Five People You Meet in Heaven

You guys try too hard: "sickly saccharine and maudlin"?....

I guess it depends on your frame of mind at the time you're reading the book. Without reading too much into it and expecting a tiny book that you can read in one sitting to unravel the truths of the death, it's simply a perspective. It's not be lived by or to create a religion around it, but maybe just to spark your imagination to think a little differently.

I happened to come across this book on the plane ride home from my father's memorial service and I have to say, it was the right book at the right time. It is a refreshing and creative idea of what happens when you die and opened my mind to a different possibility which is always interesting. Albom's style is simple, elegant, and not too deep. In the end, it's a nice original story of a very simple man and his experience after death. Worth the read.

I'm not sure if anything written about death isn't made to appear more poignant and affecting after the event of an actual death. I've only been to one funeral in the last few years - a friend's - and they read out some typically bad, cliche-soaked poetry in honour of the fact that he liked poetry and had a literature degree. I couldn't help thinking he'd have wished for some better quality stuff.

I wasn't expecting it to unravel the myths and truths of death - although that's pretty much what the cover promised. I was expecting to be entertained and not feel patronised, or as though my teeth were rotting out of my head. It certainly didn't invite me think a little differently.

Maybe you're right - maybe it's all about context. Maybe we should tear the front covers off (and generally I do avoid hype. It was just a bit of a struggle this time). Although I feel that if I'd read it after my father's death, I'd have been equally as irritated.

I have to agree with cathg. The premise is a simple one and it's supplied in the title. Simple is sometimes good. Unfortunately, the execution of the concept is at best sentimental and at worst manages to be both sickly saccharine and maudlin. I wasn't really surprised by anything within the novel. The from-beyond-the-grave evaluation of a life (and after) was explored much more profoundly by Sebold in The Lovely Bones.

Ultimately, this is pandering to our own fears about our insignificance. There is a quasi-religious aspect to an 'it'll all be sorted out when you die' ethos that I find uncomfortable. It seems to vindicate living an unsatisfied, unfulfilled life by suggesting that the littlest things done are significant (screw the nuts in tight, prevent an accident). That may be true, but it's no excuse for not trying.

Without giving away too much of the story, I found it interesting that the two or three times the protagonist actually takes positive action on his own initiative end in violence. Of course, the contrast is between justified and unjustifiable action - but the suggestion is that they balance each other out karmically or cosmically.
The prevented accidents are not quantifiable (in the same way that crime deterrents aren't accurately quantifiable - because you can't have a foolproof record of things that don't happen) - and the story attempts to redress that issue.

I can't really say much about the prose style either critically or in praise. It serves, but it is clumsy at points and never reaches any kind of virtuosity.

This isn't terrible, but it also isn't anything like as brilliant as the critical splurge would have you believe.

This could be read as life affirming. It depends on what kind of life you want to affirm.

Haven't read the book, but gotta say that I think Avocatore's last comment rather spectacularly puts the phrase 'life-affirming' in its proper context!

Sentimental tosh.

Beautiful, I read it in one sitting curled up in a corner of a book shop tears streaming down my face. Exactly what I would hope happens after death.

This was a really touching book. If nothing else, it makes you appreciate your own life. Album shows that everything in life is significant, and nothing should be taken for granted. Though I liked Tuesdays with Morrie, this book was even better.