From: Kathleen Jeffrie Johnson <kjjohnso>
Date: Tue, 28 Feb 2006 09:46:08 -0600

I loved Messanger. It's many months since I read it, but I thought the point of the ending was not so much that the author is the one pulling the puppet strings, that the author is the one sending the messages, but that the main character (whose name I'm blanking on) realizes that he isn't real. That he doesn't really exist. That he's nothing more than a character in a novel. The shock of that. The looking around and suddenly understanding that nothing you thought was real, is. What then? What comes next, when truth, or what you believe to be the truth, shatters?

I thought this was an unusual and unsettling ending, but also rather brilliant.

I haven't yet read The Book Thief, but I'm wondering if this same theme of overturned reality is part of it. Kind of sounds that way, from what I've heard.

Kathleen Jeffrie Johnson

----- Original Message ----- From: "Kellye Carter Crocker" <kelcrocker at mchsi.com>


Hi Beth, I agree with the "too much of a trick" people. I didn't see the foreshadowing and the revelation was a let down to me because it seemed so inconceivable. Also, the Big Message seemed to be "you are the message," which struck me as obvious and preachy. But, honestly, I've wondered if there's something I'm not getting? :-)
Received on Tue 28 Feb 2006 09:46:08 AM CST