The Five People You Meet in Heaven
Mitch Albom, 2003
★ 4.02 from 842.4k ratings on Goodreads
Eddie dies at the amusement park where he worked, then meets five strangers who show how his ordinary life touched other people's. A short book about unremarkable lives. Quiet and plain-spoken, with a melancholy tenderness that lingers on small memories and ordinary kindnesses rather than big events.
Feels like tenderness, melancholy and hope. About death, love and memory.
Who it’s for
You may like this if you're drawn to gentle stories about unremarkable lives and the hidden ways people affect each other. Be aware, though, that some readers find the sentimentality cloying and the message too neatly simplified, so it divides opinion sharply.
Why read it
It's short enough for an evening, and it offers a compassionate way of looking at a life that seems to have added up to little.
A page from the book
Children leave their parents long before they understand what they're leaving.
Parents rarely let go of their children, so children let go of them. They move on. They move away. The moments that used to define them - a mother’s approval, a father’s nod - are covered by moments of their own accomplishments. It is not until much later, as the skin sags and the heart weakens, that children understand; their stories, and all their accomplishments, sit atop the stories of their mothers and fathers, stones upon stones, beneath the waters of their lives. What readers say
Readers are deeply moved by this book’s compassion, tenderness, and reflections on love, grief, and life’s meaning. However, some found its sentimentality cloying and its message overly simplistic, leading to strong disagreements.
Mitch Albom.Albom has said the character Eddie was inspired by his own uncle Eddie, who spent much of his working life at a New Jersey amusement park.
Books that feel like this
More by Mitch Albom
Tuesdays with Morrie
Mitch Albom, 1997
A sportswriter reconnects with his dying sociology professor and records their Tuesday conversations about love, work, and fear.
Where to get it
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Questions readers ask
- Is The Five People You Meet in Heaven for me?
- You may like this if you're drawn to gentle stories about unremarkable lives and the hidden ways people affect each other. Be aware, though, that some readers find the sentimentality cloying and the message too neatly simplified, so it divides opinion sharply.
- What is The Five People You Meet in Heaven like?
- Quiet and plain-spoken, with a melancholy tenderness that lingers on small memories and ordinary kindnesses rather than big events. Feels like tenderness, melancholy and hope. About death, love and memory.
- What should I read after The Five People You Meet in Heaven?
- If you liked The Five People You Meet in Heaven, try The Midnight Library (Matt Haig), Of Mice and Men (John Steinbeck) and Flowers for Algernon (Daniel Keyes).
A taste of the feed
The gap between a mother's corrections and a stranger's kindness.
It was hard not to compare Mrs Elm to her mother, who treated Nora like a mistake in need of correction. For instance, when she was a baby her mother had been so worried Nora’s left ear stuck out more than her right that she’d used sticky tape to address the situation, then disguised it beneath a woollen bonnet.
The Midnight Library · Matt Haig
What it costs to keep believing in a piece of land you'll never own.
They come, an’ they quit an’ go on; an’ every damn one of ‘em’s got a little piece of land in his head. An’ never a God damn one of ‘em ever gets it. Just like heaven. Ever’body wants a little piece of lan’. I read plenty of books out here. Nobody never gets to heaven, and nobody gets no land. It’s just in their head.
Of Mice and Men · John Steinbeck
The grip that keeps us from dissolving into the storm.
As when men to keep from being swept overboard in the storm clutch at each other’s hands to resist being torn apart, so our bodies fused a link in the human chain that kept us from being swept into nothing.
Flowers for Algernon · Daniel Keyes
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