This is the 9th book I've read by Michael Grant. Seriously, the dude is master of imagination. Creepy and weird and scary imagination.

How to describe Messenger of Fear? Um...scary? Okay, I get it... You want more than that. It's phenomenal. Messenger of Fear gets contemporary and supernatural and horror and smushes them together and HUZZAH -- you have 300-pages of a mind twisty adventure.

It starts off with mist and confusion and where-the-heck am I. We get to piece the story together as we go.

Our narrator, a bonnie lass named Mara, meets this creepy ageless dude called Messenger. Of, you know, unfortunately he's a messenger of fear. He's a bit standoffish. But he's actually nice! Don't let the coat with skull buttons put you off! The dude is actually thoughtful and I quite liked his quiet mysteriousness.

Mara is...memoryless. She's a steady, no-nonsense kind of character, pretty smart, Asian, and relatively calm. Until she realises that she's apprenticed to the Messenger and a) learns what terrible things he does, as well as b) discovers she's supernatural now. Walk through walls. Pop around time. All that funky stuff. When she figures out she's his apprentice? Well...then she busts out sobbing. I liked Mara, but I liked Messenger more.

The writing is typical Grant style. It's a little heavier on the description than Gone, but if you want my private opinion? (Pfft, you're here. Of course you do.) I think the it's his best-written book yet! I couldn't put it down! Two sittings! That's all it took me to eat it up. Crisp and to-the-point and interesting.

And it's not just supernaturally beings popping around dishing out judgment. It's specifically zooms in on bullied girl, Samantha, and a few other people and the Big Mistakes they make which brings Messenger popping into their lives. It's horrible, but I wouldn't say gruesome. And I can't really tell you what the Messenger does because, duh, SPOILERS. I went into this basically with no idea what it would be about. That was perfect.

I love this book so much, okay?! It's small. (Love that.) The writing is crispy. (So much love.) It mixes a dash of horror with paranormal things.

What if you had to decide who was guilty and who was innocent? What if YOU had to play the judge? What if you were in control of who plays the Game.

Let me tell you, this book was brilliant. With a capital ‘b’. And every other letter for that matter. Seriously, this is going on my top reads for this year list.

You see, I began Messenger of Fear late at night when my eyes were very tired. Yeah, that’s not a good time for me to start a book usually, but I really wanted to read. Usually, no matter how much I desire to read, I can’t usually read more than about 10 pages, 20 at most, when my eyes are tired. But I just decided to read for a few minutes. I ended up reading 50 pages quickly, and easily. It was really hard to stop.

I got straight into the story. I love books where you get to follow different stories (within the book). I just have a thing for books like that. It’s pretty much guaranteed that I’m going to love it if it has quite a few different storylines.

The writing was just so great and was easy to read. Michael Grant does a great job with gorier scenes as well. I found that I was trying to pace myself, so that I could savour the book. Not counting the 50 pages the night before I read it within a day – and I really didn’t want it to end.

Especially not with that ending. To be honest I wasn’t a huge fan of that ending because I thought it was a little predictable, but it was still enjoyable to read.

I loved the idea of the Messenger and the Game. So cool. The book is really unique and the ideas were just so great.

The themes! How have I gone this long without bringing up the themes! Wow, this book really got me thinking about the concept of right and wrong, and when wrongs can be justified. It also touched upon themes such as bullying and love. I think Messenger of Fear will stick with me for a while yet.

I really can’t recommend this book enough. I am so pumped for a sequel, please let it come soon. I need a sequel in my life.

5/5 comets
Bye, bye Earth! Out of this world!