The Five People You Meet In Heaven
“Silence is worse when you know it won't be broken.”
2.5/5⭐
C.S. Lewis-esque in the way it imagines heaven, not in a literal sense, but an emotional one.
It suggests that there are wounds left unhealed at the end of our lives, and that heaven is the place where we can make sense of those wounds. It is where we learn the ‘why’ of the events and circumstances of our lives.
This concept of heaven is framed around Eddie, an old man who feels he wasted his life. He didn’t take the risks he had always said he would. He didn’t leave the town or the job he always said he’d escape. He let the regret build up in his heart over the years and it held him fast in place.
When he dies, he meets a series of people in heaven that help him make sense of his life.
The realizations he makes about his life are sweet, if a little on the nose. Easily packaged life lessons are doled out at the end of each chapter, without much subtly.
Overt messages have their place, but as I’ve said before, an essay may be the better format choice. The same lessons about forgiveness, loneliness, and purpose could be explored with equal or greater power in the non-fiction realm.
I imagine a version of this book that is grounded in journalism. The author collects heartfelt life stories from real people, and compiles them to teach the same five lessons, but without the trappings of fiction.
Characters—specifically ones the readers care about deeply—are the core of great fiction. Any life lessons a reader may learn flow naturally from that core.
In this book, the lessons are the core, with Eddie simply acting as a vessel to present them.
In my view, that leads to weak fiction. But if you love C.S. Lewis, you likely disagree.
Underline-worthy quotes:
“Sometimes when you sacrifice something precious, you're not really losing it. You're just passing it on to someone else.”
“Death doesn't just take someone, it misses someone else, and in the small distance between being taken and being missed, lives are changed.”
