The Time Keeper by Mitch Albom - Book Review

Have you ever thought about life before watches, alarms, clocks, deadlines? Have you ever wondered who the first to grasp the concept of time was? Who was the first to notice that sunrise and sundown make days and that days make months and that months make years, and that years run out? Well, if you haven't thought about it, Mitch Albom did in his book, The Time Keeper.

He was called Dor, the first human with the desire to measure time. In other words, Father Time. As punishment for inventing time, Dom, is forced to live in a cave forever with his hourglass, listening to humans’ eternal struggle with time; wanting time to go faster, wanting time to slow down, wanting more time, or wanting to cut their time short.

After 6,000 years of punishment, Dor finally has a chance to be released, but on one condition; to help two people with their problems with time. The two people Dor chooses are a high school girl named Sarah Lemon, and a billionaire businessman named Victor.

Sarah finds herself in a humiliating position involving her romantic interest in a guy who publicly shames her, so she decides to take her own life. Victor, on the other hand, wants nothing more than to continue living.

Unfortunately, his terminal illness is about to take whatever time he thought he had left. Victor takes some extreme measures, in the hopes to prolong his “existence” until the fields of medicine and technology have advanced enough to cure him of his illness.

Both Sarah and Victor are between life and death when Dor takes them on a tour of time, helping them both come to terms with the realities of their lives and the consequences of their choices. 

As is the case with all of Mitch Albom’s book, you are expected to come out of it with some sort of wisdom, or a lesson well learned. But aside from the philosophy behind his writings, Albom knows how to write prose that touches your heart.

He compels the readers to feel and to think about the concept of time and reflect on all the ways it has affected everyone since the dawn of humanity.