The Five People You Meet In Heaven

This book came out seven years ago to what seemed like universal buzz and acclaim. My friends were reading it, my sisters were reading it, my grandparents were reading it, and Oprah was probably reading it for all I know. I actually don't have that much to say about it. What you have here is a pleasant little feel-good story that more or less tells the tale of a simple man's life. It was like a less charming and exciting Forrest Gump in that regard - a Benjamin Button, if you will. The story's version of heaven was refreshingly generic and non-denominational. God and church are mentioned, but only in passing, and the whole thing seems a lot more non-spiritual than its title may suggest. The basic gist is that a lonely old amusement park mechanic dies in an accident and spends the "first part" of his afterlife meeting five people whose lives he has affected, for better or worse, at some point along his way. In a very It's a Wonderful Life moral of the story, he comes to realize just how meaningful his life - and every life - really is. And that's really all there is to the book. Short, simple, feel-good, and non-offensive, at least in my mind, to most religious creeds and cultures. In fact, Albom never even describes heaven with any detail at all. He even disclaims, in a preface, to have any knowledge about heaven whatsoever. Right on. In the end, this was no must-read, but at least now I know what all the fuss was over back in 2003.