Get in My Kindle: The Next Person You Meet in Heaven by Mitch Albom

Happy Tuesday, fellow shelf-addicts! This week’s Get in My Kindle comes with a bit of a **SPOILER ALERT. THIS IS NOT A TEST OF THE SPOILER ALERT SYSTEM! IT’S A LEGIT SPOILER ALERT WARNING.** If you haven’t read Mitch Albom’s The Five People You Meet in Heaven and you want to (trust me, you want you if you haven’t already), then you might want to skip this post and come back to it after you do. If you just can’t wait to know why I’m so excited about The Next Person You Meet in Heaven, I suggest skipping over the Amazon description and going straight to why I’m excited to read. You’ve been warned. **THIS CONCLUDES A LEGIT WARNING FROM THE SPOILER ALERT SYSTEM**

Title: The Next Person You Meet in Heaven 

Author: Mitch Albom

Release Date: October 9, 2018

*SPOILER ALERT* Description: In this enchanting sequel to the number one bestseller The Five People You Meet in Heaven, Mitch Albom tells the story of Eddie’s heavenly reunion with Annie—the little girl he saved on earth—in an unforgettable novel of how our lives and losses intersect.
Fifteen years ago, in Mitch Albom’s beloved novel, The Five People You Meet in Heaven, the world fell in love with Eddie, a grizzled war veteran- turned-amusement park mechanic who died saving the life of a young girl named Annie. Eddie’s journey to heaven taught him that every life matters. Now, in this magical sequel, Mitch Albom reveals Annie’s story.

The accident that killed Eddie left an indelible mark on Annie. It took her left hand, which needed to be surgically reattached. Injured, scarred, and unable to remember why, Annie’s life is forever changed by a guilt-ravaged mother who whisks her away from the world she knew. Bullied by her peers and haunted by something she cannot recall, Annie struggles to find acceptance as she grows. When, as a young woman, she reconnects with Paulo, her childhood love, she believes she has finally found happiness.
As the novel opens, Annie is marrying Paulo. But when her wedding night day ends in an unimaginable accident, Annie finds herself on her own heavenly journey—and an inevitable reunion with Eddie, one of the five people who will show her how her life mattered in ways she could not have fathomed.

Poignant and beautiful, filled with unexpected twists, The Next Person You Meet in Heaven reminds us that not only does every life matter, but that every ending is also a beginning—we only need to open our eyes to see it.

Why I Can’t Wait to Read: Over a decade ago, I sat in my aunt and uncle’s sun room and read The Five People You Meet in Heaven in one sitting. I was captivated by the story of Eddie, the “war vet turned amusement park mechanic,” who dies trying to save a little girl and goes to Heaven. During the course of the book, Eddie meets five people who explain his life to him, people who have, whether or not Eddie has known it, changed his life’s path. Eddie, and the reader, is left wondering if Eddie managed to save the little girl until the end. The book’s portrayal of Heaven and the afterlife serves not only the premise, but the story. I remember being spellbound.

As soon as I saw this book’s title while scrolling on Facebook, I knew two things: this was a sequel to a book I loved reading, and I had to read it. Reading the description and finding out who we’re following on this journey only made me want to read it more.

I have to be honest. I am, by nature, immediately suspicious of sequels to things I loved. I don’t mean series books that are all leading to the epic showdown or reveal, but an honest to goodness sequel. I’m plagued by worries that the author, director, or songwriter is going to release a work that will not only be subpar, but take away from my love of the original. I hope for more than a rehashing or remixing of the same ingredients or another lap around the same track, but I brace myself for a carbon copy that doesn’t quite live up to the original. So it’s a big deal that I’m buzzing about a sequel here.

Unlike millions of people, I never read Tuesdays with Morrie or any of Albom’s other books. He’s not on my auto-buy list. But the memories I have of reading and loving the one book of his I have read makes this a can’t miss book for me. I’m keeping my fingers and toes crossed this sequel is worth the wait–and a read.

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EVENT ALERT: If you are in the Orlando/Winter Park, FL area on Oct 11, independent bookstore The Writer’s Block will be hosting The Orlando Sentinel’s Unscripted event, a Celebratory Evening with Mitch Albom, at Rollin’s College.

Your Turn: Do you like reading sequels? What’s your favorite sequel or “return” to a specific world or character’s life after a long hiatus?