I Am The Messenger - Wendy's Book Review

People die of broken hearts. They have heart attacks. And it's the heart that hurts most when things go wrong and fall apart. - From I Am The Messenger, page 270 -

After reading Markus Zusak's The Book Thief earlier this year (read my review here), I rushed right out and bought I Am The Messenger. It has taken me 11 months to actually sit down and read it...and although I can't rate it at the level of The Book Thief, I wasn't disappointed.

Ed Kennedy is a young taxi driver, a do-nothing sort of guy who hangs around with his friends playing cards and drinking coffee with his geriatric, smelly dog, The Doorman. Then one day he intervenes in a bank robbery...and his life changes. He begins receiving playing cards - aces - with messages he must figure out. The novel creates tension in that the reader (and Ed) are kept in the dark as to who the deliverer of the messages is...until the very last page.

Written in simple prose, but with Zusak's signature brilliant language, I Am The Messenger delivers powerful and profound messages of faith, the underlying goodness of humanity, and the admonition that one must risk and stretch to achieve their purpose in life.

I want words at my funeral.
But I guess that means you need life in your life. - From I Am The Messenger, page 278 -

I love that Zusak is still a young man with, I hope, lots more stories inside of him. He is a writer of immense talent, and I Am the Messenger is just another example of this.

Recommended; rated 4/5.

I read this book on the recommendation of Jill who says:

I love this story because it shows that we are all capable of doing wonderful things. The main character receives cryptic playing cards with clues written on them, and he's charged to do good deeds to designated strangers - the catch is that he doesn't know exactly what he's supposed to do. So he must observe and be creative. And figure it out, or else...

Thanks for the recommendation, Jill - great book!