The Messenger

The story starts off with Ed Kennedy, a 19 year-old cab driver who is widely known as a “loser” or no one special. He is disrespected by many but his love interest Audrey makes life seem all worth it. Audrey, however, doesn't believe in love despite having many boyfriends and not having the best reputation when it comes to her promiscuous relationships with men. Audrey always tells Ed that she doesn't want to be with him because she likes him too much and won't risk losing their friendship. It all seems a little like life is going nowhere for Ed until one day he is in the midst of a horribly organized bank robbery and saves the lives of others when he points the gun at the robber. Shortly after, he receives a series of addresses and times written on playing cards and feels like someone has assigned him a sort of mission. After a short while of uncertainty, Ed follows through and decides to visit these addresses and to his horror, he is witnessing various moments and degrees of injustice. He feels compelled to act, but how? And more importantly, Ed is wondering why him? In a slightly predictable ending, Ed comes to “find” himself through these assignments, along with finding out the mastermind behind it all. It ends with a happy romance, as Ed and Audrey end up getting together. Although some parts of the end were predictable and satisfying, another part left me feeling slightly baffled. For the most part, Zusak provides us with a unique tale of the journey from an unlikely loser hero to someone who transforms into themselves and becomes a better person as a result of his journey.

I am the messenger tries its best to be a novel about a man who finds meaning in his life by helpng people. In turn, through helping various people, he manages to find out how to help his own life to become better and not to end up a broken individual with no meaningful future. However, for me, I felt that this book had pacing issues that helped to make it a chore to read through.

First, lets start with the things I did like. I like how Ed is a good character to focus on. He is a man who has little future, and who seems to be desolate and selfish at the beginning of the novel. I also like how, by the end, his outlook on life changes, and he realizes that he has an effect on everyone he meets, whether he is concise of it or not. I also liked his old dog Doorman. It was really funny how Zusak managed to make their relationship, and I think it lends some comedy to what otherwise would have been a somewhat sullen novel. I also liked the message at the end, about how we affect people in our lives, and how random acts of kindness can help others as well as ourselves. I even liked the instances where Ed is trying to find out what the clues on the cards mean, and how each card is tied into a certain metaphor or meaning. These scenes brought me a certain amount of suspense and it was interesting to see how Ed would solve each problem. I liked how it had those elements of mystery to it.

Sadly, I am the Messenger has some pacing issues. Okay...a lot of pacing issues. In fact, the pacing for me was so bad that I even considered putting the book down and putting this on my ‘Did not finish' shelf. Now that I managed to work through the end of the book, I don't really feel bad for finishing it, but I don't really feel good about it either. I also kind of didn't like how some of the actions Ed took could be considered a crime. For example, early on in the book, Ed must find a way to stop a man from repeatedly raping his wife every night. Ed then proceeds to get a gun, drive him to the middle of nowhere, and threaten to kill him if he does it again. Now, I do think that rapists are not good people, and I think that they need to go to jail, to say the least, but that is part of the problem. I could have easily seen Ed's plan backfire or go wrong in some way. What f the man had a gun or knife and hurt Ed? What if the man ignored his threat and continued with the crime? Then what would Ed do? There were just so many ways that it could have gone south that it didn't seem like the best course of action, and it took me out of the story. Yet, at the same time, perhaps that is the point. Maybe that shows the reader that Ed isn't the best at this job, and he makes mistakes, like any normal person would.

Overall, I feel that this book is good, but not for me. I like the message of this novel, but the pacing was so off that it was almost unreadable. For that reason, and those listed above, I give it a three, out of five.