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I Am the Messenger By Markus Zusak ( Knopf Books for Young Readers )
Release Date: 2006-05-09
Average Customer Rating:
List Price: $8.95
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Product Description
Meet Ed Kennedy—underage cabdriver, pathetic cardplayer, and useless at romance. He lives in a shack with his coffee-addicted dog, the Doorman, and he’s hopelessly in love with his best friend, Audrey. His life is one of peaceful routine and incompetence, until he inadvertently stops a bank robbery. That’s when the first Ace arrives. That’s when Ed becomes the messenger. . . .
Chosen to care, he makes his way through town helping and hurting (when necessary), until only one question remains: Who’s behind Ed’s mission?
Winner of the 2003 Children’s Book Council Book of the Year Award in Australia, I Am the Messenger is a cryptic journey filled with laughter, fists, and love.
From the Hardcover edition.
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 expected more ( lbmii )
I suppose I was looking to be blown away I as I was with the Book Thief.
Although this was a fine novel with a great mystery to keep me turning the pages, I found some of the writing sytle and language hard to get through. The main character grew on me and I really came to love him for his strengths and weaknesses.
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Great Book, til the end
I Am the Messenger was an enjoyable read. It was hard to put down and the stories were very interesting. I do wish that the ending would have been a little different. I feel like the book just dies at the end and it was really disappointing after a great story.
Ed was a great character and some of the people he helps were also fascinating charaters. I felt that some of his friends could have been a little more developed. Some of them did gain interesting stories towards the end, but I wanted more from characters like Audrey and Ritchie.
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 Fantastic beginning, then downhill to the end... ( octobercountry )
I just finished the Australian book titled "I Am the Messenger" by Markus Zusak; the first book I've ever read by this author, though one of his other books (The Book Thief) has received wide acclaim. The story is meant for older teens only, I'd say (due to strong language and mature situations) and is a complete departure from the sort of YA books I usually read. It got off to an amusing and very promising start when Ed, a teen drifting through life without any clear direction, foils a bank robbery. Soon after he begins receiving anonymous messages directing him to locations where he has the opportunity to do some good in the world. The book is very well written, and the situations in which the protagonist finds himself are occasionally horrifying, sometimes amusing, and in a few instances very touching. (All the scenes with Milla rather got to me, for instance.)
Even though the character's actions---and the plot in general---continued to become increasingly far-fetched and unbelievable as the book went on, the story still held my attention. Well, right up until the big twist ending and reveal, that is! Literally within the last five pages, the author introduced an incredibly stupid and annoying deux ex machina plot device to solve the mystery of who exactly is sending the notes. This shoddy, lazy finish to the story had me ready to throw the book right across the room. I certainly had a lot of choice words to say about the conclusion (some of which I had learned from this very book!) which I cannot print out in this review. Ha!
So, a mixed-to-negative review on this one from me. The good points of the book, and the writing skill of the author, were overshadowed by an increasingly convoluted and illogical plot progression in the second half of the manuscript, and a crappy, crappy ending. I'm still so ticked off by it, in fact, that I don't know that I'll bother to seek out anything else the author has written...
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 Gripping...!
This was an amazing book, the ending is splendid, such a masterpeice ending! A moving message
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bad level of reading, good book
this book is overestimated. i think that a book that swears like in every sentence and talks about adult matters is a teen book if not an adult book. but this book was a good one overall.
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