Before I comment on this book, I have to add here that I started Major Pettigrew's Last Stand, about which I had read some good reviews, but I got to page 136 before I decided I could find better stuff to read. Then I started - and twice got as far as page 11 ( of some 1081 pages of And Ladies Of The Club, which has always intrigued me because it was written over a period of 50 years by the author, Helen Hoover Santmyer, and was finally published when she was 88 years old and in a seniors' facility. Too slow by far - so many books, so little time - I regretfully set it aside.
So I found this one listed in Bookmarks magazine as noteworthy for young adult readers, and for two reasons I purchased it for my Kindle. One, Zusak's "The Book Thief" is one of my all-time favorite books, and two, at age 65, I am proud to call myself a young adult reader too!
So I found this review by a reader, and decided he had said it much better than me, so here goes:
Winner of the 2003 Children's Book Council of Australia's Book of the Year Award and nominated for best young adult book at the 2006 L.A. Times Festival of Books, I AM THE MESSENGER (or THE MESSENGER in Australia) tells the story of Ed Kennedy, nineteen-year-old taxi cab driver and all-around average guy. In fact, he's the epitome of average -- faithful friends, stinky dog, dead-end job, and girl who loves someone else.
That's why it's such a big deal for Ed, Marv, and Ritchie to get trapped in a bank during a stickup. One of the thieves gets spooked, drops his gun, and somehow Ed ends up with the weapon and the town's praise. That might be a winning hand for Ed if he doesn't receive the first mysterious playing card, the Ace of Diamonds in his mailbox. It's a card with a message for him to deliver. Or else.
Messages like Ed's will change a person, if he or she lets them. That's the beauty of Zusak's story. Ed discovers the changing power in simple, personalized messages of love, even if they're ones he's forced to deliver. While I could imagine a cynical reader calling Ed's 12 messages a tad forced, I would differ with them on every case. Ed's stories are simple proof that if a "guy like him can stand up and do what he did, then maybe everyone can. Maybe everyone can live beyond what they're capable of."
-- Reviewed by Jonathan Stephens
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