Book Nerd: The Five People You Meet In Heaven

Book reviews are something I quite happily left behind after GCSE English, feeling reading had become too much of a chore.

Now however, with an abundance of spare time, I have fully re-embraced my book-love. In the past few weeks I've ticked the Hunger Games trilogy off my list and am on to the second book in the Fifty Shades trilogy (probably the most alternative book I have ever read). Last week however I purchased what is, hands down, one of the most magical and powerful books I have ever read, Mitch Alboms 'The Five People You Meet In Heaven.'

I won't give too much away on here, don't want to spoil it for any book nerds out there; what I will say though is that it is genuinely amazing.

I knew I would fall in love with the story after reading Alboms dedications, where he tells the reader of his uncle, a man who went through life feeling unimportant, and Alboms desire for him, and others like him, to realise how loved they were on earth.

In short, the story follows a man named Eddie, a lonesome war veteran who dies in a tragic accident saving a young girl at an amusement park. What follows however is Alboms interpretation of heaven, not the gold palatial heaven which we are sometimes brought up to think of, but a place where our lives are explained through five individuals (some Eddie doesn't even know), who shaped his life and in their own way, loved him.

Each character explains Eddies life to him; some things are only made aware to Eddie in death and therefore the reader really is catapulted through the journey alongside him, sharing in both his upset and joy. I could read this book over and over again; it will definitely take pride of place on my book shelf for the rest of my life! I bought it on Amazon for £2 so there's really no excuse not to give it a go! And for those, like me who have finished the book and loved the story, I've only become aware of the fact that there is a 2004 film production out there somewhere! To entice you further, here are some book entries which really got me thinking...

"No life is a waste," the Blue Man said. "The only time we waste is the time we spend thinking we are alone."

Sometimes when you sacrifice something precious, you're not really losing it. You're just passing it on to someone else..

Holding anger is a poison. It eats you from inside. We think that hating is a weapon that attacks the person who harmed us. But hatred is a curved blade. And the harm we do,we do to ourselves...

The waters of their love fell again from above and soaked them as surely as the sea that gathered at their feet...

Lost love is still love. It takes a different form, that's all. You can't see their smile or bring them food or tousle their hair or move them around a dance floor. But when those senses weaken, another heightens. Memory. Memory becomes your partner. You nurture it. You hold it. You dance with it....

Each affects the other and the other affects the next, and the world is full of stories, but the stories are all one...