A Teacher to the Last: Tuesdays With Morrie by Mitch Albom

 

“Study me in my slow and patient demise. Watch what happens to me. Learn with me.”

Personal Rating:

Overview

Tuesdays with Morrie recounts the story of the author’s final lesson with his former professor, Morrie, who’s suffering from ALS. But, unbeknownst to him, their last thesis together will end up as life-changing teachings concerning love, family, marriage, time, death, and other relevant aspects of life.

Main Theme

Acknowledging Death

The novel’s main theme revolves around the realization that death is a valuable part of human existence. Only by wholly acknowledging its essence will we truly learn to elevate and transform our ways of living. Thus, this book will tackle death in a promising and exceptional manner.

Strengths and Weaknesses

The book’s main strengths are comprehensive writing style, pleasing structure, a superb portrayal of scenes, monumental lessons told through story-telling, and broad deliberation of significant aspects of life and death. Amusingly, this is one of the rare books in which I cannot find any weakness. My firm belief that everything has weakness was charmingly defined by this book.

Insights

For my first Albom read, Tuesdays with Morrie did not disappoint me. Instead, it provided a sense of wonder and interest to delve more into his books. This one’s indeed a page-turner. After finishing the first page, I transitioned into a zone, and the next thing I knew, I was halfway through. It was just past an hour. Astonishing.

Also, I was highly entertained as someone who admires philosophies and delights with talks concerning life’s meanings and ways. That might explain my strong interest in Morrie’s knowledge and interpretations, making me read and turn page after page.

Lastly, I do believe that everything has a weakness, but I’m always open to the thought of those that possess perfection. One of my reading habits is to find the weakness of the book after reading. Whether it is in the writing style, plot advancement, repetitions, and the likes, I will always think critically about it. Even my five-star reads can be identified by their respective weaknesses. Interestingly, in this book, I find none, and it’s been so long since I read one as flawless as this. Well, what an excellent start for Mitch Albom.

Recommendation

My review rate represents my overwhelming desire to recommend this book to every individual – reader or not. This generation – my generation is experiencing a crisis concerning the meaning of life and death. We are becoming more and more distracted, disturbed, and depressed while gradually losing our grasp of what’s truly important in life. Also, it is relevant to our situation in this current pandemic since it can affect our perception of what’s valuable to us. Reading this will induce a feeling that you’re sitting in a park, basking in the sun, while discoursing with an old stranger and ending up receiving profound life lessons.

“Devote yourself to loving others, devote yourself to your community around you, and devote yourself to creating something that gives you purpose and meaning.”

Efram P. Cortes is a former university book club leader. He is passionate about reading and writing. Also, a member of Porch Reader Book Tambayan and The Page Turner – Philippines. You can read more of his book reviews posted on his awesome blog, Coffee, Book, and Me.