Book Review: Mitch Albom’s the next person you meet in heaven

Book Review: Mitch Albom’s the next person you meet in heaven

By: Patrice Brown

Written on September 7, 2022

The next person you meet in heaven is the sequel to The Five People You Meet in Heaven. The main character in book number one saves the main character of the sequel, Annie from being struck by an amusement park ride but dies in the process. Instead of the Annie taking this as a positive blessing, it sends her life on a turn for the worst. Her life continues one mistake after another.

Albom’s imaginary outlook on what heaven is like allows you to envisage descriptions fluently, even though he elucidated things unlike anything ever seen or imagined in this world. The following excerpt makes you stop and think about the way each of the colors mentioned affects you. 

Pg 71 “She followed the animals up a sharp incline, over a ridge, and down into a valley. The sky above her shifted again, from mustard to plum to forest green. The colors, and all the firmament’s colors since her arrival, reflected the emotions of her life on earth, replaying as that life was replayed. But Annie could not know this”. 

Reading this novel took me on a journey of self-reflection. I immersed myself in the life of the main character while eagerly but slowly flowing through the pages, facing my own mistakes in life that I in some way, shape, or form took wrong. After reading it, I espoused a feeling of heaven on earth; an earth where we see our mistakes and flaws as lessons and steps to our ultimate purpose in life; each event growing us up for the next. 

More importantly than this author’s aptitude to blend fiction into reality, this story is rather intriguing with an unpredictable twist at the end. In the end I wanted this story to go another way, just like my life here on earth but no matter how much we want to control this life, we do not get to decide how things play out. As unfortunate as that sounds, this book is as real and playful enough to make that harsh truth digestible and enjoyable. 

Even though we don’t get to decide or perhaps even understand why things must happen, it is a reason they do. This story guides us to insights for those possible whys in our own lives. Even if its an imaginary story with a setting in an imaginary idea of heaven, in the Note from the Author he alludes to there being supplementary views of the afterlife with no disrespect.

 

 

 

I would rate this book five stars*****. For a first encounter to a Mitch Albom Book, I have to say after reading the next person you meet in heaven, I want to purchase all his books. I picked it up because I, like many others, are interested in the reason for life and the purpose behind the mistakes we make. This book does a perfect job of jolting the reader into a true depiction of why the character had to go through the things she did in life, in turn helping us to self-reflect on our own mistakes, the possible whys behind them, and the end result of them. I would recommend this book to anyone seeking a lighthearted way to get closer to those answers.