Review: I Am the Messenger

I Am the Messenger by Markus Zusak
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

This was the book picked for our book club, so I went into this novel pretty blind.

Ed was an unusual character that the reader had to follow around. He was just an ordinary guy, doing ordinary things, and living an ordinary life. But when he found himself in a bank robbery, his whole life was about to change. Especially when him and his friends were antagonizing the robber and Ed ended up following the guy out to the car and shooting the window, where the cops came and arrested the robber.

Yeah, things got real interesting after that. People in the city knew who he was. He was recognized by way too many people for him to feel comfortable, but he was managing.

Until the messages on the Ace cards started showing up. Now, Ed finds himself on a mission to help 3 people - 12 people total with 4 Aces. Some people are easy to help. Some are hard. Some involve a beating, and some involve a broken heart. Ed has no idea who is doing this, but now he thinks about all of the people that he has helped and what their lives are like now that he has had a role in their life.

But things are not as they seem for Ed as the mystery continues.

This book was a bit rough for me, to be honest. I know Ed is 19 so he's basically an adult, but the content in this novel did not make me scream "Young Adult". Maybe because this is set in Australia and they are more mature and sophisticated than American's? I'm not too sure, but I just kept thinking, "the teen book club is reading this...I'm not sure if that is appropriate for them to read..."

But I trekked through it and I really liked the message that it portrayed by the end of the novel.

The mission with Milla is by far my most favorite one of Ed's. He is just so kind and amazing toward her. So patient. I seriously tear up just thinking about it still. And that he kept going back to make sure that she was okay - just touches my heart.

And honestly, I loved almost all of the messages that Ed was told to do throughout the book. About 80% of them. I really think that this was a good thing for Ed to do, even though it was presented in a very weird way. If I was Ed, I probably would have thrown the first Ace away and wouldn't have thought twice about it. I'm glad it was given to Ed instead.

This might be a very good book to discuss and I am glad that I read it, even though it has a few topics in here that I usually stay away from when reading books for fun.

Markus Zusak is a very gifted author and I'm glad that I am making my way though his books slowly in my reading career :)

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