Author: Mitch Albom
Genre: Fiction / "Inspirational"
Published by: Time Warner Paperbacks
Originally Published: 2005
Page Count: 208 pages
The novel's protagonist is an elderly amusement park maintenance worker named Eddie who, while operating a ride called the 'Free Fall', dies while trying to save a young girl who gets in the way of a falling cart that hurtles to earth. Eddie goes to heaven, where he meets five people who were unexpectedly instrumental in some way in his life. While each guide takes him through heaven, Eddie learns a little bit more about what his time on earth meant, what he was supposed to have learned, and what his true purpose on earth was. Throughout there are dramatic flashbacks where we see scenes from his troubled childhood, his years in the army in the Philippines jungle, and with his first and only love, his wife Marguerite
(Source: Goodreads)
There's something about this book that just immediately appeals to me. It's such an interesting concept that one would probably love to actually happen. Wouldn't it be great that once you die you meet 5 people connected to you in some way, who explain your life and with that you learn about yourself and about how the world works? I think it's fascinating.
Unfortunately, I felt the premise was far greater than anything achieved in the final print. The characters were just uninteresting. I didn't really care for anything that happened to them. Yes, we know Eddie, the protagonist, is bound to die; the opening pages are marked with a countdown to his demise. But do we actually care what happens to him, do we care about the people in his life? If I'm being honest, I wanted it to be more sentimental. I was expecting some heart-wrenching story about Eddie, I was expecting some philosophical (do I say crap?) statements that are completely ridiculous but also have me weeping and feeling ashamed with myself for doing so. But we don't get this. Instead we get a series of events of a quite boring man being told that his life had some sort of purpose.
I don't know if it's the cynic in me but I just couldn't connect with the emotions that the book was trying to unearth. The person who lent me the book said they cried their way through it; the closest I came to feeling any emotions was towards the ending, which kind of had the shred of sentimentality and philosophicalness that I so desired. Maybe my issue with this is that I want to be philosophical but my mind just refuses to be.
Overall, it wasn't a waste of my time. I enjoyed aspects such as the messages that the book seemed to possess but I just didn't get what I expected and for that I was sort of let down. 2 stars.
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