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Tuesday 29 April 2008

The Five People You Meet in Heaven


by Mitch Albom

Eddie is about to die. We read the countdown to his death as he tries to save the life of a little girl at the funfair he is in charge of repairing. When he reaches heaven, he meets five people who have each altered his course in life and are waiting to explain his existence to him…

Absolutely effortless prose – I felt like I glided through this book on a wave of absolute fascination. It is interesting, satisfying and intriguing. At first I worried that it might be saccharine or sentimental, but it is honest and genuinely moving. There is certainly no predictability to the storyline but there is a nice device of returning to Eddie’s birthday in different years to connect the various lines of narrative and punctuate the visits with his five people. Every action and every character rang true for me and I felt strongly connected to the story almost from the first paragraph. A genuine pleasure from start to finish.

reviewed by Annie Smith

1 comment:

Anne Brooke said...

Ooh, sounds really good. I keep picking this one up and putting it down again. Maybe I'll buy it next time!

A
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