In Mitch Albom’s latest novel, he brings readers to a different level compared to his other books. “Tuesdays with Morrie” is centered around acceptance of death and living each day to its fullest. “The Five People You Meet in Heaven” showed readers how much you truly impact peoples’ lives whether you realize it or not. In another aspect regarding Albom’s common theme of death, he centers the book on the relationship between parents and their children.

“For One More Day” begins with present day Charley Benetto, unhappy with life having lost his family and job because of alcohol. Being shunned out of his daughter’s wedding was the last straw for him. He decides to end his life, but he wants to do it at home, where it all began. It is at home the impossible occurs, he sees his dead mother, who welcomes him with open arms.

The book is told in a diary format with the main character, Charley telling the story. Instead of it just being a run through of day to day, it is snapshots of different moments Charley regards as important to him. What makes this book so unique are the different are the letters he saved that his mother wrote to him throughout his life and the different memories he had with his mother of the times he never stood up for her and the times she stood up for him.

What upsets Charley so much is that he has lived his whole life trying to get acceptance from the one man who never really regarded him as anything more than a baseball player, whereas his mother loved him unconditionally.

“For One More Day” brings the reader along with Charley as he encounters this one ordinary day with a deceased loved one. It is throughout the day with his mother that he begins to look at her in a different way, through the eyes of an adult instead of a child. It is with his mother that he begins to realize how precious life is and how no matter? how hard things are, they can always be fixed.

What makes this book so exceptional is that it shows how deceiving life can be. People are so caught up in their own problems and their own hurt, that they don’t realize there is always two sides to a story. Most importantly, a mother’s love for her child meets no end in life or death.

Our Rating: 4 out of 5 stars