For a while, everyone seemed to be thrusting a copy of Coelho’s “The Alchemist” I to my hands. I couldn’t get into it, too mystical for me at the time, but I’m going to dig out my copy and read it now.
Because this was a very thought provoking book and I am curious about his mind...
Veronika has everything, she’s young and pretty and smart and had a future looking pretty good ahead of her.
But it’s all so blah. Day after day after day of sameness, on into perpetuity. (Kindof like a pandemic shutdown..). So she decides to kill herself.
It doesn’t work, these things never seem to, and she wakes up on a hospital/mental asylum. She has apparently destroyed a part of her heart with the overdose and can expect no more that a few more weeks to live.
She is left with nothing but time to think over her life, learn what has value, what she wished she’d done.
Dr. Igor, the lead physician, is also researching how to eliminate negativity from the body, a substance he calls “Vitriol”. What he doesn’t expect is that the presence of this young, doomed woman will alter the vitriol levels of everyone she encounters...
The book is a lengthy discussion of the joys and sorrows of life, the risk of being different, the dread of being the same. The characters in the hospital are all of different degrees of madness; some take their time there like a holiday, organizing speakers and outings, and taking no responsibility for anything they do or say- because they are mad, you see, and no one takes anything they do seriously. The freedom to be oneself is intoxicating, and soon it rubs off on Veronika...
The book is apparently based on Coehlo’s stays in mental hospitals - his parents put him in hospitals when he wanted to be an artist, started misbehaving. He was even treated with ECT. This experience puts a layer of realism on this novel and makes it even more involving.
Can we be who we really are? Can we live the life we should live? Or do we instead prefer, like the inmates, keeping things safe and cozy around our little madnesses? ( )

Inspiring as always, this story by Paulo Coelho sticks to your mind long after you finish it. There's a lesson in here but you can just read they story for the heck of it because Coelho is such a good writer... :) ( )

This is actually the only Coelho novel I’ve read. I remember hearing about it for the first time because of the Billy Talent song called Saint Veronika which is loosely based on the book. I did some research, bought the book, and read it. I read it again recently, and boy do I have a different opinion of it now than I did when I was sixteen.
The book centres around a young woman who is just done with life. She isn’t upset about anything, she hasn’t gone through any violent or traumatic ordeal and she isn’t sick and dying of some terminal illness. Veronika just doesn’t want to be alive anymore because she thinks she’s reached her prime and after this (she’s twenty-four, by the way), her life is only going to get worse and she can’t possibly be around to watch herself become unhappy. So she decides to kill herself.
Literally, Veronika has nothing to complain about. She’s a selfish brat who has no reason to want to kill herself but she decides to anyway because she’s bored.
What the actual fuck.
The novel does a good job of pointing out how fucking stupid she is, at least, by revealing that not only did she unsuccessfully commit suicide since she survived the ordeal, she has no irreparably damaged her heart and she’ll be dead within a few days anyway. Which is exactly what she wanted, right? Wrong. Confronted with the fact that she’s going to die at any minute now, Veronika panics and realizes that she’s always wanted to be alive in the first place.
To which I groan loudly and heavily.
This woman is such a piece of work that I honestly can’t stand her.
I just can’t with this book. I think its biggest saving grace is the way it deals with other characters in the story who are actually mentally ill – a schizophrenic, a woman who was depressed, another elderly woman with panic disorder. These characters are wonderful, fleshed out, and realistic. Veronika is unlikeable and just plain annoying the entire way through. And the one thing I cannot forgive her for is when she sexually assaults one of the people in the asylum. While encountering a state of literal ‘no fucks to give anymore’, Veronika decides to masturbate and give herself her first ever orgasm while an unwilling participant watches, somebody who is actually mentally ill and might not even understand what it is that she’s doing. It’s just disgusting and so unnecessary to the story, and honestly I just can’t seem to like Veronika in the slightest.
Here’s the kicker though. In the end we find out that her heart is fine and she’s going to survive after all. Yay! And she has a new-found respect for life and wants to live. Yay!
Ugh.
What a waste of time.
Final rating: 2/5. Honestly this could have just been done so much better. I hope Coelho’s other books are better than this. Also he shamelessly self-inserted himself into the novel on multiple occasions which
stop. Please. ( )

Very deep book. ( )

Wow..... The prose in this book! So beautiful & lyrical, & the ending, the ending! I thought the big 'm' scene was a bit vulgar & unnecessary I won't give any spoilers but if you've read the book you know which scene I'm talking about. I'm willing to overlook it though because of the wonderful prose & the fact that this book has so many quotables in it! 🌟🌟🌟 Taking two stars off for the yuck scene but otherwise it's beautiful 😊📚💖