I Am the Messenger

No Spoiler Review:

This was my first foray into Markus Zusak's writing and I was not disappointed. The story was fascinating, well paced, and poetic. It chooses not to take the easy way out of emotionally charged situations. In that way the novel is quite daring. This is a rougher read for that reason also, so don't come looking for a by the pool book here. The characters are compelling. They feel like real people, full of flaws and emotions.
Sometimes the scenes weren't as emotionally impacting as I think they should have been, and I have mixed feelings about the ending (more on this below the spoil line), but ultimately it was a wonderful book with a great message. Definitely worth the read.



**Spoiler Review!*****
There are so many wonderful scenes in the book. I love the messages and the characters he meets because of them. My favorites were the priest and the Christmas light family.
That being said, I did see his friend's being the last messages coming, but despite that it was still the perfect way for the story to go.
My other thing was, sometimes I couldn't understand how he figured out what to do for people. It often made sense, yes, but sometimes he seemed supernaturally gifted in figuring these things out.
Now the twist end. Huh. I spent the whole ending going “What...?” which can be good. I do understand what ultimately happened, but I think it deflated the story a bit. It was a stranger. There were no clues to figure out who it was, because it wasn't anyone he could have known. It was a strange choice to make. I did wonder if that stranger was supposed to be Markus Zusak in a sort of Lemony Snicket twist, but even still. And the whole “am I real?” thing. How did someone manipulating Ed convince him that he wasn't real? That end twist did not work for me.