I am the Messenger by Markus Zusak

Meet Ed Kennedy—underage cabdriver, pathetic cardplayer, and useless at romance. He lives in a shack with his coffee-addicted dog, the Doorman, and he’s hopelessly in love with his best friend, Audrey. His life is one of peaceful routine and incompetence, until he inadvertently stops a bank robbery. That’s when the first Ace arrives. That’s when Ed becomes the messenger. . . .

Chosen to care, he makes his way through town helping and hurting (when necessary), until only one question remains: Who’s behind Ed’s mission?

I was rather nervous about reading this book.  The Book Thief by Markus Zusak is one of my all time favourite reads and a book that made me quite emotional, so I was nervous to read another book by this author and be disappointed in some way.   Would this somehow lessen my experience of The Book Thief!?  Charity shop Karma played it's role as this book, in perfect condition, jumped out at me for $2 at the Humane society thrift store.  How could I resist a  great book and helping out poor animals.

This book is not The Book Thief but it did not disappoint in any way.  Even when writing about serious subjects this author did not fail to inject humour that really worked for me.  The same formula of a serious main story with a novel approach to telling it.  This was done in four sections, respresenting the Ace of each suit of cards and within each section a number of different lengths of chapters each with it's own succinct yet perfect heading.

This was a book that just kept me reading and reading.  In fact, I think I ended up reading it so fast that I need to read it all over again just to make sure I appreciated every last bit of it. 

A book that has put this author on my list of favourite authors as well as favourite books. 5 out of 5 stars.