jien11223231

I am the Messenger owns me. Sometimes you pick up a book and realize you were meant to read it. You don't know why or how the author put it together for you. The truth is, he or she didn't. You were put together for the story out of all the components that make you human: the dirty bits, the fragile pieces, the squishy, lovely matter. And the broken odds and ends that you somehow hold together and call You. I am the Messenger is such a story. What is it about then? I think this excerpt, spoken to the protagonist, sums it up: "If a guy like you can stand up and do what you did, then maybe everyone can. Maybe everyone can live beyond what they are capable of." I am the Messenger is for anyone - teen or adult - who has ever asked the question, "Where am I going in life?" How can Ed, the biggest loser in a bunch of losers, become the messenger? And what is his message? Peace on earth, good will towards man? Sometimes peace and goodwill takes the form of a gun to the back of the neck or reading Wuthering Heights to a lonely old woman. Or sometimes loving the girl who's too damaged to love you back. In literary circles, they use a grandiose term for guys like Ed: the Everyman. He begins the story as a boy I didn't care to know. No motivation. No life. No spine. Stuck in a town and a job with no potential for moving up or moving on. I wondered why I should bother with him. And then things started to happen to Ed. He received his first card. He showed up at the appointed place. He witnessed something that leaves him reeling and more helpless than ever before. Until he gets smacked around and starts to act. And suddenly he's turning into a man worth knowing. Zusak's lyrical style and personified settings, such as "the light stood next to me", bring an integrity and fullness to the piece that is often neglected for cheap thrills and fast pace in young adult literature. The narration settles down deep into the mind of Ed and his world, like we're looking at everything around Ed with intense concentration, and realizing that the air, the light, his senses are alive all around him. For a boy who starts out so passive, it's seems as if the setting couldn't stand it any longer and rose up to embrace the boy who doesn't know how to help himself. And this novel is not fluff. It covers the facets of what makes us human - good and messed up. But even sensitive readers will find hope in the end, even if some of the cards Ed receives are brutal. The moments of beauty and wisdom help to balance the heartache. I am the Messenger gave me the satisfaction of befriending a character who grows up - a gem in YA fiction. I almost hugged the book at one point when Ed confronts his hateful mother and speaks these sentences with gentle conviction, "It's the person, not the place. If you left here, you'd have been the same anywhere else. If I ever leave this place, I'll make sure I'm better here first." I give this story 5 stars for literary merit of orgasmic proportions. Even as an escapist reader, the brutality in parts of the story that would normally cause me to close the book were eclipsed by the abundance of optimism in the potential for human goodness to overcome adversity.

2022-11-14 16:09