| The Next Person You Meet in Heaven by Mitch Albom is a sequel to the immensely popular The Five People You Meet in Heaven, this Novel acts as a sequel to the original by expanding Eddie’s story but also is a new thing where we get the version of Annie we glimpsed in the final pages The Five People You Meet in Heaven. The story follows the same Narrative structure that tells the present in Heaven and the past through people that life has interacted with. This book gave me the same chills and welling in the eyes that the first one did. Albom has created another fast paced tear jerking novel, I’m awed at how few descriptions are used in both these books, but my mental picture is still strong as ever. The author does state in the preface that he has know knowledge of what heaven is like that the novel is really a wish fulfillment. This Novel like the Five People You Meet in Heaven is about heaven but not overtly religious and not judgmental, it shows us a life with all the bumps in the road, like secrets and misunderstandings. I like a novel that makes me think once the novel is done and on my shelf and I can’t not think if this version of heaven was real who my five people would be.
The Plot: Annie is the girl who was saved by Eddie as pushed her away from a falling rail car that killed him in The Five People You Meet in Heaven. Annie who was very young has seem to block out most of that incident, except she has a scar where her hand was detached by sharp debris. Annie has now grown up and is getting married, but the audience soon learn that this happy day will end in tragedy as it puts an hourly countdown to heaven just before the ceremony. The tragedy is brutal with lots of little twist and turns about how it goes down which I won’t spoil. Then Annie is in heaven, but because of the circumstances of the tragedy is not whole and trying to pull her body back together, as she meet her five people. Annie life is told to her but she’s more concerned if a sacrifice she made durning those final moments was worth it. What I Liked: The character’s are instantly relatable. I like that if you read the first book you get more insight and closure, but this book is written in such a way you don’t have to read the first book for this one to make sense. Albom keeps everything that works and manages to have the same structure but tell a completely different story. I liked that he came up with a really clever way too show dogs in heaven, which is he makes a dog version of The Five people You Meet in Heaven, I’m so there. I secretly like that Albom can connect me to these characters so much in such a quick way that I can well up for both happy reasons and sad reasons. I love the just right amount words used to describe the scene for my mental mind picture. The twist and secrets the character’s revealed are so good at the end you will read faster just to find out how this novel ends. What I Disliked: I have a love hate relationship with the structure I love the pace and the flash back aspect, But I was a little disappointed that the sacrifice we have to wait until the end to see if it panned out like in The Five People You meet in Heaven with Annie and Eddie. I hate it as well that is still kind of works for the narrative. Recommendation: If you loved the first one you must read the sequel, if you saw the movie you know more than enough to read this book. If you like stories like the Man Called Ove then you will absolutely love this. You want or need an good cry then read this with a box of tissues on hand. I rated this book the same number of stars as the first which is 5 out of 5 stars. I’ve only read the 2 Heaven books from Mitch Albom, but reading this makes me want to discover more of his work. |
Book Review: The Next Person You Meet in Heaven by Mitch Albom
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