For One More Day by Mitch Albom begins with a sports writer approaching a former professional baseball player, Chick Benetto.
The first thing Chick says is “ Let me guess. You want to know why I tried to kill myself. ” This short fiction novel continues from this point in Chick’s voice, as if you were the sports writer and Chick is telling you about his life. After Chick tries to commit suicide by throwing himself off a water tower, Chick wakes up in between the worlds of life and death. In this world, Chick gets to spend one more day with his mother who had passed away eight years prior to this event.
The story is set in the 1950’s and 1960’s, which isn’t a very familiar time period to me. However Albom provides a very descriptive look into Chick’s life. While reading I was able to feel like I was in the novel, watching everything happen. In my opinion, For One More Day is not a great novel.
The book isn’t suspenseful and doesn’t make you want to keep reading and flipping through the pages. In the beginning of the book you meet Chick in present day, then he proceeds to talk about his past, therefore, you know he survived his suicide attempt. Once I understood this and realized the day he spent with his mother would determine whether he would die or not, I had no desire to keep reading. I knew he would survive. The only reason I finished the book was to see why he survived and what happened during the day he spent with his mother.
I liked how Albom wrote For One More Day in a very simplistic style. Most aspects of the book are very straightforward. This and the fact that the book was only 197 pages made it a quick read. However Albom bounced between writing about parts of Chick’s childhood, his adult life and the day he was spending with his mother. I didn’t like this because often I wouldn’t know which part of Chick’s life he was talking about in the beginning of the chapter.
Overall, For One More Day is a simplistic novel about family, love, mistakes and forgiveness. It is an inspirational novel that really makes you reconsider many aspects of life. However the actual story wasn’t that interesting. I believe that everyone should read the book at one point in time.
However it is definitely not a book that should be placed on the top of your list of books to read.
