4 Stars

Sad, bittersweet, with an ultimate feel good finish as the five people one meets in heaven lend perspective, impart knowledge, and make you realize that though your life may have not been exactly what you wanted it to be, there were many people and events that you touched in wonderful ways making no one’s life meaningless.

Barely scraping the surface of anything. I guess the supposed philosophy with all its clichés and saccharine moments in this book is perhaps good in a way of encouraging human connection and seems to have succeeded in giving easy comfort to many people in dealing with our ignorance and our insignificance. Me? I'll take choosing to read this as my own bad decision, and go and read Dante, which I should have done in the first place.

I appreciate the sentiments of this book, the messages although a little schmaltzy made you stop and think about your own reflections on life, the little differences and the impact you can make that can leave impressions on other people whether your aware of it or not. I wasn’t completely sold on the style of the writing or the overall message, as an agnostic I feel somewhat conflicted about the whole heaven thing so I feel 3 stars is being generous.

Extremely well written by Mitch Albom, best-selling author of Tuesdays With Morrie. The main character, Eddie, dies and goes to heaven where he meets 5 people who help him transition from all that he needed to resolve in his earthly life in order to find tranquility and peace in heaven. Thoughtfulness, sacrifice, compassion, redemption and everlasting love.
I read this book once before but it seems to have come to light for me with this read. Highly recommended!

کتاب جذاب و خوش خوانی هست اون یک ستاره ای رو هم که کم کردم به خاطر عقاید نویسنده درباره زندگی و مرگ بود. دید جالبی به مقوله‌ی مرگ و زندگی و سرنوشت داره ولی به نظم خیلی ساده انگارانه است. خیلی مطمئن درباره مسائلی که هیچوقت ثابت نشدند حرف میزنه.

SPOLIER ALERT!!! DO NOT READ ANY FARTHER IF YOU HAVENT READ YET!!! What an incredible book this was. This was about a man who dies. He dies trying to save a little girl at the amusement park he worked as a maintenance man. After he dies, he meets 5 people who actually show him his life had meaning. Eddie, didn’t believe he was worth anything. He thought his life meant nothing. He first meets a man he accidently helped die after the man almost kills him with a car. The second one he meets is his captain in the army. He helps him understand what actually happened while he was fighting in the war. Captain shot eddie’s knee to keep him from entering a burning building that they set after they escaped from their captors. Eddie entered the burning building because he thought he saw a little kid in there. The third person is the woman who the amusement park was named after. She wanted Eddie to see the good in what Eddie did. She also helped him forgive his father after seeing the real man he was. The fourth person he meets is his wife. He loved her and only her. After she died of cancer, he never loved again. She showed him how much that really meant to her. The fifth person was the little girl who actually was in the burning building during the war. So he wasn’t losing his mind. This was a surprise ending. And you also found out he saved the little girl at the amusement park. And his life did have meaning. Because of how well he did his job, always making sure the rides were safe. Looking out for the kids, his life really did have value. One by one, these mostly unexpected characters remind him that we all live in a vast web of interconnection with other lives; that all our stories overlap; that acts of sacrifice seemingly small or fruitless do affect others; and that loyalty and love matter to a degree we can never fathom. This book brought tears to my eyes. It is definitely one of the good ones

"All endings are also beginnings. We just don't know it at the time..."

زندگی ، مرک، عشق، نفرت، درد،و...داستان انسان بعد از مرگ کاش اینکونه بود و ما پنج نفر خود را ملافات میکردیم ، شاید زندگی توهمی بیش نیست ،
خواندن این اثر را به همه پیشنهاد میکنم

First fiction work of Mitch Albom that I've read, yes, long overdue but it was worth it. Though, since I have read his two non-fiction titles, I can say that I was moved more by the stories of Morrie and Chika.

Here, Albom presented Eddie's journey after life. He was 83 years old, same age now with my grandfather, when he died trying to save a little kid in an accident in the amusement park where he works as a maintenance officer. He met with five people from his life, even those he did not know that played a big role while he was still living, the Blue man whose cause of death is his mischief when he was a child, his Captain when he was at war in the Philippines, the woman whom the amusement park was named after, his delightful wife and Tala, the child whom he accidentally killed and burned alive in the war. These people made him realize that all of our lives, absolutely all of our actions have an effect to other people, be it small or enormous. In one way or another, we touch each other's lives.

Mitch Albom is definitey one of my favorite authors. I think I just expected a lot from this book, nonetheless, it made me think about how I am living, particularly about this day. We really don't have random acts, everything we do has an effect to our lives and to other people, we are all connected by this invisible string, each affects the other and the other affects the next, and the world is full of stories, but the stories are all one.

The main character is complex and likeable; the book is a very quick addictive read and it has a happy ending (not a spoiler--it is about heaven!), so a good read.

The title alone got me reading this book and more when I found out the Mitch Albom wrote it since I am a big fan of his Tuesday's with Morrie. Though I did not like this book as much as I did Tuesday's, Mitch Albom again succeeded in inspiring his readers and moving them to have uniquely fresh view of death just like what he did in Tuesday's.

Having read it some years back, I still saw it as a book that I would love.

And I did during the first half. However, towards the second half, it definitely started to dwindle a bit. I found myself caring less and less about who he was going to meet and found this somewhat of a short book very much dragging. Man, it sucks to see things so differently years later.

I always thought that it wasn't preachy. I mean, whenever I looked back on it, I was SO sure that it wasn't. But boy was it preachy :/

Eddie is apparently supposed to just forgive his jerk of a father, who beat him and his brother relentlessly during their childhood. And again, he is supposed to be OK with living in a place and job he feels trapped in and has clearly been manipulated into. And sure, they were his choices to make, but am I really just supposed to ignore the part where his mother had given up, where he did what he did to get the approval of his father. Eddie sacrificed big time for his family, but the thing is that he saw nothing for it.

Yet this lady is telling him that there was more to his father, because he did something brave. And? I'm sorry but should he give a shit about what his father did for a mate when he was horrible to him all his life?
Urm, NO!
Keep your goodness to yourself lady.

She is just so full of it. Apparently, she wishes a certain so-so never built the place but you proudly reveal who you are, don't you?

Things like:
'Strangers are just family you have yet to come to know'
'The only time we waste is the time we spend thinking we are alone'
'Sacrifice is a part of life. It's supposed to be. It's not something to regret. It's something to aspire to'
'Before he can devote himself to god or a woman , a boy will devote himself to his father, even foolishly, even beyond explanation'

Now the above might sound awfully poetic and nice from afar but just screams utter bullshit closer up. Like, am I actually supposed to believe that shit, really?

And after over 80 years of hurt - because of this woman's 'wise words' - just like that, he forgives.

And I'm just supposed to believe that. *sighs*

But it does get those three stars for a reason. Because guys, there are also some wonderful moments in the book. Such as:
The thought of heaven being a place that holds most significance to you is a nice feeling. Heaven including five people that will help you find meaning to the life you lived whilst alive is also quite nice. (A little too wishful but something comforting to read about.)
Lastly, I love the romance featured in the book.

And how can you not? Eddie was so deeply in love with her - and so smitten - that it is just completely endearing. It shows more of a innocent time. A time where: first dates, holding hands, and courting, were the norm. Eddie very much the gentleman and Marguerite very much the young lady.
I just LOVED the the vibe this book gave. Perhaps it was the vividness that I loved most.
I can see this homely mother in her apron so clearly and the strict, tough, father, which seemed like the 'in' thing back in the day. It's interesting seeing everything through his eyes, and how he deals with out-living all his family and friends and seeing his past stripped away as change and technology start to take over. It is certainly very sad.

Eddie is a damaged man of sorts. The war never really brought him back to his older self and he pretty much lost his family and friends because of it and almost his wife.
His wife, though, is someone who he speaks so sweetly about that I just turned to mush. It's as though she was his air.
And to top it all off, he doesn't re-marry!
Isn't it all just overwhelmingly romantic?

But there is another side to these times that aren't so appealing. The father is very much the man of the house. And in his father's case, it gives him the leeway to beat and bully his children as he likes. To tell his wife to go back to bed when she wakes up from the screaming. And what does she do? Like an obedient, silly girl, she goes back to bed, doesn't have the nerve to speak up for her children or apologise to them.
Yeah. From afar she was the mother who was nice, kind, and affectionate in contrast to his father's hard ways, but when they needed her most, she was freaking useless.

I mean these are things that continue to haunt Eddie until his last days, and it's horrible to watch. To feel so incomplete, lonely, and bitter. And then to top it all off, you come face to face with a woman who pretty much tells you that you shouldn't be angry.

I mean, how dare you think he has no right.

I felt like I was being told all these things. That it's wrong to hold in anger, that sacrificing is a good thing, that we don't have the right to feel angry or bitter, that thinking you're alone is a waste of your life. Telling me that a son is bound to devote himself to his father first, rather than his mother or god -regardless of being abused by him. I mean, what is this - a competition? (!)
What if you are just alone, though? What then? What if you're not just thinking it. What if you just are. And what if you got screwed over so damn bad that forgiving is just not something that seems like an option. What if sacrificing something didn't make you feel good at all - no matter how good the reason for the sacrifice was. What if you were still hurting and bitter. And what if you didn't worship your father as a son?

I guess at moments the book tended to come across as very black and white.

It felt a little manipulative.

OR, maybe I just took it personally?