Sunil Yapa

The Flamethrowers meets Let the Great World Spin in this debut novel set amid the heated conflict of Seattle's 1999 WTO protests. On a rainy, cold day in November, young Victor--a boyish, scrappy world traveler who's run away from home--sets out to sell marijuana to the 50,000 anti-globalization protestors gathered in the streets. It quickly becomes clear that the throng determined to shut the city down--from environmentalists to teamsters to anarchists--are testing the patience of the police, and what started as a peaceful protest is threatening to erupt into violence. Over the course of one life-altering afternoon, the lives of seven people will change forever: foremost among them police chief Bishop, the estranged father Victor hasn't seen in three years, two protestors struggling to stay true to their non-violent principles as the day descends into chaos, two police officers in the street, and the coolly elegant financial minister from Sri Lanka whose life, as well as his country's fate, hinges on getting through the angry crowd, out of jail, and to his meeting with the president of the United States. In this raw and breathtaking novel, Yapa marries a deep rage with a deep humanity, and in doing so casts an unflinching eye on the nature and limits of compassion.

Your Heart Is a Muscle the Size of a Fist

Patrick Book

This had some good things going for it, but on the whole I felt like the end result was very different from what I expected it to be. It did not really deliver on the "family" element that the dust jacket/ad copy portrayed as being central to the story. It spent a lot of time in the mire of incredibly-detailed descriptions of the countless physical assaults visited on various characters and seemed to rely on that brutality to deliver the larger message, which seems like it would be less effective than using characters or narrative. I didn't like that aspect at all.

A Finalist for the PEN/ Faulkner Award n Amazon Best Book of the Year A Washington Post Notable Book A Barnes & Noble Discover Pick One of Bustle's "Most Important Books of 2016" Named Most Anticipated Book of the Year in Wall Street Journal, Entertainment Weekly, TIME, Huffington Post, The Chicago Tribune, BuzzFeed, Houston Chronicle, San Francisco Chronicle, Orlando Sentinel, Ploughshares, Bustle, TheMillions, BookRiot, The Oregonian, The San Diego Union-Tribune, River City Reading, Indigo Grief-stricken after his mother's death and three years of wandering the world, Victor is longing for a family and a sense of purpose. He believes he's found both when he returns home to Seattle only to be swept up in a massive protest. With young, biracial Victor o one side of the barricades and his estranged father--the white chief of police--on the opposite, the day descends into chaos, capturing in its confusion the activists, police, bystanders, and citizens from all around the world who'd arrived that day brimming with hope. By the day's end, they have all committed acts they never thought possible. As heartbreaking as it is pulse-pounding, Yapa's virtuosic debut asks profound questions about the power of empathy in our hyper-connected modern world, and the limits of compassion, all while exploring how far we must go for family, for justice, and for love.

azliana aziz

still so sadly, damningly relevant re today's current political climate. tad overwritten but it's pretty words who can say no to them also effectively working as the contrast to the 'ugliness' of what's happened

Aubrey Hicks

I'm looking forward to more from Sunil Yapa. His debut novel, Your Heart is a Muscle is the Size of a Fist, is thought provoking and there are moments of real insight. 

Yapa takes us back to Seattle, 1999, on the first day of the WTO meeting and the protests that turned into the "Battle of Seattle." Using multiple points of view, he delves into the question of what it means to empathize, and how empathy can leave you vulnerable or make you strong. We witness three police officers, two protesters, one witness-cum-protester, and one WTO delegate's perspectives as the day progresses. 

The topic is utterly relevant today, with the continued unrest and protests that began with the WTO protests back in 1999. I'm thinking of Naomi Klein's most recent book, This Changes Everything - how relevant the movement of what some saw as "spoiled hippies" is in terms of continued climate devastation and economic inequality, both domestically and globally. 

While I recommend the novel, there are definitely some issues. For me, the novel should have ended after chapter 42 - the epilogue seems like something a publisher pushed to add on and leaves a saccharine sweetness that doesn't fit with the tone of the rest of the novel. The perspective changes have a few hiccups with at least two chapters with multiple voices - which takes the reader out of the flow. Perhaps it was deliberate, but those chapters feel forced.

Looking forward to more, as the novel is utterly thought-provoking and the pacing is pretty spot on perfect. A few melodramatic and uneven spots.

Summer Stanley

I had not previously known about the WTO protests and found this book both informative and engaging.

Your Heart Is a Muscle the Size of a Fist

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