Review: The First Phone Call from Heaven by Mitch Albom

The First Phone Call from Heaven tells the story of a small town on Lake Michigan that gets worldwide attention when its citizens start receiving phone calls from the afterlife. Is it the greatest miracle ever or a massive hoax? Sully Harding, a grief-stricken single father, is determined to find out. An allegory about the power of belief–and a page-turner that will touch your soul–Albom’s masterful storytelling has never been so moving and unexpected.

Readers of The Five People You Meet in Heaven will recognize the warmth and emotion so redolent of Albom’s writing, and those who haven’t yet enjoyed the power of his storytelling, will thrill at the discovery of one of the best-loved writers of our time. (From: Goodreads)

This is a story with many different events happened to various people in a small town, so you’ll see several storylines intertwined together and turned into a thought-provoking book. 

Sometimes, love brings you together even as life keeps you apart.

Before you read the book, don’t forget to ask yourself this: How much do you believe in the story?

The First Phone Call from Heaven is one of my favorite books written by my favorite author, Mitch Albom. His books are mostly about lessons of life and beliefs in God, and this one is no exception. The story began with some phone calls from the characters’ late loved ones in a fictional Coldwater, Michigan. (Even though there’s a real Coldwater town in Michigan, that wasn’t where the story took place.) People tend to regret everything they should’ve but hadn’t done before their beloved friends or family passed away, and most of them shared a common wish—they wish the could talk to the deceased once more.

The end is not the end.

At first, the “chosen ones” received phone calls from heaven, when the shocking news spread all over the town, more and more visitors(worshipers) flooded in.

What in life can love not penetrate?

Reporters wanted to collect the source firsthand; police officers were dealing with the crowd; vendors and markets were running out of supplies because this small town was facing an unprecedented prosperity; even the certain kind of cellphone, which was the one those chosen ones used, was out of stock in that others believed that was the only brand which could get a heaven call.

There is life after this life.

I think the reason those deceased people “called” the living was to ensure them that they led a good life in heaven and it was another kind of forgiveness to them. Telling the living that there was no need to worry about them because God would take care of them in the heaven. Of course, how much you believe in this depends on yourself.

If it[the world] believes, it behaves better.

Indeed, if everyone believes in the heaven call story, it means we still have a thread of hope and that’s what keeps us moving on, moving forward. We don’t need proof for what we choose to believe.

I don’t hold a specific religious belief, but in my opinion, it’s good to know that even as we die, there’s a new life waiting for us— a bright, hopeful, painless one.

Desire sets our compass, but real life steers our course.

After reading this book, you’ll know the importance of cherish what you have in presence. Not the past. Not the future. Sometimes hope isn’t enough, you still need to seek forgiveness or to forgive others. The ending seems like the same situation in John Green’s Looking for Alaska.

Instead, I end this as I began it, asking your forgiveness. Perhaps, soon, I will be able to seek the same from my son.

Life is unpredictable and we are blessed to live another day in this beautiful world. I felt so much peaceful and blissful after finished the book and highly recommend to anyone who’d like to search the meaning of life. Although it sounds abstract and profound in those ideas, you’ll learn a lot in the story. The words and thoughts in the book were far beyond the story itself.

Heaven is always and forever around us, and no soul remembered is ever really gone.

So back to the very first question from the book, the answer is yes, I believe everything happened in the story, wholeheartedly and undoubtedly, and I hope you do as well.