I Am The Messenger

By Markus Zusak

Ed Kennedy was a nineteen-year-old nobody/cabdriver living in the dodgy part of the Australian suburbs with a 17-year-old dog who drinks coffee, no company but three lazy friends, nothing to look forward to during his workweek except Annoyance cardgames with them, a mother who hates him, and a girl he can't have, until he unwittingly prevents a bank robbery. Suddenly the media puts him in a spotlight, and so does a mysterious correspondent, who sends him seemingly random addresses on playing cards in the mail.

Soon Ed finds himself doing things he'd never done before: aim guns at men (at least) ten times his size, befriend a lonely old lady, and show a runner the true glory in what she does. It doesn't take Ed long to realize that he's saving all kinds of people in all kinds of places. But maybe that's not the point. Maybe Ed is saving himself.