our as they should be or couldve been.
I didn't like it at all. I can't find one negative sentence about it in any major publication's review. Really frustrating. Glad to see folks here share my sentiments.
This review says it all. All the pieces, no glue.
I'm about 100 pages in and I completely feel this way. Each start to a new chapter is a jolt into the story. There really isn't any cohesion at all whatsoever. It's rather disappointing.
Heaven forfend anyone should have to work at understanding what the author is doing (not attempting to do). This novel is all about the connections between the characters and the chapters; you "merely" have to figure them out for yourself, rather than sit passively as they author spoon-feeds them to you.
I loved the book, but fearing that I did not get everything out of it that I might, I immediately re-read it after finishing it about a week ago. And I'm so thankful that I did; there was so much more to find and work through.
feel so relieved to see a review like this!! I had such high hopes for this novel but it did not come together for me at all.
Well said! It feels like a debut novel - ambitious, pithy, but didn't come together. Can't wait for his next though.
I finally quit reading at about two-thirds of the way. I kept thinking this will get better. It did not.
I’m half way through reading Martyr! and trying to decide if I should keep going. Your review is validating how I feel right now.
This is exactly how I felt. A perfect review of the meandering mess of original ideas that is Matyr!
Good review. I had the same experience and almost put the book aside. Finally it started to make sense in the last third. I do think it’s overhyped.
Agree with this wholeheartedly! Just not for me.
This is the problem. It tries TOO hard
i soo agree with 2nd paragraph, it was not consistent and over the top
I could not get past the first ten pages sadly!
Nail on the head. I couldn’t figure out what I wasn’t liking about the book and your review explains it all.
I'm about halfway through, and this is exactly what I think. I'm going to finish it, because I do like it, but it feels like 3 or 4 different stories jammed together. Like they'd all be good separate, but it gets annoying where like every other chapter there's a point of view shift that stops the main story to have his mom talk to Lisa Simpson or whatever. It's jarring and I space out half the time. Bummer too, because they're all pretty good on their own. They just don't really mesh together.
I couldn't disagree more in terms of my experience being completely different with the varied parts of the book. It all weaves together beautifully, especially once you get to the end, in my opinion.
i couldn’t agree more! conceptually beautiful but the follow through feels incomplete.
You explained precisely how I felt.about this book. I wanted to love it but it didn't read as a whole work that built up to something meaningful.
Hard agree!! It felt as if Akbar was throwing in every one of his poignant thoughts/ideas to try and make them stick rather than actually stitching them all together; I prefer more structure and consistency. DNFed around p 150.
I love your review. It reminded me of how I felt after watching Good Will Hunting. The characters had a breakthrough, but I didn’t.
No need for me to post a review. Yours covers my thoughts and provoked a few others — thank you!
Yes! I have had a hard time articulating this to a friend who also read this novel and you summed it up EXACTLY.
I totally agree with your review. I listened to it and it was even more confusing.
Thanks for articulating my exact thoughts !
Read the first 80 pages and wondered where it all was going! Jumped in the middle, read another 100 disjointed pages and said, Forget about it. Your review was correct.
My thoughts exactly, thank you for sharing!
I’m currently reading Martyr! and feel very similarly. I will say that I do find all the POVs interesting and I’ve definitely finished chapters with having to unpack what I read, but at the same time it makes the overall narrative somewhat disjointed. I’ve noticed I’m having trouble sitting down and reading it (taking aside life is busy right now lol) because I’m feeling all over the place while reading it.
Your review makes the most sense to me. I agree with your take. I wanted to enjoy this so much more than I did for many of the same reasons you did.
100% spot on review! I felt like I was wrong because all the reviews were so stellar but your review is exactly how I felt about this book.
Couldn’t agree more - appreciate your thoughtful articulation!
Yes, I completely agree with all the points you made!
interesting to read reviews of people who wanted to be spoon fed a linear story that has a simple plot, simple beginning and end when the thesis of the book is "it's complicated".
bran wrote: "interesting to read reviews of people who wanted to be spoon fed a linear story that has a simple plot, simple beginning and end when the thesis of the book is "it's complicated"."
It's interesting when someone has a differing opinion that some folks assume they want to be "spoon fed"
Sure this book deals with complicated issues, and isn't linear but the story is simply not that complicated.
I wonder if you read a lot of poetry? I’m truly curious - for me the structure was beautiful and every word was necessary and important - but perhaps because I started in poetry, and adore long poems that take time to meditate on a theme. Because it did feel like a poem to me, and I could see how if you weren’t expecting that, it could be unsettling. Perhaps that’s why I wasn’t thrilled with the ending. Anyway. Just a thought.
I'm about halfway through and you've basically summarized my impression so far pretty accurately.
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yeah me too i feel like in my head it was poised to become a 5 star read but it was a bit scattered in the execution i think...also lol yeah but u know what after like a million DNFs last month my mindset lately has just been "at least it wasnt a DNF" 🤷♀️
xcited for ur thoughts… sometimes the books we are the most hyped for burn out more for us than if we hadn’t had any precursory expectations. that’s how I feel lately
At least it wasn't a DNF! Ha! I know what you mean, fat! Great review, you've taken it off my radar, don't be sorry.
Per usual, I agree with you on everything
i was really expecting it to be amazing given the amount of hype this book has received already (and its not even 2024 yet) but it was just very underwhelming. felt like a debut novel, and i dont mean that positively 😬
I haven't finished yet but I get what you mean and I wonder if this is something that just sort of happens when a poet writes a novel, where the narrative connections are a little fragile, because a poet hasn't relied on them in the past, or used those muscles very much in poetry. Much like when a writer known for screenplays writes a novel, and the novel's scenes seem like floaty spaces to me where they don't have enough detail on the page for me to imagine them, because screenplay writers have never needed to fill out those details before.
yeah i think youre absolutely right - the writing style/language can only do so much before you start craving a plot/a narrative thats really gonna keep you engaged for the whole story. i also feel like sometimes with these kinds of debut novels authors have so many ideas and things they want to include that it ends up making the story feel a bit overstuffed. like the ideas arent even bad, but more that theres too many of them and, because of that, they dont feel as fully fleshed our as they should be or couldve been.
I didn't like it at all. I can't find one negative sentence about it in any major publication's review. Really frustrating. Glad to see folks here share my sentiments.
This review says it all. All the pieces, no glue.
I'm about 100 pages in and I completely feel this way. Each start to a new chapter is a jolt into the story. There really isn't any cohesion at all whatsoever. It's rather disappointing.
Heaven forfend anyone should have to work at understanding what the author is doing (not attempting to do). This novel is all about the connections between the characters and the chapters; you "merely" have to figure them out for yourself, rather than sit passively as they author spoon-feeds them to you.I loved the book, but fearing that I did not get everything out of it that I might, I immediately re-read it after finishing it about a week ago. And I'm so thankful that I did; there was so much more to find and work through.
Perfectly explained. Felt exactly the same way!
feel so relieved to see a review like this!! I had such high hopes for this novel but it did not come together for me at all.
Well said! It feels like a debut novel - ambitious, pithy, but didn't come together. Can't wait for his next though.
I finally quit reading at about two-thirds of the way. I kept thinking this will get better. It did not.
I’m half way through reading Martyr! and trying to decide if I should keep going. Your review is validating how I feel right now.
This is exactly how I felt. A perfect review of the meandering mess of original ideas that is Matyr!
Good review. I had the same experience and almost put the book aside. Finally it started to make sense in the last third. I do think it’s overhyped.
Agree with this wholeheartedly! Just not for me.
This is the problem. It tries TOO hard
i soo agree with 2nd paragraph, it was not consistent and over the top
I could not get past the first ten pages sadly!
Nail on the head. I couldn’t figure out what I wasn’t liking about the book and your review explains it all.
I'm about halfway through, and this is exactly what I think. I'm going to finish it, because I do like it, but it feels like 3 or 4 different stories jammed together. Like they'd all be good separate, but it gets annoying where like every other chapter there's a point of view shift that stops the main story to have his mom talk to Lisa Simpson or whatever. It's jarring and I space out half the time. Bummer too, because they're all pretty good on their own. They just don't really mesh together.
I couldn't disagree more in terms of my experience being completely different with the varied parts of the book. It all weaves together beautifully, especially once you get to the end, in my opinion.
i couldn’t agree more! conceptually beautiful but the follow through feels incomplete.
You explained precisely how I felt.about this book. I wanted to love it but it didn't read as a whole work that built up to something meaningful.
Hard agree!! It felt as if Akbar was throwing in every one of his poignant thoughts/ideas to try and make them stick rather than actually stitching them all together; I prefer more structure and consistency. DNFed around p 150.
I love your review. It reminded me of how I felt after watching Good Will Hunting. The characters had a breakthrough, but I didn’t.
No need for me to post a review. Yours covers my thoughts and provoked a few others — thank you!
Yes! I have had a hard time articulating this to a friend who also read this novel and you summed it up EXACTLY.
I totally agree with your review. I listened to it and it was even more confusing.
Thanks for articulating my exact thoughts !
Read the first 80 pages and wondered where it all was going! Jumped in the middle, read another 100 disjointed pages and said, Forget about it. Your review was correct.
My thoughts exactly, thank you for sharing!
I’m currently reading Martyr! and feel very similarly. I will say that I do find all the POVs interesting and I’ve definitely finished chapters with having to unpack what I read, but at the same time it makes the overall narrative somewhat disjointed. I’ve noticed I’m having trouble sitting down and reading it (taking aside life is busy right now lol) because I’m feeling all over the place while reading it.
Your review makes the most sense to me. I agree with your take. I wanted to enjoy this so much more than I did for many of the same reasons you did.
100% spot on review! I felt like I was wrong because all the reviews were so stellar but your review is exactly how I felt about this book.
Couldn’t agree more - appreciate your thoughtful articulation!
Yes, I completely agree with all the points you made!
interesting to read reviews of people who wanted to be spoon fed a linear story that has a simple plot, simple beginning and end when the thesis of the book is "it's complicated".
bran wrote: "interesting to read reviews of people who wanted to be spoon fed a linear story that has a simple plot, simple beginning and end when the thesis of the book is "it's complicated"."It's interesting when someone has a differing opinion that some folks assume they want to be "spoon fed"
Sure this book deals with complicated issues, and isn't linear but the story is simply not that complicated.
I wonder if you read a lot of poetry? I’m truly curious - for me the structure was beautiful and every word was necessary and important - but perhaps because I started in poetry, and adore long poems that take time to meditate on a theme. Because it did feel like a poem to me, and I could see how if you weren’t expecting that, it could be unsettling. Perhaps that’s why I wasn’t thrilled with the ending. Anyway. Just a thought.
I'm about halfway through and you've basically summarized my impression so far pretty accurately.
You've been on a three star streak