For One More Day Reviews

• To Live In Hearts We Leave Behind Is Not To Die

  
  By A3BIWTN2DA0YY2 on 2006-10-08
  Mitch Albom pays homage to all mothers with this novel that beautifully shows the enduring power of a mother's love, a love so strong it can transcend even death. The moral of the story is not particularly original and not even handled in a unique way. But, grab the hankies and prepare to spend several hours reminiscing along with Chick Benetto about the things you wish you had done better with your own mother. Chick Benetto has hit rock bottom---divorced, alcoholic, has-been baseball player, and now comes the ultimate slap-in-the-face---his beloved daughter does not invite him to her wedding. After being shut out of the biggest day in his only child's life, Chick sees no point in continuing his miserable life and attempts suicide. But for his suicide he is drawn once again to Pepperville Beach, to the modest home where he grew up with his mom, dad, and sister. That is, until his dad deserted the family and life changed dramatically. The surprise for Chick is that his mom is still in the house. Intellectually, he knows she died ten years ago but here she is---cooking his food, sharing stories, giving advice.
  
  The reader learns about all the times Chick's mom stood up for him and all the times he let her down. The writing is smooth and poignant, the memories both joyful and sad. If you have lost your own parents, the words will be doubly sad. But Chick has been given a very special gift: he learns that when someone is in your heart, they're never truly gone and they can come back to you, even at unlikely times. Chick has the unheard of luxury of being able to spend just one more day with his mother, having the chance to ask questions about things that have bothered him, finding out at last why his father left, and much more. How does it happen? Is this just another ghost story or a religious experience for non-believers? I think I shed the most tears when I realized at novel's end who was telling the story.
  
  I think sentimental readers will find this one enjoyable and uplifting. So take it for what it is, a nostalgic trip back to childhood, that period of time that never lets you go, even when you're so wrecked it's hard to believe you ever were a child.
  
  
  
  

• Greater Texture and Focus Elevate Another Sentimental Journey Upward

  
  By A13E0ARAXI6KJW on 2006-09-27
  I have to admit that I found Mitch Albom's "The Five People You Meet in Heaven" a mostly unsatisfying piece of sentimental treacle, but I was led to his latest book because of the subject matter, the death of one's mother and the palpable regrets afterward for a life underappreciated. Whose life is what makes this a more textured effort since one expects the book to focus primarily on a put-upon mother when it becomes as much an exercise in rebuilding one's self-esteem. The book becomes even more worthwhile when the perspective moves away from the occasional navel-gazing.
  
  Perhaps because I find some of the experiences depicted in the story quite cathartic, I am unexpectedly moved by the author's work this time. The rather simplistic story focuses on former baseball player Chick Benetto who is still depressed over his mother's death eight years later and attempts suicide. In the process, he gets to spend a day with his mother as he reflects on the past. You can see the moral messages coming a mile away and the supernatural aspects take on a somewhat unctuous quality, but Albom manages to make the story resonate in some unexpected ways. It's a quick read that I recommend for anyone who has experienced the loss of a parent.
  
  

• A shovel-full of sugar, makes the messages go down...

  
  By A32L7IWLNIGYM3 on 2006-09-29
  Not that you won't find yourself choking-up, from time-to-time, along the way. In any case, during the few instances when you are able to suppress your gag-reflex, you may find that candy-coated death may be the most apt description of "For One More Day."
  
  Even for those of us with an occasional literary sweet-tooth, there comes a point when we must ask ourselves if our indulgences are really worth having to endure root canal-- which is just what we experience via Mr. Albom's pen.
  
  At it's heart, "For One More Day" is a rip-off of the basic premise of Thorton Wilder's play "Our Town," dumbed down in it's slender existential musings, and amped up in its elevator-quality Muzak. In addition to Lifetime Channel caliber melodrama, it also features such Hallmark worthy philosophical insights as the importance making the most of every day, living life to the fullest, being in the moment, and saying I love you. Deep stuff. As far as plot and characters go, I realize I'm being vague here, but that's because neither left any lasting impression.
  
  To end on a note of praise, though, in its depictions of an afterlife, "For One More Day" is not altogether far-fetched. Having slogged through it, I believe I now have a much more accurate idea of what purgatory must be like.
  
  
  
  

• A Book and a Writer Tailor-Made for the Baby Boomers

  
  By A2NJERFK6LWJBB on 2006-11-09
  I hate to be the 'dog in the manger' on this one, but I found this book very irritating. Not so much in that it's a particularly badly written book (it's not), but its incredible popularity is more an indictment of it's fans rather than it's creator. Mitch Ablom books, in general, and "For One More Day" in particular, are popular for the same reasons McDonalds, Olive Garden, Celine Dion, and Tom Cruise are popular. They provide a mass audience (baby boomers in particular), with a well-packaged, predictable, easily digestable, intellectually nonthreatening, and utterly mediocre product.
  
  "For One More Day" is tailored to the worst in the whiny, self-absorbed baby boomer generation. As the boomers age, they greet the almost universal midlife themes of dissapointment and regret as if they were the very first people to ever experience those emotions, and make a huge deal of broadcasting and analyzing their feelings to death. Who doesn't reach middle age and not feel some regret that they didn't write the Great American Novel, marry the Homecoming Queen/King, or start a fabulously successful dot-com? I guess with the baby boomers it's a particularly bitter pill because they were brought up from the get-go to believe they were oh-so-SPECIAL.
  
  Mitch Ablom has tapped this rich vein of boomer angst to great success. His protagonist, 'Chick' Benetto, is a washed-up ball player with a broken marriage and a drinking problem. In a fit of self-pity, he tries to kill himself and botches that one too. He meets his dead mom, acknowleges he has been a real poop, and finds redemption. Cue the string section and loosen the tear ducts. Oh gag me!!!!
  
  Even some of his 'novel' plot devices are nothing new. Anyone who has read "An Incident at Owl Creek Bridge" by Ambrose Bierce will be spitting nails at Ablom's shameless cribbing of the books main twist.
  
  The book itself is a childishly easy read. Ablom is no great artist with the English Language, and no one with greater than a third-grade reading ablily will be taxed by this one. Faulkner, Eco, and Melville can rest easy.
  
  The baby boom generation has never been known for it's intellectual horsepower, and this book is tailor-made for the Oprah Nation. A lightweight tome for a lightweight, self-indulgent society.
  
  

• If I Had One More Day...

  
  By A30QIRX0TROA6A on 2006-10-08
  I would hunt this Alborn fella down like the snake-oil salesman he is. He abuses weak people's desires to feel better by feeding them treacly motivational glop that appeals to their TV denuded emotions. Meanwhile, he reaps money by the ton. You can bet he feels good. You can also find better writing in e-mails you get asking you to forward it to all your other fool acquaintances so some fictitious dying kid will get a sponge bath from the cast of Desperate Housewives.
  
  Alborn makes book burnings seem like a good idea whose time has come.
  
  
• One of 2006's most inspiring reads
  By A1IANEBSMVGHS9 on 2006-11-07
  Albom, who previously grabbed us by our hearts in "Tuesdays with Morrie" and "The Five People You Meet in Heaven", does it again in "For One More Day". Masterfully playing with time (moving back and forth between the story's present time and the character's past), surprising the reader along the way and tactfully relating to emotions most of us are bound to experience at some point in our lives, he tells the tale of Charley Benetto, a retired baseball player left to rot outside the sport of his dreams, and his one-day reunion with his mom... who had passed away years before.
  
  The book doesn't score as high as "Tuesdays with Morrie", arguably Albom's best, but it does match his accomplishment with "The Five People..." by forcing us to contemplate our lives from the standpoint of forks in the road, what ifs, the choices we make in life and the consequences they carry along. In doing so Albom earns the book a solid five stars and my personal recommendation as one of 2006's most inspiring reads.
  
  
• The 5 People You Meet in Heaven....Again?
  By A1R68SGICYVGI2 on 2006-09-28
  Ok, so Mitch Albom basically took The 5 People You Meet in Heaven, tweaked it a little and then changed the title to For One More Day. Maybe he should have waited to write another novel until he had some fresh ideas.
  
  
• Another Hit Novel from Mitch Albom
  By A234INHF4HZHDF on 2007-05-21
  
  Having read Tuesdays with Morrie and The Five People You Meet
  in Heaven, this book was another great addition to Mitch Albom's
  ongoing collection of hit novels. When I first read the first two
  books, I had bought them shortly after borrowing them from the
  bookstore, so when I saw this on the shelf I knew I would enjoy it so
  I bought it. This book is the is the story of Charles "Chick"
  Benetto's rise to Major League "stardom" and his plummet to shabby
  drunk including all the people he hurts in the process. The book
  focuses on Chick's attempt to completely demolish himself, and the
  rescue he receives at the side of his dead mother. One of the first
  lines in the book state how "every family is a ghost story" (Albom),
  but it really isn't. It's about what the mind keeps in remembrance of
  someone who has gone and passed away. It is about the pain that one
  goes through and how they can be healed, but only by choosing to
  repair themselves before it gets too late. This book is an overall
  quick, enlightening read, suitable for all ages, and a book which
  everyone should experience.
  
  This book was an attempt to reach to viewers and change their own
  view on their mothers. Through each of the chapters, Chick Benetto
  reflects on two main things: "Times My Mother Stood Up For Me" and
  "Times I Didn't Stand Up For My Mother". These two categories make up
  most of the book and recollect all of the events, from his childhood
  to later in his life, and discussed all of the different times that he
  did not appreciate the things his mother had done for him. In the
  first time that his mother stood up for him, he was five, and had
  encountered a ferocious German Shepard and his mother barked back at
  the dog to show it who is boss. Nothing after that shows how Chick had
  reacted to his mother standing up for him. In the first time that he
  did not stand up for his mother, his mother had put toilet paper
  around him for Halloween, and it had began to rain and when he found
  his mother he had yelled "You ruined my life." His mother's reaction
  to him yelling at her is not mentioned in the book as well. I found it
  ironic how some of the situations I could relate too, and after
  telling them too others, they seemed to feel the same way.
  
  This book can be universal to any person and show them how easily they
  do not appreciate the things that their mothers do for them. We do not
  look back at the times where our parents have stood up for us, and do
  not appreciate the little things they do for us and this books showed
  me how simple things that my parents do, are only to better me and my
  future. While reading this book, I felt that we as children do not see
  our parents as average human beings, like our friends, but seem them
  as someone who is just there. We as individuals do not necessarily
  honor our parents for the sacrifices they make in our lives to provide
  us with a better life. This book had really opened my eyes to the
  things my parents do for me, even the little things which account for
  so much. Even though I was never the type to read a lot of books, this
  book is one everyone should read and I would recommend it to anyone,
  because everyone should know how far their parents would go to stand
  up for them.
  
  
  From: Anthony Lee
  
  
• WOW!
  By A34HZAOCH17DJK on 2006-09-28
  Although this book is similar to "The Five People You Meet in Heaven" in that it deals with death and grief, it is very different. I really liked this book and it is a quick read (it took me maybe 3 hours to read it). Mitch Albom has a wonderful ability to talk about something that seems taboo in our society and that is DEATH and GRIEF. He puts so much emotion into his characters that you feel as if you have become one of them and feel their pain and loss. This book will cause you to think and is deeper than the mere 200 pages looks like. WOW, Mitch, another homerun for you - way to go!
  
  
• Sorry Mitch -- this one comes up short
  By A12UTXKZN1Q2WE on 2006-09-30
  Mitch Albom is my favorite author. I have been spoiled by Tuesdays with Morrie and Five People You Meet in Heaven. Like so many, I eagerly awaiting his next novel. The ghost of Chick "the stories main character" meeting his mother is a good one but somehow the story seems to drag out while not focusing in on why he needs he mother -- other than to get some motherly love. I was disappointed that Mitch didn't focus in on more of the struggles of Chick's life and how his mother could have directed the his misguidedness. The story did address these concerns during the last 10 pages but the middle of the book seems shallow in nature and went on forever. Reader beware and I have cautioned you about some possible disappointment. I hope the next Albom novel will life up to my expectations.
  
  
• I hated to do this....
  By AB2UR3N94NGBG on 2006-10-09
  1 star is all I could do for Alboms latest book. I found the main character to be annoying and not worthy of being able to carry the book. As much as I liked the idea of the book, I thought I could have written it a lot better. What we have here is Chick a sad sorry sack of a man who lived for his father. His mother, a sad sorry sack of a woman who, behind the scenes did everything for Chick and Chicks father who's "secret life" was supossed to be shocking but was just stupid. Don't waste your money on this one.
  
  
• Thank you, Morrie...
  By A26BVUB2YJMGB7 on 2006-10-05
  Mitch Albom learned a a lot from Morrie Schwartz and he shares that knowledge, that understanding...those truths..with us again in this book. (It is much better, more moving and effective than "The First Five People You Meet In Heaven," Mitch's second book.)
  
  "We" are more than our phyiscal bodies--the essence of us, our personalities, our hopes, dreams, our imperfections, our fears--are more than our phyysical bodies. We are spiritual creations with a physical dimension. That's what this book is about--our spiritual being.
  
  We are all imperfect beings in an imperfect world, most of us doing the best we can...This book is about our spirit, the essence of who we are and where we determine what is really important, what really matters and how and when we respond to those decisions--that wisdom.
  
  This is a book about redemption...humanity, its faults, failures and, in the end, its redemption. I'm glad Mitch Albom found Morrie again...and I'm glad Mitch continues to share his perspectives and values with us, his readers. This is another good one, folks. You will not be disappointed.
  
  
• Love your mother
  By AXIRDTPK6QBCY on 2006-10-10
  By far, "Five People" is my favorite Mitch Albom book, but this book is worth a read. The other negative reviewers are missing the point, I think. Yes, the main character is a deflated, defeated, shell of a man, but that is precisely the point. The man is no hero....but again that is the crux of the story....how many of us are heroes? How many of us would like to reflect on our lives and maybe try and see things more clearly, try to better understand the choices we made, and the choices the people closest to us made? To understand the sacrifices people make for love?
  Read the book, and then call your mother....if possible....if not, make peace in your heart..this book will help you do that.
  
  
• Tedious, depressing & totally uninspiring. Big dissappointment!
  By A1P5YFZFVJWX3J on 2006-10-14
  I enjoyed Albom's first two books a great deal and have been looking forward to this one for several months. I found this book, however, to be dull and depressing. Filled with regrets, "should-have-dones," divorce, suicide and death, I found One More Day surprisingly unfullfilling and disappointing (with a capital "D"). With tedious recurring chapters about how the pathetic lead character had failed his poor dear mother, I kept waiting for an instructional or uplifting ending or message in the book. Forget about it! It never happens, except for a short one page Epilogue that only made me glad the book was finally ending. The book clearly wants to make a point about the unending, unconditional love of a mother, but it only made me feel sorry for the whole unhappy family. The poor mother could only find joy and meaning in escaping her family by helping others, many on deathbeds. Not exactly an upper! My opinion of Albom took a major U-turn after reading this book. The book, however, is likely a major bestseller with Albom's past well-written winners and a huge plug from Starbucks (why did the first book you support, Starbucks, have to be such a total downer??...just riding on the Albom name, obviously!). Major sales of the book, however, could be a big boost to the drug companies in sales of antidepressants.
  
  
• A poignant novel about missed opportunities and what-ifs
  By A2F6N60Z96CAJI on 2006-12-09
  Mitch Albom has never failed to delve into the depths of relationships, the sometimes dark and mysteriously gray areas of our interactions with people. He has pondered what we learn in our day-to-day intersections with those we love and those we hardly know, those anchors we've lost, those we've simply shaken hands with. And in FOR ONE MORE DAY this theme of revelation and learning continues. Where TUESDAYS WITH MORRIE recounts the rekindling of a mentor relationship in the twilight years of a teacher's life and THE FIVE PEOPLE YOU MEET IN HEAVEN reinforces the sometimes unknown impact of those we encounter in life, FOR ONE MORE DAY is about missed opportunity and the miraculous "what if."
  
  Chick Benetto is far from perfect. Told by his father that he "can be a mama's boy or you can be a daddy's boy, but you can't be both," Chick chooses to be a daddy's boy and devotes his young life to pleasing him. Dad wants Chick to pursue baseball, which Chick does. Even after his father disappears when he's 11, Chick doesn't give up the dream and the goal of pleasing him. He continues the sport, eventually playing for a minor league team and ultimately getting the call to the majors in time to play in the World Series.
  
  All the while, his mother raises Chick and his sister Roberta, making sacrifices they aren't even aware of. When Chick's father resurfaces to follow Chick's career, Chick doesn't tell his mother. And, in fact, all too often he puts his father first before his mother, struggling to please him.
  
  But when Chick hurts his leg, his dreams --- and his father's dreams --- of a career in major league baseball are shattered, and Chick is left with the hollow realization that his hopes for a strong relationship with his father were ruled by that dream of a career. Slowly his father fades into the background, and Chick finds solace in the bottle. His dad never offers him a job, even when he sees Chick struggling to keep above water financially. Chick realizes how much he had neglected his mother, the one who truly was his support, in order to garner favor with his father.
  
  All these realizations are too much for Chick, and he decides to take his own life. It's this decision that sets the scene for Albom's tale of "what if." Chick's attempt to kill himself ends up giving him the chance to spend one more day with his long-dead mother.
  
  In a plot that might sound too fantastic to be true, Albom spins a tale of reconnection and opportunity. The book is full of reminiscences from Chick's personal papers --- notes his mom lovingly wrote him, reminders of times he didn't stand up for her and remembrances of his life. But the last day he gets to spend with his ethereal mother might well be the truest day he ever spent with her, for it is in this visit that he learns who she really was and who he really is.
  
  Albom's writing has always touched my heart. He possesses an uncanny ability to draw out subjects so heartwarming and heartwrenching --- love, loss, faith, loyalty --- that other authors dance around but never really flesh out. Albom repeatedly strikes a chord. After learning all about Chick, his life and relationships, one can't help but be reminded of one's own existence --- missed opportunities, successes, failures, etc. If you read this book and don't ask yourself the question, "Who would I want the chance to see again, talk to again and reconcile with?" then you've missed the point. Albom wants you to read about Chick and find yourself reminiscing, recalling those people in your life who you'd give anything to see again, those times you should have walked down the other path, and those moments you wish you could relive.
  
  --- Reviewed by Roberta O'Hara
  
  
• I Wanted and Expected To LIke This Book.... But, Read On
  By A30J7WQV0ZNRXG on 2007-01-01
  Of the small collection of short books that Mich Albom has written, this is the third of his books that I have read - and the first of them that has left me feeling disappointed having been drug through a moving, but maudlin and predictable 197 pages of one-thought mush. I am aware that my point of view about this book is not the dominant one - either here on Amazon.com or elsewhere - so I feel obliged to explain it in something more than tokenistically brief form yet without beating it up with more space (either on a written page or on line) than I feel it is worth. Here is my attempt to do so:
  
  The other two of his books I have read are "Tuesdays With Morrie," a compelling tale of a young man getting to know an old one as he (the elder person, "Morrie,") approaches his death. It explores many of life's big issues in brief form. Youth and age; living and dying; telling and listening; connecting and just going through the motions. It is a warm explication of the ways in which, if we choose, we can learn from each other - even from someone we haven't know well or for a long time. In "The Five People You Meet In Heaven," again - but in a different form, Albom probes the issue of remorse, or self-recrimination and, ultimately, of forgiveness. Almost a spiritual tome - a morality story of a sort - I found that small book, too, to have been well worth the several hours I spent with it. Admittedly, I have not read his other two or three books. However, based on my experience with the two others I HAD read, I expected more and better from "For One More Day," a brief tale about a man who, in his own eyes, failed both his parents: mother out of neglect and recurring selfishness and his dad out of repeated failures to become who and what his father wanted him to become. The framework for the tale is structured around his spending a day with his mother, after her death and soon after his attempt to escape the ongoing anguish of his own life at his own hand.
  
  "For One More Day" has one note - regret. And while regret is at the heart of his other works as well - here, it is THE note that plays alone - like a single tone piece of music. Now, I suppose that it could be argued that a beautiful chime is an example of worthwhile one-note music, but even the most beautiful of them is meant to be heard once and perhaps twice - and not every moment of every day. 197 pages of one tone is just too much. This biographically sounding novella is, I feel a bloated short story - perhaps worth 30 or 40 pages wherein the points can be made, the feelings articulated, empathy elicited and then ended. As it is presented here, the 'one day' seems to take a whole lot longer than that - and only one theme permeates the entire work.
  
  I am a former English teacher and an admirer of short work. I find Haiku, for example, beautiful and succinct in it's 17-syllable expressiveness. I do enjoy a good novel, but find short stories that are well constructed and tightly written, at least as good reading as their longer, multi-chaptered shelf-mates. In no instance I can think of, is a good idea improved by repetition. If a thought - a feeling - a story can be fully and successfully told in ten pages, to spend 20 to do it is a waste of everyone's time and adds value only to the author who is paid by the word for what s/he writes.
  
  Albom has shown he is capable of much better than this. I hope that his writing career is not permanently redirected by his success with this one. It would be a shame.
  
  
  
• TERRIBLE!!!
  By A1L4Z9PN3WNBVN on 2006-10-09
  This was the WORST book I have read in a long time. I loved Mitch Albom's first two books very much. It was a no-brainer that I had to have this the minute it came out! I read it in about 3 hours with few interruptions (maybe less time, not sure as a nap could have come in somewhere there!) and all I can say is: WHAT THE HELL WAS THAT???? It was awful. It had no meaning, the characters were terrible, it had no message and it was plain boring. At the end, I thought there was a joke or something or that I was missing a few chapters. I sold it on Ebay the next day to another unsuspecting soul. It was so bad I wouldn't recommend it if it were the last book on earth. AWFUL!!!!!
  
  
• Read This Book -- Then Call Your Mother!
  By A2CVXUY1EYQGGA on 2006-10-11
  If you had the chance to go back in time and spend a day with a loved one that passed on, and be able to say all the things you wanted to tell them but never did, would you have the emotional strength to do it? That is the basic premise of Mitch Albom's very poignant new book, For One More Day. While some reviewers criticize this book for being sappy and intentionally trying to "pull on your heartstrings," I found it to be a well-written, sentimental fable that made me self-reflect on my own relationship with my parents. In the course of my hectic life, I have, at times, made excuses to myself for not giving them the attention they deserved. While I cannot go back and tell my father how much I appreciated all that he did for me when he was alive, For One More Day made me realize that it is not too late to do so with my 89 year-old mother. For One More Day is a book I'd highly recommend to you, and especially so if you've lost a parent.
  
  
• Albom Write an American Fable
  By A1EQF4CUC7IQO8 on 2006-10-20
  One More Day is an American Fable, and I mean that in the best of ways. This "as told to me" tale is poignant and tender and perhaps a bit too story-ish, but that's what it is--a good story with a good meaning. Not every book has this intention, but this does, so I accepted the terms and kept reading.
  
  Chick Bennito's life has spun wildly out of control. He's lost everything, decides to end it all and finds himself in a surreal place where he and his mother get one more day.
  
  Who would not ask for one more day--to understand, forgive, and make right what time and life has unraveled? I closed the book and did some thinking.
  
  
• To Be Swallowed
  By AHVXFU25YRSMV on 2007-04-24
  It's hard to believe that I've lived a complete life without reading a book by Mitch Albom. I've managed to value my loved ones, contemplate the nature of life and death, and cry at sappy Hallmark moments, all without ever reading the likes of Tuesdays with Morrie or The Five People You Meet in Heaven. With the release of his newest book, For One More Day, I wondered to myself: what have I been missing? Could my understanding of the world deepen, become more profound, if I just read something by this internationally recognized "feel good" author?
  
  I'm being a bit of a snob here - hopefully that's obvious. I've looked down my spectacle-saddled nose at Albom and his four-hankie books for a while now, but my curiosity really did get the better of me, and I did read. And you know what? It wasn't so bad! I'm feeling a little repentant now.
  
  For One More Day is the story of Charles "Chick" Benetto's rise to Major League stardom (using that term loosely) and his fall to shabby drunk. And all the people he hurts in between. The slim book focuses on Chick's attempt to utterly demolish himself, and the redemption he receives at the side of his dead mother. Yes, his dead mother. Chick admits that this could be some kind of ghost story, but it really isn't. It's about what remains when someone is gone, it's about pain that can be healed, it's about choosing to repair what can be repaired, while we can.
  
  I enjoyed this little book, and I confess that I did shed a tear or two. I also laughed quite a bit, specifically at two categories that Chick reflects on a good deal: Times My Mother Stood Up for Me, and Times I Did Not Stand Up for My Mother. I laughed because some of the situations were funny, but mostly because they were so familiar. We don't often think of the ways we could have stood up for our parents, honored them for all they have sacrificed for us. In short, I think we don't often think of our parents as people at all. In For One More Day, Chick gets an awesome opportunity to see his mother's life through others' eyes, and understand the value of the person that she was. It ultimately inspires him to understand better the person he himself could be.
  
  
  
  
• Awful
  By A3E6XTEZUL5L0Z on 2006-10-13
  The only reason this book was published is because Mitch Albom first book was a huge hit. I struggled book from chapter 1 and it is a very good example of poor writing! High school students could do a better job!
  
  
• A SHORT BOOK, BUT A BEAUTIFUL STORY.
  By A3SN9EF7GTNEU2 on 2006-10-27
  If Mitch Albom is the author, you can be sure the book will be worth the read and bring more than a few tears. In "For One More Day" Mitch plays a tribute to his departed mother. It is often said that "Losing a mother is like losing a part of one's self." My mother passed away 26 years ago and like Charley, the main character in this book, I was not present at the time she died and now there are so many questions that will never be answered. Do we really know our mothers, or do we only know the part they want us to see? What feelings and emotions does she keep from us? As a child, what was her favourite toy, who was her best friend, her first little girl crush? For anyone who has lost a mother, this book will bring back memories of childhood. How many of us wish we could have "just one more day" with her? Believe it or not, after Charley's mother dies, he gets his day with her and comes to realize there was an enormous amount about his mother he did not know. He learns an important lesson about life and love that some people never come to master. Albom has written a beautiful and inspiring book written in a gently flowing style.
  
  
• A Great Book for Healing After Loss
  By A1CBAXZIXO7PKP on 2007-05-16
  The first line I underlined when I started this book was: EVERY FAMILY IS A GHOST STORY. THE DEAD SIT AT OUR TABLES LONG AFTER THEY HAVE GONE.
  The last line(s) I underlined at the end of the book were:
  SHARING TALES OF THOSE WE'VE LOST IS HOW WE KEEP FROM REALLY LOSING THEM. ONE DAY SPENT WITH SOMEONE YOU LOVE CAN CHANGE EVERYTHING.
  And so...based on these lines...you can get a feel for how any one person will relate if they've ever lost a loved one. I, personally, liked his TUESDAYS WITH MORRIE book much better--but this is worthy of reading just to find the precious lines within. ;)
  
  
• Personal reflections marred by fictional pretense
  By A2QZQBINBG6B5N on 2006-10-24
  Albom's TUESDAYS WITH MORRIE was such a good book because it was a true account of the author's relationship with a dying mentor. The best parts of FOR ONE MORE DAY are the short chapters entitled "Times My Mother Stood Up for Me" and "Times I Did Not Stand Up for My Mother" that Albom intersperses among the chapters relating the fictional story of an alcoholic ex-baseball player who tried to commit suicide. These interleaved chapters (at least some of them, anyway) are based on actual events from the author's relationship with his own (still living) mother according to what he has said in interviews and in pod-casts promoting the book. I think readers would have been better served had he planted them within a different, more personal narrative. I'm sure many sons (and daughters) could identify with what these short chapters express--the regret for the times they have resisted a parent's best-intended (but mostly failed) efforts to make the children they brought into the world feel better about themselves. The imagined story of a man in a hallucinatory stupor experiencing another ordinary day with his deceased mother comes across as a little corny and seems to disrespect the authentic feelings conjured up by the author's personal recollections. One wonders if the recent bruhaha over Frey's A MILLION LITTLE PIECES didn't scare Albom away from covering this material as a true memoir. The book, on the other hand, is brief and uplifting if read in the spirit the author obviously intended. I loved TUESDAYS and will probably take a peek at THE FIVE PEOPLE YOU MEET IN HEAVEN, Albom's second and equally well-received book. Albom's voice is a cheery alternative in this age of cynicism, doom, and gloom. And long-winded, he's not.
  
  
• If we could all have...
  By A21RIJ18JNDFYB on 2006-10-25
  Albom's novel touches a chord in all of us. I think we all at one time or another wish we could have one more day to talk and share with someone special who is no longer around. I lost my mother to cancer 10 years ago. I was her caregiver for several months along with my brother. But when she passed away I was 1000 miles away fighting for my marriage (which dissolved anyway). I can truly empathize with "Chick" where he is told, "Your mother. She died." This book is thought-provoking and insightful in it's own right. I enjoyed it immensely and will end up buying my own copy.
  
  
• Thoughtful and thought provoking
  By A1ZP4D0FGKUN19 on 2006-11-04
  I bought this because my mother died last year and I thought it would really resonate with me. However, this book was more about the effects of divorce and how it becomes part of the childrens' lives forever. I loved the honest aura and the ultimate life-message: forgive and cherish life. This is my first Mitch Albom book and I enjoyed his style. Even thought it wasn't about what I expected, I will definitely be reading his other works.
  
  
• Books for people who don't read books.
  By A1MBUYUKF7X190 on 2006-12-05
  Pop garbage. Try reading some real literature instead of trash like this and The DaVinci Code. Mindless tripe that takes no insight whatsoever to assimilate. I wish I could give this zero stars (or a negative number).
  
  
• Gravely Disappointing
  By A1XJ0K50UOHCR2 on 2006-12-11
  Albom centers all of his works on the same subject matter: the preciousness and value of our time, of our lives. Unfortunately, For One More Day is largely predictable and somewhat absurd. The twists are so ludicrious that they are almost laughable.
  
  In Tuesdays with Morrie and The Five People You Meet in Heaven, Albom poignantly prompts us, the reader, to reflect on the direction and purpose of our lives because we are faced with people and characters who we cheer for; they have faced tragedy and buckled to it, like many of us, or overcome it, like many of us hope to do. In For One More Day, the main character, Charley, is pathetic. His obstacles and situtations are so incredibly forced and silly, as is much of the dialogue, that I was left wondering if Albom had run out of material after his first two books and scratched something together for publishing.
  
  Sorry Mitch...I loved your first two books, but this is defintely not you best effort.
  
  
• Touching story about a mother's love
  By A28U45TM55YKZ9 on 2007-05-16
  I've read "Tuesdays with Morrie" and "Five People You Meet in Heaven", so when I found out that Mitch Albom had a new book, I had to buy it. I just finished it - only took 2 days. As with the other 2 books, it's an easy read, but mostly it's a compelling story. As a person who lost a parent at a relatively young age, the stories and images in "For One More Day" really touched me on so many levels. It was heart-warming as well as heart-breaking. I guess that's the story of so many families. I highly recommend this book. If it doesn't make you want to kiss your mother and buy her some flowers, I don't know what will!
  
  
• FOR ONE MORE DAY: Read this book. It won't take Long.
  By A3VF7S13PA5HCD on 2006-10-09
  Now mind you, I've never wanted to read this guy's books before, but For One More Day was intriguing. It's the story of Chick Benetto, a former professional baseball player, whose total brush with fame was winning the pennant with the Pirates, before ultimately losing the Series. After middle age encroaches on Chick, he decides to take his own life after losing both of his parents (in two dissimilar ways), losing his marriage, and not even being invited to his daughter's recent wedding. Since his mother's death 8 years earlier, he slowly drank himself to the brink of total despair. For some cosmic reason, Chick decides to visit his parent's boarded up home one last time before he puts the gun to his head. When he let's himself into the house that he and his sister never had the heart to sell, he finds food cooking and a stocked house.
  
  As he turns a corner, Chick's mother is standing there welcoming her son with open arms.
  
  The books continues from there. As the title suggests, Chick has one last day with his mother. A day to watch her work, to talk with her, and to once again be her son. The narrative of this surreal day is enmeshed with short chapters entitled "The Day I stood up for my Mother" or "The Day I did not stand up for my Mother", which shed light on his upbringing and his mother's strained relationship with his enigmatic and absent father, who earlier during Chick's life, forced Chick to choose to be a momma's boy or a father's boy. He chose his father, but as his mother will point out, a child should never need to choose.
  
  And in this book, Albom chose to write a refreshing, emotionally laden tight novel. He takes few risks until the very end of the book, and has pleasantly moved away from the sappy histronic drool of his last two tales.
  
  

• The Five People You Meet in Heaven
• Tuesdays with Morrie: An Old Man, a Young Man, and Life's Greatest Lesson
• An Hour to Live, an Hour to Love: The True Story of the Best Gift Ever Given
• Don't Sweat the Small Stuff--and it's all small stuff (Don't Sweat the Small Stuff Series)
• Tuesdays with Morrie