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Markus Zusak: I Am the Messenger

 I got I Am the Messenger from a Christmas book exchange, and I was excited to read it. I loved The Book Thief (and have decided to reread it), and I was hoping this book was every bit as good.

Ed Kennedy is 19. He's an underachieving cab driver in an unknown city and country. Ed has no prospects, no future, and he's not even supposed to be driving a cab since he's underage. All of that changes when he and his friends inadvertently stop a bank robbery and help the police capture the robber. Shortly after the incident, Ed starts receiving playing cards in the mail. Each one has some sort of clue written on it, leading to a person in desperate need of help. Can Ed figure out what each person needs?

This is a hard review to write. On the one hand, I absolutely loved The Book Thief, and I was really hoping this book would live up to my expectations... but it didn't quite get there. Don't get me wrong, this book was highly entertaining. Ed is hilarious and I loved his character. He acts like he's such an idiot, but he really isn't, and I liked most of his solutions to the problems in the novel. I liked the pacing of this book, and I really enjoyed the twists and turns, and the unexpected problems and solutions. Even the end twist was fantastic. I enjoyed many of the characters Ed interacted with, and what he learned from each of them.

The other characters, especially Ed's "friends" I can't say that I really liked them. Audrey doesn't give Ed the time of day, Marv is just a jerk, and Ritchie is a really flat character. Marv ends up having some significant depth to him, which I really liked.

I also didn't like that Ed objectified almost all the women in this book. Except for Milla, he was almost creepily interested in their legs, and it bothered me. If I could change one thing about this book, it would be to take some of the focus away from sexuality. I think that there could have been other ways to have a conflict between Audrey and Ed with it not going in that direction.

In all, I ended up enjoying this book. It was hard to put down, and I thought it was overall hilarious. I laughed, I admit I cried a little.

I rate this book ⭐⭐⭐⭐



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