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Summary: I WANT MY MONEY AND TIME BACK!
Review: Didn't love! I purchased this book to entertain me during my plane ride home --- ended up giving it to the woman sitting beside me. I found it to be extremely boring and unenlightening.
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Summary: A must read!!! Oprah, put this one on the list!!!!!!!
Review: Outstanding book! Beautifully written. For anyone who has "dogged" this book, you must have read something else! This is an excellent primise! It will really make you think! Once I started reading it, I couldnt put it down! I finished it in 4 days!
Rating: 
Summary: Like a tasty vitamin
Review: Mitch Albom's new novel tries to be something that so many of the other genres (horror, mystery, science fiction) never try to be, and that's nourishing. Books like Five People are the kind of books that should be selling millions, not all these mass production thrillers. What I enjoyed most about this novel is the amount of respect each character is given. Each life or character described, all of them, are always introduced with sincerity, no matter what situation they are brought into, like war, or problems with alcohol. It's a shame that books like these are few and far between, for it strives to at least help answer questions, where the only medium that tries to answer questions now are self-help books, which offer too many answers in too many sugar coated ways. In short, this novel will hurt no one, for its sole purpose is to fulfill and satisfy the reader. With that being said, there are a couple mistakes in the novel.
First, we are introduced way too late to the wife of Eddie...the whole time we are supposed to suspend the idea that he loved her 'greatly', until finally, around page 150, we finally get to know her better. A relationship like that should be described in pages, not paragraphs. Also, there were times when the description of heavens, the different colors, for instance, were vague and too foreign to the rest of the subject matter.
But, to wrap it up, these are small things...there are always errors in a first novel, but it still shines bright and once finished, you'll feel as if you've swallowed a tasty vitamin, nourished and satisfied.
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Summary: inspiring book
Review: I really enjoyed this book. It was a nice change of pace & a new way of looking at your own life. I found it to be easy to read with serveral good ideas for quotes.
Rating: 
Summary: Lots of expectation, did not deliver the goods
Review: Altho I loved Tuesdays with Morrie, this one left me feeling like there should have been more, more story, more fleshing out of characters, more rationale. Sure, cried at the end, but it left me wanting more than it gave.....
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Summary: A great little book
Review: Mitch Albom has done it again. He has put together a masterpiece. A man who has spent his entire life working on an amusemnet pier fixing the rides, died trying to save a small child from an accident. He wakes up in "heaven" and meets five people from his past. The five of them explain why his life has not been a total loss as he assumed that it was. The five people are all conected to him in some manner. Some of the five were very important in his life and some never met him, but were still connected. The main character Eddie meets everone in different settings that they consider "Heaven" and why they consider it "Heaven". The five of them explain various parts of his life and why things turned out like they did. The end of the book wraps up nicely and is a bit of a surprise.Mitch Albom has taken a very complex idea and explained his version of "heaven" in an easy to read style. The book never drags and it leaves you with a good feeling. Although it has religious connotations, it is not a book on relious beliefs. Any version of "heaven" can be used in place instead. Albom never lectures on beliefs, but instead focuses on Eddie and trying to answer why his life turned out like it did. Eddie represents everyone of us who ever thought about their life either not measuring up or being a failure. By showing Eddie his life through others eyes, he actually shows that the unimportant life is very important to at least a few and more likely many that we never even knew we affected. That is the true beauty of this book. Highly reccommended.
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Summary: A delightful, moving fable.
Review: Mitch Albom as taken the experiences of a man's seemingly useless life, and unwrapped a story that is a gift to each of us.
His use of the language, and ability to evoke real emotions from his character AND his reader at the same time is truly amazing.
I found this to be a fairly quick read, and read it in one 4 hour sitting. The Author tugs at hearstrings, provokes thought and smiles as the main character sometimes fumbles his way through a timeless heaven, discovering that in the end, his life had more meaning than he could ever imagine. Mitch Albom is going to solidify his status as a national treasure with this book.
Give this book to everyone on your Christmas list!
Rating:
Summary: God-awful
Review: Bad writing and worse thinking. Sentimental, insipid, insulting, cliched. So the point of heaven is to make you feel good about yourself? Like, that's the important thing, that Eddie have strong self-esteem? What about God? What about the soul? What about other people? Nope, this is a book where Eddie dies and goes to heaven for a New Age pep talk. Could appeal only to people who think that how they FEEL is the most important thing in the universe.
Rating:
Summary: A beautiful story that you'll want to share with everybody
Review: When I finished the last page of Mitch Albom's TUESDAYS WITH MORRIE, I knew I had to share the book with as many people as I could. I proceeded to buy 41 copies, inscribe them all to my friends and family members, hand them out, mail them --- whatever I had to do to spread the word. The book was that moving, in my opinion. So I was eagerly looking forward to THE FIVE PEOPLE YOU MEET IN HEAVEN and I am happy to report that Albom did not disappoint me. He is a first-rate storyteller, and THE FIVE PEOPLE YOU MEET IN HEAVEN is an imaginative, creative tale in the tradition of the best fairy tales or folklore. Eddie is a maintenance man who keeps the rides safe at the Ruby Pier amusement park. His 83rd birthday seems like any other day --- he inspects the rides, watches the people, makes pipe cleaner animals for the children. However on this day he dies unexpectedly, trying to rescue a young girl in harm's way. Eddie wakes up in heaven --- but not to the "paradise garden, a place where (we) can float on clouds and laze in rivers and mountains," not the idyllic place that heaven has been described as throughout time. Eddie awakens to a series of introductions --- or reintroductions --- to five people whom he had met during his life, either in passing or at length. They each carry answers to the whys and hows of Eddie's life. With each meeting he relives in part that time of his life, but now the gaps are filled in. For maybe the first time he sees what REALLY happened. "There are five people you meet in heaven," the Blue Man, Eddie's first encounter, explains. "Each of us was in your life for a reason. You may not have known the reason at the time, and that is what heaven is for. For understanding your life on earth." All five are of course deceased, and they all impart knowledge of Eddie's life and life in general. For instance, the Blue Man asks, "Why do people gather when others die," and his explanation is at the very core of the meaning of Albom's book: "It is because the human spirit knows, deep down, that all lives intersect. That death doesn't just take someone, it misses someone else, and in the small distance between being taken and being missed lives are changed." It is insights like these that leave the reader asking, "What does Mitch Albom know that we don't?" What he knows is that we all seek answers. We look for meaning behind the experiences in our lives. More often than not, we never get the answers but we continue --- we plod on, happy or unhappy, fulfilled or unfulfilled, pain-free or in pain. We live. Albom doesn't pretend to offer us the answers, but he does offer us an almost Taoist interpretation of life. It is. It just is. The answers may never be revealed. And do they need to be? THE FIVE PEOPLE YOU MEET IN HEAVEN is a beautiful story. Eddie is human and likable for his foibles, fears and faults. The writing is often lyrical and fable-like. And though the book is fiction, behind it lies Albom's lifelong love of his uncle, which lends a tenderness and intimacy to the tale on par with TUESDAYS WITH MORRIE. You'll want to share this with your friends, family, acquaintances, and even those nameless people you pass on the street who may have played a larger role in your life than you ever could have imagined. --- Reviewed by Roberta O'Hara
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Summary: Someday Mitch Albom May Be a Great Writer
Review: I wanted so badly to be moved by this book. In my humble opinion, I think I see brilliance forming in Mitch Albom's writing. However, this book is a stop on his path towards being a great writer. The format and structure of the book is very creative. If you aspire to write, I suggest you read it for the inspiration to approach your stories more creatively. If you desire deep inspiration, I'm not sure you will find it here.
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