The Five People You Meet in Heaven
Apr 7th, 2007 by Bethany
Yesterday I read The Five People You Meet in Heaven by Mitch Albom, our book club book for the month. It only took about five hours of uninterrupted reading (the kids took some long naps) and it was definitely worthwhile.
The premise is that an old man dies thinking that he wasted his life and that he never really amounted to anything, then when he shows up in heaven he's surprised to find out that it's not what he expected. He meets five people who explain the significance of his life and some of the really difficult things that happened to him while he was alive, explaining that understanding why things happened is what gives you comfort and solace in heaven. Most of the people are not who you'd (or he'd) expect, as they don't have to be people you knew well or at all to have made a difference in your life. Each teaches him a lesson along with their explanation and the story has a happy ending.
This book wasn't what I'd call life-changing for me, but I was certainly touched to tears in a couple of spots. The writing is engaging, and I obviously had a hard time putting the book down to do anything else since I read the whole thing in one big gulp. The author's explanations of forgiveness and sacrifice were unusual and thought-provoking. I loved how much the main character loved his wife–family relationships were appropriately a recurring topic in the story.
Perhaps my favorite quote from the book is:
Strangers are just family you have yet to come to know.
There is some fairly vivid description of war and his father's drunken beating of him and his brother, but nothing so dark or disturbing that it isn't outweighed by the optimism of the overall tone. I don't believe that heaven is likely as described here, but I think the description is valuable. This book is worth a read or two–you may even want to keep it around in your library.