Though frequently recommended, this is an appallingly poor excuse for a novel. If one is setting out to write a book of speculative philosophy about life death and the hereafter, one had better have a great sophistication of understanding for human experience along with fresh and insightful imagination regarding the human spirit. Albom seems to lack all of this; his philosophy is weak, hackneyed and saccharine, while at the same time his characters are two-dimensional and utterly uncompelling. This book is as empty and superficial as a third rate spiritualist medium, with its cosy, smug, pseudo-enlightenment shpeal heavily on the side of nauseating. The central character Eddie is an aged war veteran with a life almost as boring an unendurable as the novel. One day he is killed whilst on duty as an engineer at the local amusement park, and then things really become uninteresting. If there is a germ of truth in The Five People You Meet in Heaven, please sign me up for Hell. I feel like I’ve already been there for 208 pages