The Five People You Meet in Heaven

Title: The Five People You Meet In Heaven
Author: Mitch Albom
Genre: Fiction

The End. This is the way the story starts. Eddie, who is 83 years old, is the head maintenance person at Ruby Point Amusement Park. Unexpectedly, Eddie is killed as he tries to rescue a young girl as one of the rides go awry. As Eddie reaches "heaven", he is greeted by five different people, all from his past. Some of them he remembers, some of them were an unknown part of his past.

As Eddie makes his way through "heaven", he learns a lesson from each person he encounters. He gains insight into the meaning of his own life and brings closure to other to the other lives. While Eddie is in "heaven", he has the opportunity to reflect on various parts of his life, always taking place on his birthday. These insights move the story along and creates more interest to the reader.

A subplot to the story is that each person Eddie encounters, he asks if he was able to save the young girl at Ruby Point. Because he considers himself to have drifted through life, if he is able to save this one young girl, his life would have at least accounted for something.

I actually had the opportunity to listen to this story via CD while I was on a road trip. Each time I had to stop the CD, I looked forward to the next time I would be able to punch the play button to find out what would happen next. I don't' want to wreck the ending by mentioning whether or not he saved the girl at Ruby Point, but I will mention that I did like the way the story ended. I personally don't believe that heaven exists the way described in the story, but I took it just as that... a story. This was my first Mitch Albom book I have read, and I think that I would enjoy reading more of his writings.