Am I the only person who truly disliked the whole book? For me personally, from first chapter to last reading this was pure misery. I felt like I was reading a poorly written script for a movie. I felt like there was no story to really tell, just scene after scene after scene. I didn’t enjoy the mix beetween realistic and (very weirdly) fictious details, like the doctor experimenting on Veronica, too much either.
It might be that I misunderstood something about the plot or the message or something about the characters but to me reading this was a very mid experience. So I’d like to hear you guy’s opinions on this book!
Also might be worth mentioning that this was the first book I read from Coelho. I have The Alchimist on my shelf but I’m not very keen on reading it after this experience ://
by monstrrpuppy
27 Comments
Coelho is overrated imo. I prefer his lyrics to his books.
Yeah the whole thing was faux deep, pretentious bs as far as I can remember and I also keep avoiding The Alchemist ever since. Didn’t really have any trouble with the pacing, it wasn’t a painful read but made me question why the author was so praised. Suppose it’s bc his books are self guide books disguised as fiction. Maybe I’m too harsh, read the book almost a decade ago and I’ll cave in to the pressure and read The Alchemist as well but I never got the point of Veronika other than delivering a generic message.
Everything by him is mid to meh. You haven’t misunderstood anything, that’s just his writing.
I’ve read that and The Alchemist. I thought both were very r/im14andthisisdeep
Ooo, haven’t heard about this one for a while. Brings back memories. I loved it as a 14-year-old – not because it felt particularly deep or anything, it was just quaint and different from other books I’ve read before and what all the other kids were reading.
I’ve tried re-reading it at 20 and it felt oversimplified and shallow. However, I still think it’s a good teenage book that can help kids develop an interest for deeper, more complicated works later on.
I read it years ago and hated it too.
The only reason I read it was because Billy Talent wrote a song about it…
His books are known to be mediocre
“poorly written script for a movie” is a great way to describe this book. i was really pissed after finishing it. all i can say is, i would’ve enjoyed it a lot more if i read it when i was 14 and in my emo phase.
Yes, you are the only one.
Coelho is repetitive hack trash, but I remember Veronica decides to die as one of the few by him I still thought had some value.
Beats me why though, I was 15, it was probably just the edgy faux-heavy content that got through to my adolescent mind.
I just recently tried to read it and only made it a little ways in before giving up. A lot of indulgent nothingness around a brainless protagonist that thinks it’s deep and smart when it’s neither.
I read it in Spanish, which I assume is much easier to translate from Portuguese, and holds a lot of the nuances you can express only through Latin based languages. I agree with the faux deep criticism, but I do not for one second believe that this, or any of his works, are poorly written. I believe this can only hold true if you’ve read Portuguese to English / whatever translations.
Maybe French gets away with it? Spanish does, Italian MUST. But it’s happened to me more than once that books awe me in Spanish, only to disappoint me years later when I re-read them in English due to being an expat and not having access to books in Spanish.
Do note that I speak English and Spanish to absolute fluency and I think in Spanglish, so it is not my dominum of the languagez in question that influence this thought.
First of his I read, the title was what what made me buy, I thoroughly enjoyed it and have read some others by him but found them increasingly formulaic and by the end it was like drowning in chocolate.
I suggest he is an author most readers should try.
I hate every single “book” by this author and cannot be subjective about it.
Besides it was clearly visible that he had not spent more than two days in Ljubljana and knew close to nothing of it.
I actually really liked the first chapter. Then absolutely loathed the rest of it.
He’s a horrible author He spews platitudes as if they’re wisdom
I loved The Alchemist (when I was 16) and I read Veronica Decides To Die in my late teens, though I have next to no memory of it. He lost me completely at Eleven Minutes, which I read in my early twenties. I couldn’t stand the sexist misogynistic tripe I was reading and in hindsight recognised his depictions of women in his other books were all terrible and problematic.
A few years ago I read an interview with him and he came across as unbearably pretentious and obnoxious. It was a travel interview and he was very keen to stress that he wasn’t a “tourist” when he visited places but a “traveller”. Wanker 🙄
I always feel bad because I really like all his books. I am an adult. And I think I just found his books at the right time for me. I am even in the middle of one now.
So anyway. I liked the book. And the movie.
Yes his stories are a bit “simple”. But it’s an easy read and I like them. So that’s that.
Nope! I hated this book.
I read it during a beach vacay with my mom and brother when I was like 12 and I really liked it! Felt inspiring invigorating, from what I recall. I don’t wanna read it again so the memory remains positive and pure, lol.
I read Eleven Minutes because I heard from people (who specifically didn’t like The Alchemist) that it was Coelho’s best novel. (edit: I really enjoyed Eleven Minutes.) So if you didn’t like Veronica, maybe try Eleven Minutes before giving up on Coelho.
The Alchemist is simpler than the Veronica book. People usually read that book first
Alot of bad reviews I see here, but I cannot give the same opinion. A woman I had a fling with a few years ago have me this book and it changed my life to be completely honest. At the time I was an alcoholic who was going nowhere. Dead end job, no license, no car, and barely able to keep a roof over my head but something about this book inspired me to change. Now I’m six years sober, car, license, rent is always paid on time and I get contracted to travel to different states and breathe fire at Renaissance faires. Haven’t seen or heard from that woman since but I’ve always wanted to just say thanks for the book because without it, I may not even be alive today
Alchemist is a good book, but veronica decides to die is a third degree torture.
Teenage me loved it ( mainly because i didn’t have access to a lot of english books at the time ) now I can’t go through the first few pages.
I like the book. I think the message isn’t necessarily trying to be deep as much as it’s trying to be simple. I think Paulo Coelho strives for simplicity over pretense. I don’t think the book is miserable at all in fact, I think it’s incredibly joyful. The message that I am getting from the book is that it’s important to be “crazy” because “crazy” to society is really just freedom from the constraints of what is deemed normal. It reminds me of the death of Ivan Ilych thematically.
Normalcy in this case is blurred into insanity stemming from the poison of “vitriol”. This is really the inhibition of self from a self critical and insecure place. It stops us from being authentic and exploring life fully because we are acting in such a way to fit into societal norms. The most challenging part to parse out in this book is when the terms like crazy, insane, mad, lunatic, and so on are used to refer to both people who are breaking free from societal norms and those still heavily following those norms blindly. But when you do find your legs o think it’s very gratifying. In the end it is revealed that she was never dying. The cure to “insanity” (living what you perceive to be the correct life) was to convince her to live her life like it was her last day on earth without the inhibition of societal pressure to be anything but her true unashamed and crazy (meaning deviating from the norm) self. By allowing her to come to that conclusion on her own, she is able to truly incorporate that change without any reliance on any institution outside of her own hard work. It wasn’t the doctor who cured her. It was her.
Paulo speaks through Veronika because his parents had him committed to an insane asylum for being an artist and having left wing politics. He is a Brazilian so a lot of the language of his books deal with religion and spirituality because that’s the language a lot of Brazilians speak. I don’t think he is overrated. I think his books speak to people in a profound way through simplicity with a lot of blending of different spiritual beliefs and exploring that emotional and religious side of leftism, rather than the more cerebral, atheist, leftism that tends to dominate art and literature. (I am speaking as a Brazilian myself)
I don’t think he’s trying to be the best author or write the best story as much as make the point that life is only worth living if we make it worth living. Also the alchemist is a completely different story but deals with a similar themes with the distinction of setting forth towards our goals and not giving up faith in ourselves and manifesting for ourselves and letting that faith guide us and alchemize our energy. I liked that book even more, but I think if you don’t have a spiritual framework for understanding the world or if your spiritual framework is rigging and tends to be conservative, his message may be confusing, upsetting or corny to you. And that’s not a reflection of him being a poor author or you being a poor audience. It’s just an example of how culture, perspective, and language shapes our reality.
Ultimately the main message and lesson of his books is to say that the universe will speak to us in whatever way we choose to listen. We can choose to listen, or not, but then if we don’t we may find ourselves stuck following the same patterns we’ve always been in, never stepping into our full potential in life, relegated to wandering aimlessly and bitterly until we inevitably die, unfulfilled.