

Eddie meets someone known simply as the “Blue Man” who, it turns out, died of a heart attack caused when Eddie, as a boy, wildly threw a ball into the middle of the road on which the man was driving, and it literally startled him to death. In heaven, a confused Eddie meets five people who played roles at turning points in his life or in whose lives he played a role and didn’t know it. It’s based on Mitch Albom’s 2003 novel that follows the afterlife adventures of Eddie, who was killed in an attempt to save a girl at an amusement park. If you haven’t seen it, consider this your spoiler alert. Since its publication, it has sold over 14 million copies in 38 territories and in 35 languages.Several years ago I watched the movie The Five People You Meet in Heaven. It’s a fable about love, a warning about war, and a nod of the cap to the real people of this world, the ones who never get their name in lights. With a timeless tale, appealing to all, this is a book that readers of fine fiction, and those who loved Tuesdays with Morrie, will treasure. In The Five People You Meet in Heaven, Mitch Albom gives us an astoundingly original story that will change everything you’ve ever thought about the afterlife - and the meaning of our lives here on earth. As the story builds to its stunning conclusion, Eddie desperately seeks redemption in the still-unknown last act of his life: Was it a heroic success or a devastating failure? The answer, which comes from the most unlikely of sources, is as inspirational as a glimpse of heaven itself. One by one, Eddie’s five people illuminate the unseen connections of his earthly life. Yet each of them changed your path forever. These people may have been loved ones or distant strangers. He awakens in the afterlife, where he learns that heaven is not a lush Garden of Eden, but a place where your earthly life is explained to you by five people who were in it. With his final breath, he feels two small hands in his - and then nothing. Then, on his 83rd birthday, Eddie dies in a tragic accident, trying to save a little girl from a falling cart. His days are a dull routine of work, loneliness, and regret. As the park has changed over the years - from the Loop-the-Loop to the Pipeline Plunge - so, too, has Eddie changed, from optimistic youth to embittered old age. An enchanting, beautifully crafted novel that explores a mystery only heaven can unfold.Įddie is a grizzled war veteran who feels trapped in a meaningless life of fixing rides at a seaside amusement park.
