Booklog: For One More Day

Warning: this book review may contain mild spoilers.

The back cover of the For One More Day, by Mitch Albom, reads "If you had the chance, just one chance, to go back and fix what you did wrong in life, would you take it?" This one line, coupled with the fact that I've read and thoroughly enjoyed Albom's Tuesdays with Morie, screamed this was going to be a good book. I had six hours of bus time today and I figured I could get through this book. "What the heck," I thought to myself. "It's only two hundred pages, and I've got all day. What can I lose?"

In hindsight, I should have read this book over the weekend when I wouldn't be tempted to read during my lunch break or during a couple other breaks I took during the day. Mitch Albom is a gifted story teller and he can do it in just the right way that you won't want to put down the book. That's exactly what happened to me today. I was completely immersed in the book that I really didn't feel like doing anything else. The character of Chick, and the many parallels between he and his father fascinated me. Chick's dead mother who was taking him on a journey through the spirit world fascinated me. The fact that the novel is based on a true story fascinated me.

I will take something from this book, because it is an Albom classic. Mitch Albom is known for penetrating the deepest chambers of your mind by proposing philosophical ideas relating to family, love, and death. In the novel, Chick's mother says "You have one family, Charley. For good or bad. You have one family. You can't trade them in. You can't lie to them. You can't run two at once, substituting back and forth. Sticking with your family is what makes it a family." For One More Day stresses the undeniable fact that we only get one chance at life and only one family to live life with. And when they're gone, they're gone. Valuable time spent with your family can never - never - be replaced.

Mitch Albom did it again. It tugged at the hearstrings of millions of Americans, and he even made me cry on a bus. In conclusion, this is a beautiful story that has a profound message.