Who Will You Meet in Heaven?

The Five People You Meet in Heaven

By Mitch Albom

Blog post by Melannie Cano


Have you ever wondered what happens when you die? For Eddie, it is all explained after his 83rd birthday.

Eddie grew up aside Ruby Pier; an amusement park near the ocean. His family consists of his parents and an older brother named Joe. By his 83rd birthday he is a,“Squat, white old man with a short neck, a barrel chest, thick forearms and a faded army tattoo on his right shoulder” (Albom 2), and works at Ruby Pier as head of maintenance, taking over his dad's old position.

The book begins with the end of Eddie’s life. His last day on Earth seemed like any other. There was a brand new ride called Freddy’s Free Fall. The ride was supposed to make its way high up, then drop down and stop just before the ground. A cart made its way up, regrettably malfunctioned and was, “tilted at an angle, as if trying to dump its cargo. Four passengers, two men, two women, held only by a safety bar, were grabbing frantically at anything they could” (14). Eddie and his team were able to get the passengers our safely. It was all over until the cart’s cable wire snapped, dropping it like a boulder. A little girl stood on the ground beneath it, and Eddie ran to push her out of the way, thus getting killed by the cart. “Then he was underwater. Then everything was silent. Where is my worry? Where is my pain?” (22).

Eddie awoke in the setting of an old amusement park. He meets a man with blue skin who explains to him that he is the first of five people Eddie will meet in heaven that will explain his earthly life to him, how they impacted it, and a lesson from it. He may of been close with the person, or he may have never met the person, such as the blue skin man. Nevertheless, each had an imperative role in his life, and teach him a lesson about why his life went the way he did.

The structure of the book is one that is unique. It may seem confusing at first, but I honestly appreciate it and find it more engaging. Eddie’s quest of having his life explained to him is repeatedly interrupted by flashbacks of Eddie’s birthday. Each small flashback consisting of a couple of pages reveals how Eddie’s character came to be by his 83rd birthday. As he meets the 5 people in heaven, we as readers also get flashbacks from critical scenes from his life.

I would honestly recommend this book to anyone because it has a lot of different aspects to it. It contains components of realistic fiction, fiction, drama, and mystery. Although it is about the people Eddie meets in Heaven, it is not a prominently religious book. I have yet to finish it but I think that will be soon because everytime I read it I don’t want to put it down.