The Five People You Meet in Heaven by Mitch Albom
Book Review by Melissa Johnson
The Five People You Meet in Heaven, by Mitch Albom, author of Tuesday’s with
Morrie, is one of the best books I’ve read this year. This book, even if you don’t believe
in life after death, helps to clarify the theory of heaven and makes you hope so dearly that
there is such a place. It is a feel-good story of life, death, love, and all the people you
happen to cross paths with on earth.
In The Five People You Meet in Heaven, we meet Eddie, an old war veteran stuck
with the dull job of a maintenance worker at a seaside amusement park called Ruby Pier.
He feels like he is just some useless creature with a pointless life. But things aren’t
always what they appear. On Eddie’s 83rd birthday, he dies in a tragic accident trying to
save a little girl from a falling cart. He wakes up in that after life, not knowing whether he
saved the girl or not, for when he died, all he felt was two little hands in his.
Eddie soon discovers that heaven isn’t some beautiful paradise or Garden of
Eden, but a place where your life on Earth is explained to you by five people who were
some part of it. These five people could have been ones you haven’t even met or ones
you dearly loved. But somehow, they changed your life forever in ways you may have
never understood or taken for granted.
Eddie’s five people explain to him one at a time their purpose in his life. After
they explain their lessons of Eddie’s life, they disappear and move on to the next stage of
heaven, whatever it is. As Eddie meets them, he notices that they all have a certain peace,
a certain knowing that everything is all right. He wants that peace about him to, but a
nagging question about his last attempt in life keeps it away – “Did I save her?” He asks
each one of his teachers, but not until the end is the answer revealed unexpectedly, an
answer so inspirational that your heart soars and you suddenly truly believe that you can
make a difference in the world.
The Five People You Meet in Heaven gives us some hope that all are attempts at
doing good will not be in vain. Its moral is that each person in your life, no matter how
long they were in it, has an impact on who you are shaped into. It also theorizes that
death is only a beginning. For instance, when Adam, the first man first slept, he thought
he was leaving the earth. But when he woke up, he was refreshed and realized that it was
only a new day, a new beginning. Maybe that is what death is.
This book wouldn’t let me put it down. I had to keep reading because I was
desperately curious of who Eddie was going to meet next and why they were so
important. It taught me so many lessons that I will use in life to become a better person.
In fact, it had such an impact on me that I’m wondering if I will meet Mitch Albom in
heaven as one of my five people.
All in all, this story of love living on is one of my favorites because I love happy
endings and inspiration. I need to understand why I’m on this earth and this book cleared
some of the fog away. The Five People You Meet in Heaven is a book I would
recommend to anyone who is feeling like their life is worthless. It gets four out of five
stars from me only because it dragged on a bit in the middle.