Seriously, this book dominated my day. Luckily, it was a slow day at work because once I picked up the book, I couldn't put it down. I just kept wanting to know more- when the next card was going to come, what was on that card, what he'd do!
I had some reoccurring questions in my mind while reading, though. The first set of questions are: How did he always seem to know exactly how to deliver his message? A few of the cases, especially with his friend, Ritchie, how did he know he was done? It almost seemed to simple to merely get the response, "I want to want." Did anyone else feel like some of them maybe left you hanging a little, asking yourself, "That's it?"
*SPOILER ALERT* The second question occurred a few times throughout as you see the narrator break from telling of the story to add self-reflection and doubt, but it really hit me at the end. To start, I was really blown away by the ending when who I presume to be the author writes himself into the story declaring, "I did it all to you. I made you..." Now, I have never read a book that the author is in-- sure we've all seen the movies where the director plays a role-- but have you ever read a book where the author has a role? It really seems to hit right to the heart of the matter-- the author really DID make him do all of that, and the author really is the messenger. I felt like a cartoon character who's head spun around! I guess I should ask: Did anyone else make the assumption that the mystery recorder at the end is the author?
So now to more questions, on pages 88 and 89, the narrator of the story breaks down and begs, "I ask you: What would you do if you were me? Tell me. Please tell me! But you're far from this. Your fingers turn the strangeness of these pages that somehow connect my life to yours... I'll kill this man and also die myself, inside." This entire passage really caught my attention for MANY reasons-- I had nothing but questions! Who is the narrator? The author? Or Ed? When you (who is you?-- Us? Ed? Author?) turn these pages, if the author is the messenger, whose life are is the reader connecting to? Is it Ed asking these questions to the author, if the author is the one who controls his actions? But then there's a part where the narrator says, "It makes me think that maybe I should write about all of this myself. After all, I'm the one who did all the work. I'd start with the bank robbery. Something like, "The gunman is useless." The odds are, however, that he's beaten me to it already."
The end honestly made me feel like I was reading a journal of a person with dissociative identity disorder. Regardless, it was an awesome (for lack of a better word to describe its awesomeness), consuming, page-turner of a read.
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