Scan barcode
A review by corinnekeener
I Am the Messenger by Markus Zusak
Did not finish book.
I had to give up on this one. I know basically every other one star review is about the language, but that's really the least of this monster's problems. Everything about it had this extra veneer of "isn't this so clever?" But none of it made much sense and honestly some of it's down right offensive - again, not for it's use of foul language.
Ed Kennedy is a world class slacker, but don't get the idea that he's stupid... he's read Chekov and Dickens and probably Pynchon and everyone else that you'd be impressed by, too! (Probably never a book by a woman though. Not unless he thought reading her book would help him get into bed with her).
So, Ed starts getting these playing cards in the mail that have an address and a time of day written on them. There's no instructions, he doesn't know why he's received the cards, and no one tells him that there are any consequences for just throwing them in the trash. Without so much as a second thought, he goes to the addresses at the time stated. The cards appear to be leading him to people who need help with some aspect of their lives. The majority of them (from what I listened to, I of course gave this book up) are small kindnesses: buying an ice cream cone for an over worked single mom, reading to a lonely old woman, convincing a 16 year old track runner to compete barefoot because she runs better that way. However, the first card is heavy - like impossibly outsized compared to buying an icecream cone, like really should probably involve several authority figures to help sort out. The stuff after the spoiler warning here may not technically be a spoiler and is really more of a rant about how offensive this particular card really is. The first card takes Ed to a house where from the some bushes he can see everything that happens inside of the home. He watches a man come home, stumbling drunk, enter the house, and then force his wife to have sex with him. It's a rape. Some other cards are buying $2 ice creams, this one is a rape. He is too afraid to intervene, but instead of going to the police or seeking advice or help he waits. He goes back on other nights, he sees it happen again sometimes, though not always. And he waits. He knows this woman and her daughter are in danger and he does nothing because he's scared. But I'm apparently supposed to sit here and be okay with it because what? This man Ed Kennedy is going to solve all of this woman's problems for her? He's going to be a big hero and save a woman from marital rape all on his own without people trained to help others? Really, fuck this.
The other part that I can confidently talk about without spoiling plot points is that Ed Kennedy is a grade A nice guy. A real white knight. I get the idea that I am supposed to think he's working on himself and becoming a truly good person for doing all of these selfless deeds for people in varying degrees of need, but all the while he cannot stop commenting on a 16 year old girl's legs. They are so beautiful and perfect. I cannot emphasize enough how frequently he comments on her legs. It's legitimately what made me quit this book. I could have held on to see how this piece finished up to tell me what a great lesson Ed has learned about being a Good Person and why we should all read to old ladies more often, but I'd had enough sexualizing of a teen girl. Her voice is like strawberry ice cream. He picks up a fare in his cab. She happens to be a sex worker. And then Ed nearly gets into a car accident fantasizing about boning her. He can't stop looking for this woman around town. He's in love with his friend Aubrey, a legitimately good friend and seems like a decent young woman, but she sleeps with other people and that's really a shame to Ed because those guys don't care for her like HE could. There's one point when he also slut shames her. She questions something he's doing relating to the cards and he says something along the lines of, "Well if you weren't off sleeping with so and so." A real class act and selfless Good Person who knows more about being good than anyone else.
From what I understand from other reviews, he gets the girl. So one star for yet another book about how men can save women and then get the women they want because they deserve them for being so good. Actual trash.
Ed Kennedy is a world class slacker, but don't get the idea that he's stupid... he's read Chekov and Dickens and probably Pynchon and everyone else that you'd be impressed by, too! (Probably never a book by a woman though. Not unless he thought reading her book would help him get into bed with her).
So, Ed starts getting these playing cards in the mail that have an address and a time of day written on them. There's no instructions, he doesn't know why he's received the cards, and no one tells him that there are any consequences for just throwing them in the trash. Without so much as a second thought, he goes to the addresses at the time stated. The cards appear to be leading him to people who need help with some aspect of their lives. The majority of them (from what I listened to, I of course gave this book up) are small kindnesses: buying an ice cream cone for an over worked single mom, reading to a lonely old woman, convincing a 16 year old track runner to compete barefoot because she runs better that way. However, the first card is heavy - like impossibly outsized compared to buying an icecream cone, like really should probably involve several authority figures to help sort out. The stuff after the spoiler warning here may not technically be a spoiler and is really more of a rant about how offensive this particular card really is.
The other part that I can confidently talk about without spoiling plot points is that Ed Kennedy is a grade A nice guy. A real white knight. I get the idea that I am supposed to think he's working on himself and becoming a truly good person for doing all of these selfless deeds for people in varying degrees of need, but all the while he cannot stop commenting on a 16 year old girl's legs. They are so beautiful and perfect. I cannot emphasize enough how frequently he comments on her legs. It's legitimately what made me quit this book. I could have held on to see how this piece finished up to tell me what a great lesson Ed has learned about being a Good Person and why we should all read to old ladies more often, but I'd had enough sexualizing of a teen girl. Her voice is like strawberry ice cream. He picks up a fare in his cab. She happens to be a sex worker. And then Ed nearly gets into a car accident fantasizing about boning her. He can't stop looking for this woman around town. He's in love with his friend Aubrey, a legitimately good friend and seems like a decent young woman, but she sleeps with other people and that's really a shame to Ed because those guys don't care for her like HE could. There's one point when he also slut shames her. She questions something he's doing relating to the cards and he says something along the lines of, "Well if you weren't off sleeping with so and so." A real class act and selfless Good Person who knows more about being good than anyone else.
From what I understand from other reviews, he gets the girl. So one star for yet another book about how men can save women and then get the women they want because they deserve them for being so good. Actual trash.