Susan Scribner

3.5 stars, rounded up. Needed twice as many interactions between Tova and Marcellus the octopus, and half as many chapters focusing on whiny self-sabotaging white dude.

ETA: National Book Prize Finalist 10/1/24, if that kind of thing is important to you. Martyr! is not at all my usual read, and it's difficult to articulate why I liked it so much. I'll list a few random highlights and hope they will suffice. *Debut novelist Kaveh Akbar is a poet, and his writing sings (like poet-turned-novelist Ocean Vuong's [b:On Earth We're Briefly Gorgeous 41880609 On Earth We're Briefly Gorgeous Ocean Vuong https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1615580168l/41880609.SX50.jpg 61665003], but with less tragedy and more cynicism).MC Cyrus Shams is a young Iranian-American man. His familiar struggle to figure out the Meaning of Life is coupled with the desire to make his death meaningful as well, like the martyrs of his country of origin. Not coincidentally, Cyrus' own mother died in a 1988 airplane crash when a U.S. Navy warship shot down an Iranian commercial airplane, killing everyone on board (this actually happened). In addition to Cyrus' first person POV, there are close 3rd person POV chapters from Cyrus' dad, who worked on an Iowa chicken farm for decades to support himself and his son; Orkideh, an NYC artist who has transformed her own impending death into a piece of performance art; and Cyrus' uncle, whose Iran-Iraq wartime role was to serve as a literal Angel of Death for men who were dying on the battlefield. *The narrative includes bizarre dream conversations between Cyrus' family members and famous people (Lisa Simpson and his dead mother; Kareem Abdul-Jabbar and the little brother Cyrus always wanted). A WTF? ambiguous ending cost the novel a star (either Cyrus was transformed by love, or he died). Even though Martyr! took me outside my reading comfort zone, it was, surprisingly, just right for me at this particular moment in time.

I already knew a lot of the dirt that journalist Liz Pelly dishes about music streaming giant Spotify in this book. To wit: most musicians are paid almost nothing when their songs are streamed, and in fact they have to agree to reduced royalties if they want their music to be promoted. The app harvests tons of data about its consumers, which is then sold and used to target ads as well as for other, more nefarious purposes. Some of the music on Spotify isn't even real - it's computer generated to mimic successful songs or match a given mood.

Honestly, what really shook me was realizing that Spotify has taken something special that people actively seek out, and turned it into a series of algorithmically-determined playlists so users can engage in passive “lean-back listening,” letting Spotify soundtrack their everyday moments (every night too - sleep playlists are very popular). Instead of Apple Music or Amazon, Spotify sees its competition as something much broader: silence. Any minute you are not listening eats away at the company's $1.5 billion profit.

Mood Machine is well-written and researched, if just a tiny bit dry. It could have used a few more interviews with musicians whose careers have been affected by Spotify, although I imagine the fear of reprisal might have kept them off the record. Pelly's solutions are similar to those of any group suffering under late-stage capitalism: artist collectives, community organizing and unionizing, even local libraries. You know, all of the things that are looking more and more like pipe dreams in 2025.

3.5 stars. A somewhat uneasy mix of goofy rom-com and issues-driven drama, especially given its publication on the same day that DT declared the end of Constitutionally-guaranteed birthright citizenship. On the one hand you have two clueless Latinx bros, BFFs since childhood, engaging in a fake marriage of convenience and catching feelings. On the other hand, you have deadly substance use, family separation, intimate partner violence, and the looming threat of deportation. The plot is weakened by a cartoonishly evil ex whose increasingly desperate manipulations strain credulity. But I kept turning the pages because the two MCs are absolutely lovely, showing with gestures how much they understand and care for each other, even if their words are not quite there yet.

I suspect that I would have been able to enjoy the book much more if had been published a year earlier, but I couldn't help thinking of the real people whose lives will be devastated by new draconian immigration policies that can't be solved by a wacky escape plan. No fault to the author, of course.

N.B. MC1 is autistic and MC2 has ADHD. Reyes identifies as queer and autistic.

As an aging Baby Boomer, I'm impressed that Betsy Lerner, a well-regarded literary agent and editor, has written her first novel at age 64. I'm less impressed by the novel itself. There's nothing particularly wrong with it, but there is little to distinguish Shred Sisters from the hundreds of other stories that explore the dynamics between two sisters (subset: one of them has a serious mental illness). And despite reviews that describe the book as both funny and poignant, I couldn't find the alleged humor. YMMV if you need to read all of the books to remind yourself that “nobody will love you or hurt you more than a sister.”