I Am the Messenger | Markus Zusak

I Am the Messenger | Markus Zusak | Excellent Book

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I Am the Messenger

	I Am the Messenger Markus Zusak Knopf Books for Young Readers, 2006 - 368 pages average customer review:based on 71 reviews view larger image
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highly recommended

Read it

Very very good. It was thought provoking and serious but very funny. There was humor in serious things and beauty in sadness. Different from a lot of teen books out there. Totally recomend it.

Excellent Book

This story about Ed Kennedy, a young taxi driver, captivates it's readers. The writing style is excellent. Marcus Zusak does an incredible job on character development. Every character is fully developed, and the reader really gets to know each of them. The style also makes the book interesting and captivating, despite its fantastical premise. This is a great read for anyone in high school or older, no matter what genre they enjoy.

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Mystic Cards

I really enjoyed this genre because you think about what is going to happen next and who is he going to happen next. I love that each chapter lead to a new mystery. I would recommend this book to others because it is a great mystery to read and a story about helping others. I would love to read another book by this author because I love how the author writes his mysteries and the story behind the title.

Apathy

This is a very strange book, peopled by apathetic characters who have no purpose in life and no desire to change their circumstances or to better themselves. Ed Kennedy is a 20 year old man who left school as soon as he was able, to work as a cab driver and who hasn't tried in any way to improve his lot. He and his two mates, Marvin and Ritchie, hang out a lot together, playing card games, drinking and just generally waiting for time to pass. Ed secretly loves Audrey, another cab driver who works for the same company as he does but who insists on treating him just as a friend. After Ed foils a bank robbery (purely by accident), a series of instructions in the form of playing cards begins to appear and Ed feels an absolute compulsion to follow the messages. It's a very strange book about redeeming oneself by helping others which I followed and finished, but can't honestly say that I enjoyed. I gave it 4 stars for the quality of the writing which exactly conveyed the setting, the ambience of the surroundings and the genuineness of the characters.

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Review your Spanish lit surveys, everyone...

Hey, I'm anxious for all responses on this idea...it's been 20 years or more since I've read Miguel de Unamuno's Niebla, but anyone whose initial response to the ending was confusion should check it out. Niebla is an early 20th century Spanish novel where a character debates his suicide with the author himself...the whole philosophy (as I recall) was justifying existence through small and daily acts of goodness, rather than taking orders from an outside source. The ending of Messenger takes a little different twist that I'm still trying to decide if the author supported...I've only read it once yet...but generally the storyline tracks so closely I must presume the author's familiarity with the Spanish "nivola," as Unamuno called it. I have mixed feelings about the "rewriting" of great and innovative literary works for youth, because the youth generally don't have the context to realize what they are seeing, but sometimes the rewrites can work. I think this is a great read for OLDER young people and I really enjoyed it...it made me think!

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