I Am the Weapon By Allen Zadoff

                I read the book I am a weapon by Allen Zadoff.  It’s about a boy named Zach who goes to different towns and completes his missions.  He makes friends and does his job and then disappears.  He never stays anywhere too long.  Just long enough for his target to die of natural causes.  Or in other words just in time for him to kill the target.  Zadoff’s style is thriller.  He wrote a page turning novel that made you think.  The author uses informal because there is a teenage boy telling the story and some formal diction.  Zach has been forced to act like an adult because he’s had to kill people and act like a soldier.  When Zach is talking with the friends Zadoff uses informal diction and when Zach is thinking to himself he uses more formal diction.  When Zach and his friend Jack are talking, Jack says “Watch it with the bat, dude” (1).  Through out the novel words like dude and buddy are used making it informal diction.  In one of Zach’s earlier assignments he was getting followed by a black Sudan.  He thought to himself, “A spattering of houses set way back from the road, their views obscured behind thickets of trees” (16).  Even though Zach is a teenager he is very intelligent and highly trained so the author used more formal diction when he is thinking than when he is talking with his friends. 

                Allen Zadoff uses lots of great imagery in this novel.  At the beginning of Zach’s experience with the program he got stabbed in the arm.  He describes it as, “An ugly gash, hard with scar tissue, located on my left peck in the meat between my chest and shoulder.  A knife wound” (Ch. 13).  This part uses great imagery because it describes how the knife just disappeared into his chest.  Mike one of his close friends was the one who stabbed him.  This section is powerful because like Zach’s “mother” said bad experiences are life’s most teachable moments.  This taught Zach that even though Mike was his friend he still stabbed him which showed that Mike was capable of a lot more than he thought he was. The author uses figurative language throughout the book.  In the part where he is being followed by the men in the black Sudan Zach said, “But they know something about me because they are looking at me like I’m dinner at the zoo” (17).  Throughout the book Zach is faced with difficult challenges.  The people that he is up against look at him and think that they will easily be able to beat him.  But he is a lot stronger and smarter than he looks.  That’s the beauty of this simile because it shows how they look at him like he’s nothing but then he ends up beating all of them. 

                This was a very interesting novel.  I would definitely recommend it.  It’s very exciting and it will keep you on the edge of your seat.  It makes you wonder what it would be like to be a “soldier” and have to kill people.  It makes you wonder why everything that Zach has been through and seen doesn’t bother him.  The book never really says if Zach is a good hero or if he just thinks he is.  The way Zadoff writes makes you want to read the next book to see what happens to Zach and his family.  He constantly keeps you wondering and nervous about what’s going to happen.  He also adds little surprises in the book.  For example, there is a little twist in the novel when Zach starts to like one of his targets.  Read the story and see what happens with Zach and the program.