Rating:  Summary: Appreciation of Simplicity Review: This book in its short and simple way help us to look into people and life with a new appreciation. The five people he met in heaven revealed so much about life that most of us took it for granted. I highly recommend this book for anyone who wants to spend an enjoyable afternoon. It's so refreshing to read a good novel without exaggeration of sex, violence or foul language.
Rating:  Summary: simply the best... Review: Quite possibly one of the best books I have ever read. Easy enough to be read in one sitting but the content is thought provoking and memorable.
Rating:  Summary: Not That Great... Review: I was very disappointed with this book. I was under the impression I was about to read something insightful and thought provoking....too bad this book is neither. I recommend skipping this one unless you enjoy wasting your time.
Rating:  Summary: Heavenly Review: I am a huge reader and this is one of my favorite books ever. I read it in one sitting. It makes you think about lives intersecting and how each story affects the other and the other affects the next. Basically, the world is full of stories, but the stories are all one. It makes you also think about death and how it doesn't just take someone; it misses someone else, and in that small distance, lives are changed. We think such things are random, but there is a balance to it. There is an excellent page of writing on what the character learned in the war. You should buy the book for that reason only. Great quote from the book: We think that hating is a weapon that attacks the person who harmed us. But hatred is a curved blade. And the harm we do, we do to ourselves.
Rating:  Summary: I would read it again! Review: This book is one of few that teaches lessons while it educates and entertains. It is descriptive, with a story that everyone should take the time out to read. The main character in the book, Eddie, learns life lessons from five people he meets in heaven. Those lessons he is also able to reflect upon his own life and the decisions he has made to be able to see that each decision has a ripple effect. I highly recommend it!
Rating:  Summary: Albom's Five Review: Mitch Albom presents a second novel to "Tuesday's With Morrie." Yet, while his first novel focuses on the END of one's life, the second novel, "The Five People You Meet In Heaven," he suggests a new outlook on the afterlife. While Morrie's story is more about proving his life was valuable - to others, Eddie's story is about what the meaning of life is intrinsically and learning the mistakes, the causes, and the consequences of the decisions made in his life. For, the book begins with Eddie - a war veteran at 83 years old, head of maintenance at Ruby Point Amusement Park, and his attempt to save a girl from a falling cart. And how it took Eddie's life. Eddie wonders about the girl, and when he goes to heaven he is thinking that finding out whether or not he saved her is his answer to his meaning of life on earth. Was his "ending" successful, he wonders? Yet Eddie's supposed "ending," he learns, is also a beginning. It is a beginning for him to explore with five people who have impacted his life or been impacted by it, directly or indirectly. While it the beginning for Eddie, through meeting each of the five people, he is also able to bring his heavenly visitors closure on their own lives' on earth. There is no hero in the story, but yet a regular man, living in the regular world...and yet Albom himself is a hero for providing such an interesting outlook on this possibility of the afterlife. I ask myself after reading this, "When I go to heaven, who are the five people who will explain my life to me?" -- and this is certainly thought provoking in that it can make one think about, knowing that there are going to be five people that in all of life's decisions, there will be several that can change one's own life - and those of others' - forever. People have called this earth shattering, yet I would say it shows how tightly knit the people on this earth are and how things can never truly be shattered.
Rating:  Summary: Makes you think Review: This is a quick , easy-to-read book that makes you pause and think about the effects our actions have on another and the life-changing impact of little things we may not remember or think inconsequential. I liked it and thought about it for days after.
Rating:  Summary: Sez who? Review: This book struck me as a lame combination of A Christmas Carol and The Lovely Bones. At one point, Eddie asks, "How much longer is this going to go on?" And I felt exactly the same way. Albom asks us to swallow a lot of malarkey in this book. A Blue Man who changes color before Eddie's eyes? People flying around and disappearing in great whooshes of air and color? I did find the chapter about Eddie meeting his abusive father who can't hear or see him interesting, but it was too much like Jimmy Stewart in "It's A Wonderful Life". Well, it's a stinky book.
Rating:  Summary: Dissapointed Review: The latest offering by Mitch Albom, The Five People You Meet in Heaven, is dissapointing, at best. I happen to enjoy listening to and reading Albom when he is in his best element, and that is sports. He is a fish out of water, to use a tired, old cliche, when it comes to this non-sports related fictional attempt.The story is trite and highly predictable. I won't spoil the ending for anyone who has not yet read the book, but several of the five people the main character meets in Heaven, are predictable, as well as his reaction to them. The book left me empty. My advise: For Albom, please stick to sports, and for the potential reader of the book, skip this one. Better luck next time Albom.
Rating:  Summary: Not my idea of heaven Review: I had hoped this book would tell of how ordinary people make a difference to others in positive ways that they may never know about until they die. So I was surprised to see that the majority of the book is NOT positive - it seems like Eddie has had just as much (or more) negative influence as positive on the majority of the five people he meets. I also found it odd that he could experience so much physical discomfort in heaven. While I agree with the idea of a life review once you reach the Other Side, I sure hope it is nothing like this ! Eddie is a sympathetic character, and the author is a good writer, but overall, this book did not inspire me.
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