Book Review: The Five People You Meet in Heaven

“All ending are beginnings. We just don't know it at the time..." I’ve just got this from an amazing novel, “The Five People You Meet in Heaven”, written by Mitch Albom. Got confused? Okay, this quote generally tells us that all beginnings are considered to start from different endings. How? Well, for example, when a day ends, a new day begins, but in this novel, the quote tells us about the new kind life begins, after a life ends mortally from earth. But before you begin your eternal life in Heaven, you’ll get to encounter five people that will satisfy you that your life on earth is worth-living for. So let’s get fascinated to the novel from the ending.

This is a story about a man named Eddie. Eddie is a former veteran soldier who considers himself stuck in miserable life of maintaining the rides at an Ruby Pier amusement park, which really meant keeping people safe. His days are dull routing of work, loneliness, and regret. Then, on his 83^rd 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. The first person he met is the Blue Man from the freak show on the Pier, who died when Eddie was eight years old. One by one, Eddie’s five people illuminated the unseen connections of his earthly life. In Heaven, the man tells Eddie his life story and the lesson Eddie is to learn from this first person is that there are no random acts. All lives are interconnected, and fairness does not govern life or death. The second person Eddie met is his captain from the war. Four of his men, including Eddie, were captured with him in the Philippines. The captain was killed by a landmine as they were escaping. He learned from this second encounter in Heaven that no one dies for nothing and that when you sacrifice something precious, such as a leg, you always gain something. He just doesn’t know yet what he has gained. The third person Eddie met is a woman named Ruby, for whom Ruby Pier was named long before Eddie’s time. The lesson he learned from this encounter is taught by Ruby. She told him that anger is self-destructive and that he must forgive. The fourth person Eddie met is his wife, Marguerite. Their relationship was a rewarding and fulfilling one. They had a happy reunion in Heaven, organized against the backdrop of several wedding from different countries. The lesson that he learned from his fourth encounter is that lost love is still love. Although life has to end, love doesn’t. The fifth person Eddie met is a little girl, named Tala, whom he tried to rescue in the burning tent in the Philippines in the war. She told him that he had saved the little girl from the falling cart and that as he died; the hands he felt in his were her own, Tala’s. She was bringing him to Heaven to keep him safe, she told him. At last, Eddie feels peace. Eddie is then transported back to Marguerite to spend eternity with her at home in Heaven.

These people may have been loved ones or distant strangers. Yet each of them changed your path forever. 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 sources is as inspirational as a glimpse of heaven itself. In “The Five People You Meet in Heaven, Mitch Albom gives us an astoundingly original story that will change everything you’ve ever thought about the afterlife and the meaning of our lives here on earth. With a timeless tale, appealing to all, this is a book that readers of fine fiction will treasure 196 pages of this novel.