The Five People You Meet In Heaven By Mitch Albom - A Review By Laura

Synopsis

Eddie is a grizzled war veteran who feels trapped in a meaningless life of fixing rides at a seaside amusement park. His days are a dull routine of work, loneliness, and regret. Then, on his 83rd birthday, Eddie dies in a tragic accident, trying to save a little girl from a falling cart. He awakens in the afterlife, where he learns that heaven is not a lush Garden of Eden, but a place where your earthly life is explained to you by five people. These people may have been loved ones or distant strangers. Yet each of them changed your path forever.
One by one, Eddie's five people illuminate the unseen connections of his earthly life. As the story builds to its stunning conclusion, Eddie desperately seeks redemption in the still-unknown last act of his life: Was it a heroic success or a devastating failure The answer, which comes from the most unlikely of sources, is as inspirational as a glimpse of heaven itself.

 

I gave this book 5 out of 5 stars and it really does deserve each and everyone of them. After struggling to get through the last book i've read which took me about 2 months or just under this book was so refreshing and restored my faith in reading... I read this book in just under two days.

The book is based about a old man called Eddie who works on a fairground on a pier, he is a lonely old man after losing everyone he loves and also feels as though he has failed in life by going nowhere and achieving nothing, when he gets to heaven he meets five different people who have impacted his life and make him realise his life was the way it was for a reason. It really is a touching emotional book and I absolutely adore it.

It took me all of a paragraph to become hooked in this book and within the first 20 pages I had completely fell in love with Eddie. Not only is this book so enjoyable because of the loveable nature of the main character but the style of the book also plays a really positive part in making this book as amazing as it is. In past reviews I have said how I didn't really enjoy reading books when the narrative jumped from the past to the present but in this particular book it makes the story even more enjoyable... Just like Eddie in Heaven jumping from past events in his life the structure of the book enables the reader to also jump back into the past and learn about certain events that took place in Eddies life. If you think you are attached to Eddie when the book begins, by the end of the book you will feel as though he was part of your life. Each chapter ends making you unable to put the book down and this being one of the main reasons I read it as fast as I did.

As fellow bookworms you probably understand when I say that I love books that contain quotes that stay with me long after I have finished reading, I think this book may be one of the top books I have read which contains such amazing inspirational quotes, here are a few of them...

“All endings are also beginnings. We just don't know it at the time.”

“All parents damage their children. It cannot be helped. Youth, like pristine glass, absorbs the prints of its handlers. Some parents smudge, others crack, a few shatter childhoods completely into jagged little pieces, beyond repair.” 

“Sacrifice is a part of life. It's supposed to be. It's not something to regret. It's something to aspire to.” 

“The only time we waste is the time we spend thinking we are alone.” 

“There are no random acts...We are all connected...You can no more separate one life from another than you can separate a breeze from the wind...” 

“Each affects the other, and the other affects the next, and the world is full of stories, but the stories are all one.”

“Death doesn't just take someone, it misses someone else, and in the small distance between being taken and being missed, lives are changed.” 

I could go on and on with the quotes this book offers but if I did what reasons would I have to encourage you all to go get this book. If they don't make you want to read the book I don't know what will. I will absolutely be looking out for more of Mitch Alboms work.