Reviews with content warning for Rape - I Am the Messenger

Reviews tagging 'Rape'

I Am the Messenger by Markus Zusak

46 reviews

bright_eyed_and_bookish's review against another edition

funny hopeful inspiring mysterious reflective tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0

For the past year, It has been hard for me to pick up anything that isn't romance when I am tired and looking for comfort. The two factors that compelled me to start this book spontaneously on a night when I could not sleep, were that someone I knew had mentioned it to me casually ,and when I read the synopsis it looked like it had the best friends to lovers trope. I am trash for best-friends to lovers.

Two weeks later, having finished the book, that reason for picking this up feels stupid and valid at the same time. This book gave me so much more than the romance, but I recognize its role in pulling me in.

I came away from this book with the memory of a few characters I deeply identified with. The book is filled with side characters who have a gap in their lives, preventing them from feeling either joy or meaning. Ed's actions seemed to have lit the spark in their souls with his small actions. It's amazing what a simple gift or kick in the butt can do. Of course, I recognize his actions are often questionable. Those parts make me think about what justifies a good, potentially life changing deed.

During my first year of university at home because of the pandemic , I think I felt half-dead and mediocre a lot of the time. That's probably part of why I resonated so much with the themes of this book of what it means to feel alive and be extraordinary. It made me focus on the many small things that a person can do that add up to some form of greatness.

Something that bothered me a bit was that Ed seems so unnaturally intuitive when it comes to knowing what to do for the people he is sent to, especially when his thoughts and fears in his personal life are so relatable. I had to accept that he was sort of a "fairy godmother" type character. I also wish I got to know more about Audrey, considering how Ed treats her like a queen. Maybe there could have been more about her at the end. I was pretty engrossed in the ending. I thought it ended a bit abruptly.

My last note might be for readers of some genres:

There is a pretty beautiful HFN to the romance, at least in my opinion.

Content Warnings

kingorgan's review against another edition

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challenging dark emotional inspiring tense fast-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? No
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

1.5

Content Warnings

samanthawattam's review against another edition

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adventurous dark funny hopeful inspiring mysterious reflective tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Plot
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.0

Ed Kennedy, 19 is an underage taxi driver, his friends are Marv and Ritchie, he is in love with Audrey but a love that is unrequited as she just wants to be friends and he has a dog called The Doorman who is stinky but Ed still loves him. At the outset Ed finds himself foiling a bank robbery he wasn’t trying to be brave he just did - then the messages begin arriving on playing cards.

The book seems to be aimed at young adults and although it does have a lot of humour it covers some tough subjects including sexual abuse, loneliness and violence.

It is also a seriously weird book which at times you are baffled as to where it is going but it is also intriguing and interesting as Ed receives messages via playing cards he is faced with dilemmas, problems to solve often with moral conundrums. Who is sending these messages and why?

We learn that Ed is basically a nice guy and I like how Ed keeps checking up on the people he encounters he doesn’t just move on he keeps returning making contact again hanging around. The book gets a point for mentioning one of my favourite actors George Kennedy and I agree he is “unforgettable” :)

I have to say I found the ending bloody confusing and seriously strange I didn’t really understand it so after thinking about it I have to reduce my rating by 1 star BUT I do think the journey was still worth it. I recommend.

Content Warnings

latsin's review against another edition

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hopeful inspiring mysterious fast-paced

Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? No
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

2.0

Although the story is so so interesting and suspenseful and you want to keep reading it because the pace is so fast you don't want to put the book down, the thing that would most often jar me out of the story was the excessive comments objectifying women. You can find yourself gripped by the emotions of the story and feeling good about humanity ant then the main character will add an unnecessary sexist or objectifying comment and it honestly made me want to throw the book against the wall several times. I think the story would have done much better without, and I don't know if it was the author trying to write the character (the character is like that) or just the author projecting his views on the character (the author is like that). This book suffers from a terrible case of "Men writing women".

Content Warnings

texassizedreads's review against another edition

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emotional mysterious reflective sad medium-paced

Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? No
Diverse cast of characters? No

0.25

I went into this book really wanting to love it. I read the Book Thief in high school and loved it so much, and I was hoping to like this book as well. I did not like it. At all.

I listened to the audiobook, so the way the narrator read things might have made certain parts worse for me. But here's what I didn't like:

Ed's character was kind of annoying and constantly objectified women. Pretty much any woman he saw, he had to describe her in a sexual way, and oddly specified things about their hips and legs, which made me really uncomfortable. He even did this to a 15 year old (when he's in his 20s) at one point. I think the narrator made these parts more uncomfortable than if I had just physically read the book.
Audrey's character was really flat. Honestly the only things I can say about her is that she was hurt when she was young (no details given there) and keeps people at arm's length as a result, and that she likes movies, playing cards. That's it.
I'm really not sure why Ed is in love with her at all. She isn't given a personality so when they got together at the end (which also came out of nowhere and bothered me a lot) I really didn't care.
Honestly, the main characters in this book (Ed, Audrey, Marv, Richie) were either one-dimensional or unlikeable. The best characters in the book were the side characters like The Doorman, Father O'Reilly, and Bernie.
The part where he's witnessing the man on Edgar Street rape his wife and says that the man doing it multiple times is "an achievement" (not sure if those were the exact words, but it was something similar) really rubbed me the wrong way.
I HATE THE ENDING.
The guy behind all the cards in the mail KILLED ED'S FATHER AND ORDERED THE MAN ON EDGAR STREET TO RAPE HIS WIFE SO THAT HE COULD TEACH ED AND THE READERS A LIFE LESSON?
.
I could go on, but I'm tired and I don't feel like it's worth it. The point is, I really DO NOT recommend this book.

I think the only things I liked about this book were some of the side characters and the sense of mystery for most of the book as we wondered who was sending the playing cards to Ed. I listened to the end hoping that the ending would somehow make up for the other stuff in the book, but it only made it worse. I'm so disappointed.

Content Warnings

_vampiresquid's review against another edition

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dark emotional mysterious sad tense medium-paced

Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.75

I am the Messenger is about a young man who works as a cab driver, though he’s underage. At the beginning of the book, he stops a bank robbery in a creative way, and afterwards he is sent an ace playing card with addresses on them, presumably to find the truth behind the events that occur there and put his own spin on them.

The plot kind of hinges on the mystery, while the other events supplement it

him being in love with his friend, Audrey, his relationship with his friends, his mother and his grief about his father, & his job

. He has a wonderful bond with his dog, Doorman. I was so scared that something would happen to him, but I am glad to say nothing ill happened to him.

Our main character, Ed, shows tremendous growth throughout the novel. He becomes obsessive with the mystery, to the point of harming himself

and others

. I found his voice to be not the most likeable, but he was thrust into this mystery that changes his view and outlook on life so that changes quite a bit.

There was so much intensity at certain points within the novel that after reading a significant chunk of the book, I had to put it down to process everything that had happened. This wasn’t to the novel’s detriment, however.

In terms of details on content warnings, I will post them below in the drop down.

Near the end, when we find out the mystery, it seemed very unsatisfactory to me. Maybe if I ruminate on it for a while, I will think differently but for now it seemed very convenient. I also found some of the “messages” Ed had to perform were lacklustre compared to others. Maybe that was the point, but it seemed very off kilter.
This is why I docked down the percentage rating.

All in all, I am the Messenger was not as good as The Book Thief, but it shares the same intensity and character growth. I really do recommend it, if you can handle some of the content.

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