I Am The Messenger by Markus Zusak

Gut Instinct Rating - 5

Story Line - 5

Writing Style - 4

Characters - 5

Excitement Factor - 5

Believability for type and topics - 5

Similarity to other books - 5

Cover art - 4.5

Title Relevance - 5

Goodreads users gave this book a 4.10. I think it was more deserving of a 4.83.

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Published in 2002.

Pages: 357.

Number of books by author: 15 Works.

Genre: YA Fiction.

Ed's life is pretty typical for a 20-year-old-bachelor. Spent drinking, playing card games, and working a dead-end job. But someone else thinks he's deserves better. After a bank robbery he helped stop, he starts receiving playing cards in the mail - the Ace. Each card leads him on a mission, some dangerous, some simple. All challenging who he is as a person.

Makes the Top 10! Highly Recommended! This book blew me away. I was impressed with the power behind the words. This book was marked as a mystery book and a humor book. And while I found neither of things to be real true, this book was definitely a coming of age story. And why students aren't required to read this their freshman or sophomore years of high school, I'm not sure. But this book has some real -mmph- behind it. It challenges you to look at the world not only differently, but to look at yourself and your impact on the world; and the world's impact on you. If I had to give a one-line review on this book, it would probably be something like... "The Frankenstein of our generation, challenging who you are and who you can become."

Characters were done extremely well and couldn't have been done any better. I was really pleased that the characters were defined. When you read a book about a group of friends, sometimes things blend a little too well. This was kind of like reading The Breakfast Club, minus the detention, and minus the high school thing. While the 'boy-loves-girl-who-loves-other-boy' component was a bit cliché, everything was really well defined. I know I've used that word already, but when you look at the characters - imagine you have to draw the characters, and then draw a character map. There's less things that the characters have in common, and more things that help set them apart, and I think that's really crucial. This author had to write about 15+ characters, outside of the main four. (And might I add, his writing about The Doorman might have been my favorite aspect.) That's 15 characters that, while they could be similar, while they had similar traits, they were also their own person, and I think that's challenging. Especially in a book like this, where the writing isn't about the actions, but about the characters. That takes a lot of thought-processing to prevent reading the same character repeatedly.

I could see this happening tomorrow. And I could. It's not that everyone in the world is going to be receiving a message in their mail and follow these same patterns, but the concept of this book is that each person is delivered a message. And it's up to that person to interpret the message, to read the message, indulge themselves in this message. And every message can be the same, but read differently. And I think that's what Zusak was trying to get across. That every day we're given messages. And every day, we must choose how those messages will impact our lives... for better or for worse.

I've never read anything like this. This book has repeatedly been on my list - along with The Book Thief (which I still haven't read, but I saw the movie... so I think the book is gonna be out of the question), and I've passed it over time-and-time again. But I'm really glad that I sat down and read this, especially that I allowed myself the decency of reading it in two parts (which wasn't intentional, but I'm glad I took a moment apart from it, because it made the message that much more impactful.) I'm sure there's other books out there - as a matter of fact, now that I think about it, if you liked this, you'd probably like Game by Barry Lyga although, this is part of a trilogy, so I'd recommend reading I Hunt Killers first. Anyways, this book probably has some similarities to other books, but I think overall, there's nothing that could come close to the message (no pun intended) of this book with the same circumstances.

Writing was good. Some chapter breaks. I just complained about this same thing when I read The Epidemic by Suzanne Young - but I'm not sure why the author chose to start the chapter count over at each new segment of the book. I just really hate this type of writing style. It makes the book feel as if it's ending, and it should be starting over. The story is still going.... so why break it down into 4-5 smaller stories? As far as the writing itself, it was good. There wasn't a lot of vocabulary that wasn't easy to figure out (being that I'm from the states and this had some English-slang). The writing style was simple, easy to read. I didn't feel like it was rushed, nor that it was slow. It was just a really well composed book.

I was having heart palpitations. Okay, so not really. But the book was really energized and made you feel like you were trying to figure out the next step with Ed. And that was a nice change of pace from what I've been reading lately (so this might actually only be worth 4-stars, but inflation happens, right?).

The story was thorough and wasn't lacking. I think if anything, I'd just want more. More of each person's story for some closure, but otherwise, this was a really well-done story. There weren't any holes; the ending was a good stage of closure, leaving you with something to think about, but not leaving the book too open-ended that you are unable to actually enjoy what you've just spent hours reading.

Title fits perfectly with the story's mission and tone. I think it may give too much away, so if I would've chosen something a little different, it might've just been "The Messenger." But, I don't think the title hurts anything; it certainly helps elevate your desire to read it because the statement itself is so open-ended.

Artwork was good, but there could've been a little more to it. I really don't understand why the cover art didn't include playing cards. I'm just in shock-and-awe over here as to why the only aspect we get is the cab, which I don't think holds nearly as much importance as the card, the street names, the locations - a lot of different imagery could've been chosen. Is it okay? Sure, it makes sense, and it didn't deter me from picking up the book (although, to be honest, until I read the synopsis briefly before starting the book and looking at a large digital image of the cover, I didn't realize the yellow thing was even a cab... so maybe a little touch-up work needs to be done).