Independent Reading Book Project

When Eddie was 18 he decided to join the army. During the war he had learned many things but he never learned how to be a prisoner. Following this statement Eddie became a prisoner for around six months. When they finally escaped they set the whole camp on fire but as they were about to leave “He stepped forward, convinced something was being burned to death in front of him” (p.83). From this moment on Eddie becomes tortured, he cannot let this image go of killing an innocent. Even as 15 years had passed from the tragic event “He wakes with a jolt, gasping for breath...It is always the same dream; Eddie wandering through the flames in the Philippines on his last night of war” (p.117). Eddie suffers from severe post traumatic system disorder or PTSD. The PTSD comes in the forms of the dreams he has every night haunting him of this innocent he is convinced he saw and was unable to save. This catastrophic memory that caused his PTSD changed Eddie’s perception and attitude about the value of his life. He came back from war changed, new, traumatized, and unstable. His life wasn’t the same from that point on and Eddie is well aware of his own change. It wasn’t until Eddie dies that he receives the closure he has wanted for all this years. The fifth person Eddie meets in heaven is a lovely little Philippine girl named Tala. It is Tala who brings him closure by telling Eddie he killed her his

After learning his lesson about forgiveness from Ruby, Eddie implements the teachings he received to work towards forgiving his father. Throughout his childhood, Eddie encounters abuse by his father’s hand, and during his battle with depression and post-traumatic stress disorder, after returning from the war, and trying to cope with his leg injury, the only thing that Eddie’s father says to him is, “get up and get a job,” (Albom 108). Many other instances of physical, emotional, and psychological abuse take place throughout Eddie’s life, thus prompting the insightful passage of, “All parents damage their children. It cannot be helped. Youth, like pristine glass, absorbs the prints of its handlers. Some parents smudge, others crack, a few shatter childhoods completely into jagged little pieces, beyond repair,” (Albom 104). Eddie even goes to describe his relationship with his father as occurring in three stages throughout his lifetime; neglect, violence, and silence. Upon the event of his father’s death, Eddie feels obligated to quit his schooling, work at the Pier full-time, and look after his mother, who is completely lost in her grief in the aftermath of losing her husband. Later on in the novel, Eddie explains that all he wanted to do in life was get away from the Pier, but he uses his circumstance as a reason not to,

     The next person that Eddie meets is his Sargent from the war. He tells Eddie about how he, the Sargent, died, and how that enabled the rest of the company to survive. He told Eddie that it had been him who had shot him, in order to save his life. Eddie had become convinced that he saw someone in a burning building, and to prevent Eddie from going in there and losing his life, the Sargent shot him in the leg.

Eddie came to peace with his life and his death. Throughout his life he felt like he was stuck at Ruby Pier, unhappy and doing the same thing over and over again. When he gets to heaven he does not understand why he died. He thinks his life was boring and unimportant and his death was a waste because he does not even know if he saved Amy or Annie. Going through his five people, each with a different lesson to help teach Eddie why certain things happened,

Eddie was a good man. He lived by good values, he loved his family, he loved giving, and he loved to laugh. I loved my pawpaw for all these things, but I especially loved that he never cared what people thought about him. He was stubborn and loud. He may have been a little insane at times, but he

Eddie is presented as a tragic hero. A tragic hero is a man of honourable birth and of high importance. He is a well-respected figure in the Red Hook community, which we see when Louis admires his

His view on life changed dramatically after his unfortunate encounter with a life changing gunshot wound. Based off of the evidence, it is exceptionally likely that Eddie suffers from PTSD after his experiences in World War

Clare also worked directly with Eddie at his school through which Claire was able to ascertain Eddie’s personal perspective and feelings towards his home situation. Eddie was also able to collaborate in meetings with Claire and Jack and attend the family meeting with his grandmother whom he identified as his child

Throughout the novel, Eddie also can be exemplified as a sympathetic character. sympathetic characters are when readers feel sympathy for throughout a story. The reader can feel empathy for Eddie, when the author describes the pain of Eddie’s gunshot wound. The pain was described to be unbearable and the description of the event of the gunshot pains a morbid picture in the reader’s mind. During Eddie’s time as a soldier in World War II, any reader can feel an astonishing amount of sympathy for Eddie. During, Eddie’s time as a soldier, he experienced, “A piercing pain ripped through Eddie's leg. He screamed a long, hard curse then crumbled to the ground. Blood was spewing below his knee. Plane engines roared. The skies lit in bluish flashes. He lay there, bleeding and burning, his eyes shut against the searing heat, and for the first time in his life, he felt ready to die,” (Albom 84). The reader can comprehend Eddies suffering and pain. Eddie was on the ground, in a war zone hurt and slowly dying. Readers can feel a lot of sympathy for when Eddie wanted to let go of the world and die. Before Eddie’s death, he ran under a falling amusement park ride to save a little girl, Eddie

Eddie’s tragic death he appeared in heaven. When there he met five people. He meets the

who he’d sacrificed his life for. The author helps the reader understand the Eddie’s actions, reactions, and dialogue with other characters. In the beginning of the story, the author vaguely describes Eddie as a crotchety pessimist, who is unsatisfied with his life, “He found himself in weary acceptance.” (Albom 5).

This novel is about an old man named Eddie working at an amusement park named Ruby Pier. Eddie is a maintenance man there. One day something drastic happened. One of the rides was having difficulties. Eddie tried to help the people off the ride before anything could happen. While helping everybody off, there was a little girl who didnt get off fast enough. Eddie tried his best to help, while helping her Eddie died. When he died he went straight to Heaven and meets five people that was in his life, Eddie wonders if he at least saved the little girl.

Eddie’s father is one of the minor characters from the novel but he is not just there like any other regular book, the author gives detail of him and how he effected Eddie’s life. When Eddie is at the hospital after the war his dad isn’t talking to him he is ignoring Eddie his father isn’t even

He returns to the drood manor only to find that the armorer had died from a massive heart attack, but yet his corpse was not present. He then obtains his next assignment in paris directly from the matriarch. He needs to break up a conflict between the elves, Their intense knowledge of magic makes them a threat if they begin to war. He breaks up the fight between the faction rulers Queen Mab and King Oberon. He threatens that if they don’t stop they will have to deal with the whole Drood family. Upon leaving Paris he encounters a tall man in a brown trench coat. He say to Eddie that he would regret his decision to threaten the elves. Eddie thinks nothing of it and moves

Ruby is the third person Eddie encounters. She talks about her life, and how she was married to the creator of Ruby Pier. The park got into flames and Emile life was ruined. She then begins to talk about his father’s death. As the place was on flames his father was screaming out his wife and kid’s names. This is the first time Eddie finds out the truth about his father’s death. Teaching Eddie a lesson about the importance of forgiveness.