Markus Zusak's Other Book

If you know the name Markus Zusak, it's probably because you've heard of and/or read his YA novel, The Book Thief.  It's popular, been on several "Must Read" lists and has now been made into a feature film coming soon to theaters near you.  I borrowed my roommate's copy and you know what?  It didn't do it for me, though I desperately wanted it to.  It's got an interesting writing style, with the narrator being Death, and I tend to like gimmicks like that, but not this time.  Maybe it was just because it's a period piece and that's not typically a genre I connect well with, or because the main character was also considerably younger than my age range at the time.

Or maybe I just had outrageously high expectations because I read Markus Zusak's "other book" first.  It's called I Am the Messenger here in the states, and just The Messenger elsewhere.  I picked it up at a bookstore knowing nothing about it.  The cover didn't look all that appealing, but I'd read a page or two in the store and liked the writing style and decided to take a chance on it.

I devoured the novel in hours and to this day, though I'm loathe to play favorites between books, it is one of mine.

I Am the Messenger is about an underage cab driver named Ed Kennedy, and here's a few things about him:  he's smart but unambitious, working a dead-end job and living a dead-end life.  He's pathetic in romance, in the eyes of his Ma,and generally going nowhere in a run-down town filled with run-down people.  He's averagely average with no prospects for more.  Until the day he unwittingly stops a bank robbery in progress.  Until the day he gets the first ace in the mail.

From then on, Ed is thrown into a whirlwind beyond what he could have imagined.  The first ace playing card gave him a list of addresses, at each address something he needed to fix.  They range from the unimaginably horrific to the simply sad, and it's up to Ed to change everything: change the world with one good deed at a time, lose himself in the beautiful broken people, and learn to live up to his potential.  It's narrated by Ed himself, and somehow from his simple and average perspective, the flowing metaphors and sensory descriptions are even more poignant.

Not to sound overly sentimental, but it truly is beautiful.

In short, I never did finish The Book Thief.  I tried and wanted to like it because of the author recognition, but it didn't capture me in the same way.  And I'm fairly sure I'll watch the film, but even if it takes me in more than the novel could, my heart will still be with Ed and the Aces.