Hello book fellows,
Today I am going to talk about The messenger by Markus Zusak and our opinion about it. This was the book we read in February for The Brno Book Club and also the tenth book we read in the club. I am really happy about the club and its achievement ;).
Let’s get started then. As always, please be aware of spoilers in this post in case you didn’t read the book.
This meeting started in a different way this time. The administrator had the wonderful idea of having a quiz with 12 questions before starting so we could refresh our memories and see who remembered more details about the book. It was really fun :D. My team didn’t win but the winners shared their prize with all of us ;). After this little game, the discussion started with the guidance of the administrator.
- General opinion
In general everybody liked the book. Some members thought it was a great book and they would recommend it. Other members thought that the body of the novel was interesting but it decreased towards the end.
A member also commented that the book was interesting but not that much and the only thing he was interested in was the reason why the main character didn’t wash his dog more often :D.
We also highlighted the word play the author is constantly using in the text and how poetic it sounds. We even compared the different translations we had at the meeting (Spanish, Croatian and Czech) with the original in English to see if the translators kept it… and they did a good job ;).
- Ed and other characters
We were also talking about our main character. Some members liked him because it wasn’t the typical superhero. Other members complained about his attitude, how he always knew what to do with the cards and how he never was wrong about his actions.
Regarding the other characters, there was no real commitment or development because we don’t get to know them very much. We only get to know deeper Ed’s friends.
There was a member who had a theory about his friends. He believes that his friends represented an extension of Ed, so by helping them he actually helped himself.
- Who do you think Ed helped the most?
Everybody answered instantly that Edgar street was the worst case. However, a member made a really good point: everyone was living his/her own hell, even though for Ed was easy piece. So he helped everyone at the same level.
- Who was the person sending the cards?
The main mystery is not revealed till the end, so we shared our theories about the answer. I personally thought it was Audrey trying to make of Ed something else than just Ed.
We also were trying to guess who the person was once he appears in front of Ed. Was he God, Death or a writer talking to his character? I believe he was a writer because of the way the books starts.
- The end
Some of us were complaining about how fast and dull the end was and how we expected the story to have a proper end. However, other members said that this open end was actually something they liked because it makes you think after you finish the book.
- Did the cards actually changed Ed’s life?
Almost every member answered that probably not. It feels like thanks to Audrey it will be better but due to Ed’s apathy he won’t look for more messages. So at then end, it is just another love story…
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And that’s all regarding The messenger. I hope you enjoyed reading about our meeting and our opinions. Please don’t hesitate to write down below your own opinion; we would be happy to know about it.
Next meeting was about My sister’s keeper by Jodi Picoult, so stay tuned for more posts about our awesome book club.
Till then,you can browse this list of posts about the book club ;).
Happy reading! ^^
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Header image: thanks to Pixabay.
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Anacris
Audiovisual and literary translator (
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). I like writing short stories, playing ukelele, drinking chai latte and talking about 
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in this blog.