In I Am the Messenger by Markus Zusak, Ed Kennedy is a bit of a loser. I think that we all know the type: lonely, friends are misfits, not very good with the ladies. Kennedy is a cab driver and doesn’t seem all that interested in doing anything else. He’s in love with a girl who doesn’t want to date him. His mom doesn’t particularly care for him and yells at him a lot. Kennedy is not much of a hero. Then one day, there is bank robbery and Kennedy’s life changes. Soon he finds that he has a purpose.
After Ed stops the bank robbery, he begins to receive messages that he needs to give other people. The messages may vary, some are easy, some not so much, but Ed has found a new purpose in life. Throughout the book, the mystery remains. Who is sending Ed the messages and why?
The one part of this book that I absolutely loved (and I’m always a sucker for) is a plot that demonstrates how the small actions from everyday folks can make a difference in someone’s life. For example, one of Ed’s messages is to visit a lonely elderly woman. Ed doesn’t do anything heroic; he just sits with her and reads. This may not seem like much, but to the elderly woman, these visits are what she gets up in the morning for.
Not all of Ed’s messages are simply about visiting elderly women, some are a bit more complicated, but all of the messages are about helping other people. That’s the beauty of the book; Ed learns how to be a better person and how to find value in himself by helping other people.
The only disappointment that I had with the book is that I had expected it to be like Zusak’s other novel, The Book Thief. The Book Thief is a World War II book about a little girl who steals books. I Am the Messenger is definitely much more of a light hearted tale than The Book Thief, so I was expecting Zusak’s writing style to be a bit morose. I Am the Messenger can be funny and the characters are definitely quirky but death doesn’t surround Ed all of the time. Once I got over the fact that I wasn’t going to be weeping my eyes out with I Am the Messenger, then I found that I really enjoyed it for what it was, an entirely different book.
The themes in I Am the Messenger are very similar to the ones in Pay It Forward starting Kevin Spacey and Helen Hunt. Both are about how one person can make a difference in another person’s life and that by helping other people, we are really helping ourselves and making our world bigger and brighter. I can’t fault a book with that theme, then throw in some swearing and sarcastic humor and you have the makings for a well-told tale.
Book Source: Hennepin Country Library, Eden Prairie, MN
One Comment
This sounds like a fun read. Thanks for giving us a taste of the feel of it and what to expect.