Published by Hyperion N.Y.
196 pages
Reviewed by Sofia Burgess

Mitch Albom’s bestseller: The Five People You Meet in Heaven offers an unsettling perspective on the afterlife. In this book, Albom explores the idea that heaven is a place where life on earth, with all its mundane complexities, is explained to us. The book focuses on Eddie, an 83-year-old amusement park maintenance technician. When he dies he does not awaken among white clouds and angels, rather he discovers himself in various places that he knew on earth. In each of these familiar places someone is waiting to tell him crucial information about why his life on earth was worthwhile, and what his role was in others lives.

A comforting thought, maybe, but I think that Albom ultimately fails to give Eddie the answers he so seeks. The five people he meets in “heaven” seem to be haunting his afterlife rather than welcoming him into a peaceful serenity. It seems that there is a lot of pain and grief involved in Eddies encounters with these other souls. However, it is through these encounters that Eddie is able to see with clarity that each of us is connected. Albom sums it up by writing, “ the world is full of stories, but the stories are all one”.

The moral of the book is that because our lives are but a small piece of a vast and intricate puzzle, we should aim to make our influences positive ones. The ripple we create daily in the sea of living should produce a healthy effect and not a damaging one. It is through the connections we share, and the consequences of these connections that heaven is revealed to us. Mitch Albom chose an original and effective way to display this theory.

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Highland County, OH