The Five People You Meet In Heaven

The Five People You Meet in Heaven by Mitch Albom is an allegorical story of a man named Eddie who dies, goes to Heaven, and meets five people who, in some way or another, were impacted or had an impact on his life. Whether or not Eddie knew it, God had put these people in Eddie's life for a reason, and he goes to Heaven and finds out answers about his life and the people he is meeting.

The story starts with Eddie, an old man (Eighty years old to be exact) who works at Ruby Pier, a carnival-like amusement park. Eddie has worked there for most all of his life (except when he served in the war), and, even though today is his birthday, he still does everything the same way he would do things any other day. Today would be different though. A thrill ride called Freddy's Free Fall had been stuck with all its passengers at the top of the ride, and it was rather tilted towards the ground. Eddie raced over to tell the man running the ride to get the passengers off and then press the release button. The man did and when he pressed the release button, the cart where the passengers had been fell to the ground. In the midst of all this, Eddie saw a little girl right under the spot where the cart would fall, and, despite his bad leg, he ran over to save the little girl as the cart was falling. All he felt was her little hands and then, pain followed by the feeling of floating.

Eddie, not knowing whether he had saved the little girl, had died and now he was in heaven. He felt no pain or sadness. He was just floating over fields of unimaginable colors. When he finally landed, he was at Ruby Pier, but it was the Ruby Pier from his childhood. He then heard a voice over the loudspeaker saying there was a freak show at a certain ...

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...rt. With that, water rushed around Eddie, and he could here nothing. The rushing water takes him to Ruby Pier the way he remembered it from his childhood where he will wait for a certain little girl he had saved from death to come to him for answers about her life. Eddie will not be alone, though. He will have Marguerite, the captain, Joseph, and plenty of others with him. As Eddie sat with Marguerite, he heard the voice of God say, "Home."

I would very much so recommend this book. It is a great story about how everyone has a purpose to be here, and it makes you think of heaven as not just the streets of gold, but as a place where we will find out all the answers about our lives. It is a great concept. I would absolutely recommend The Five People You Meet in Heaven.

Albom, Mitch. The Five People You Meet in Heaven. Hyperion Books: New York, New York. 2003