The Five People You Meet in Heaven by Mitch Albom

When a reluctant learner gives you a book to read because they liked the book - you read it. You read it even if your TBR pile has multiplied and had children. You read it even if you have absolutely no interest in the book whatsoever. So I read this.

Eddie is killed in a freak accident at work while trying to save a child. What follows are his experiences in heaven, meeting people whose lives touched his, or whose lives he touched.

The Five People You Meet in Heaven is not a slog to read. It goes quickly - very quickly. The other thing I liked about it is that it highlighted that there is more than one side to every situation. A point that many people could do with some reminding about. But, I will be honest here, I didn't enjoy it. Let me explain. While I was happy that there were two sides to every issue, I felt that the reasons given for some of the actions of some people were not adequate in justifying their actions, and were definitely not adequate for understanding, let alone forgiveness. Take, for example, an extremely (physically) abusive parent. One sole decent act later on in life does not justify nor make up for years of beating one's children. Yes, it might show another side to a person who might have just been considered a monster, but it only raises more questions. Why could somebody who was clearly capable of understanding and forgiveness and immense self-sacrifice beat their kids without cause? See. Those are the things I am questioning after reading this.

I do not know if this was intended for a young audience, but it was written as though it was. The vocabulary and sentence structure was the opposite of challenging. Even the print was suited for the visually challenged. The best part of this was the very beginning when you know Eddie is going to die, but don't know how. The suspense was done fairly well there.

But the review that Junior got at school was that I thought his philosophy on life was interesting. I liked how there were two sides to every situation. And I liked how even what would seem irrelevant events, could cause chain reactions or cause an effect and effect people years later. I told her I thought I was a very interesting read.

I know I am not the intended audience for books like this. I am an atheist. I don't believe in heaven. I also feel that Mitch Albom knows just as much as everyone else does about the 'afterlife' - absolutely bloody nothing. So while I can see what he is trying to do (besides run on the shirt tails of Tuesday's with Morrie, his first book which got acclaim from Opera), I just don't see him as an expert on any of this. His guess on the afterlife is as good as yours and mine. His theories for living life are as good as yours and mine.

I gave this 3 stars. It was Ok.