The 5 People You Meet in Heaven

The Five People You Meet in Heaven, by Mitch Albom

This book is unusual.  Most of the time when you read a book, you know that no matter how many bad things happen to the main character, none of them will be bad enough to kill, except maybe at the end if it is one of those tragic stories.  This book is not like that.  The first chapter is called The End, and it begins with "This is a story about a man named Eddie and it begins at the end, with Eddie dying in the sun."

Thankfully, the book doesn't open with a gruesome death scene, but explains a little about how Eddie got to his predicament that killed him, and then after that, Eddie finds himself somewhere else, where he learns that in heaven, before reaching his own paradise, he must meet five people who had influenced his life on earth in some way.  They will each teach him a lesson explaining life, so that he can make some sense of his time on earth.  Interspersed with Eddie's meetings with these five people, are snippets of the past, letting us get a glimpse of who Eddie was on earth.  After all, we didn't really know him on earth, because the story began on his last day here.  So we need to have some reference point.

I see this book as a work of philosophy, explaining a little to the reader about what life means on earth, and why we are here, and how we should live.  Some people could object to the version of heaven as depicted in this book, but I don't really see the book as a work of theology.  The setting of heaven seems to be simply the author's method for getting the points across.

Each of the five people had some quite startling things to reveal to Eddie, so it was interesting, and a very quick read.  I would suggest this book to anyone.  And everyone.