Just finished reading The Five People You Meet in Heaven by Mitch Albom. A lot of people in my church had read it, and all loved it, so I thought I'd give it a look. It's a pretty quick and easy read - could read it in a day if you had the time to spare. Overall, I wasn't greatly impressed - something like a well-written Hallmark greeting card. But a couple nice quotes near the end, where the "point" or "moral" is spelled out with little subtlety:
Eddie, the main character, responding to why he was 'sad' in his life: "I was sad because I didn't do anything with my life. I was nothing. I accomplished nothing. I was lost. I felt like wasn't supposed to be there." (pg. 191) This is a common worry/fear about our own lives, isn't it? That we won't count for anything?
Then, on the last page, the reassurance: "the secret of heaven: that each [person] affects the other and the other affects the next, and the world is full of stories, but the stories are all one." (pg. 196)
Eddie, the main character, responding to why he was 'sad' in his life: "I was sad because I didn't do anything with my life. I was nothing. I accomplished nothing. I was lost. I felt like wasn't supposed to be there." (pg. 191) This is a common worry/fear about our own lives, isn't it? That we won't count for anything?
Then, on the last page, the reassurance: "the secret of heaven: that each [person] affects the other and the other affects the next, and the world is full of stories, but the stories are all one." (pg. 196)
Comments
I didn't really feel like it told me anything. Yes the message was everything is connected, but in the book many of those connections were accidental. I really liked Tuesdays with Morrie. It was mushy and sentimental, but the power was in the true story. This book left me under-whelmed.