Summer Reading Blog 1: Characters, Setting, and Conflict

   I chose the book "I am the Messenger" by Markus Zusak. This book tells the story of a young cabdriver by the name of Ed Kennedy. He is horrendously bad at playing cards, which the book seems to follow a card theme throughout, especially in the tittle of the chapters. Other than playing cards with his friends, Ed really doesn't have any life goals or motivation, as you can tell in the beginning. No one expects anything from him, or anything, but everything changes when one day a bank hes in gets robbed. By the end of the book his character has changed completely. Other characters in the book include Ed's best friend Marvin, a self-centered teenager, Richie, another one of Ed's friends, as well as Aubrey, who Ed is hopelessly in love with her. Also there's Milla and Timmy, another of Ed's friends. The setting of this blockbuster of a book is the suburbs of an unnamed city in Australia, perhaps Sydney or Melbourne, in which the conflict of becoming a hero in his city and becoming more than what he ever dreamed of being. When a gunman robs a bank that he is in, Ed picks up the gun he dropped and tries to shoot the gunman, as he misses he scares him of and thus he is a local hero. He also is asked to testify against the robber, as the robber threatens his life. Ed is then greeted with a mysterious package, consisting of playing cards and addresses. He is asked to go to these addresses that he is receiving, and help the people there. After a while he starts to feel good about what he is doing. He feels as though he has a life now and that it is worth living.