The Five People You Meet in Heaven

Eddie is a wounded war veteran, an old man who has lived, in his mind, an uninspired life. His job is fixing rides at a seaside amusement park. On his 83rd birthday, a tragic accident kills him, as he tries to save a little girl from a falling cart. He awakes in the afterlife, where he learns that heaven is not a destination. It's a place where your life is explained to you by five people, some of whom you knew, others who may have been strangers. One by one, from childhood to soldier to old age, Eddie's five people revisit their connections to him on earth, illuminating the mysteries of his "meaningless" life, and revealing the haunting secret behind the eternal question: "Why was I here?"

These book club questions are from the author's website.

Book club questions for The Five People You Meet in Heaven by Mitch Albom

Use these discussion questions to guide your next book club meeting.

Describe what Albom’s heaven is like. If it differs from what you imagined, share those differences.

“No story sits by itself. Sometimes stories met at corners and sometimes they cover one another completely, like stones beneath a river.” How does this statement relate to the story and to your own life?

Discuss Eddie’s five people and their relationship to him. Is it possible to know — or sense — who some or all of your own five people are?

Eddie isn’t reincarnated, but does karma play a part in his life just the same? What does the novel tell us about the connection between life and death?

Do you find any significance in the number five?

Briefly discuss the five lessons Eddie learns — and how they might be lessons for all of us.

Albom moves the narrative from past to present through Eddie’s birthdays. How effective is this style? How do these techniques help inform the story? What information do you learn by moving around in time?

Examine Eddie’s relationship with his father. How have decisions by your parents affected your life?

How would you respond when Eddie asks “why would heaven make you relive your own decay?”

How does the device of counting down the final minutes of Eddie’s life affect your experience of the story and of Eddie?

The Five People You Meet in Heaven Book Club Questions PDF

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