Veronika Decides to Die

Additional Veronika Decides to Die Information

Twenty-four-year-old Veronika seems to have everything she could wish for--youth and beauty, pleny of attractive boyfriends, a fulfilling job, and a loving family. Yet something is lacking in her life. Inside her is a void so deep that nothing could possibly ever fill it. So, on the morning of November 11, 1997, Veronika decides to die. She takes a handful of sleeping pills expecting never to wake up.

Naturally Veronika is stunned when she does wake up--at Villete, a local mental hospital, where the staff informs her that she has, in fact, partially succeeded in achieving her goal. While the overdose didn't kill Veronika immediately, the medication has damaged her heart so severely that she has only days to live.

The story follows Veronika through the intense week of self-discovery that ensues. To her surprise, Veronika finds herself drawn to the confinement of Villete and its patients, who, each in his or her individual way, reflect the heart of human experience. In the heightened state of life's final moments, Veronika discovers things she has never really allowed herself to feel before--hatred, fear, curiosity, love, and sexual awakening. She finds that every second of her existence is a choice between living and dying, and at the eleventh hour emerges more open to life than ever before.

In Veronika Decides to Die, Paulo Coelho takes reader on a distinctly modern quest to find meaning in a culture overshadowed by angst, soulless routine, and pervasive conformity. Based on events in Coelho's own life, Veronkia Decides to Die questions the meaning of madness and celebrates individuals who do not fit into patterns society considers to be normal. Poignant and illuminating, it is a dazzling portrait of a young woman at the crossroads of despair and liberation, and a poetic, exuberant appreciation of each day as a renewed opportunity.

What Customers Say About Veronika Decides to Die:

Really enjoyed the book. Lots of great quotes and ideas on what insanity truly is, and the ending totally caught me off guard. READ IT.

Paulo Coelho's style of writing is so simple, and yet so moving. In this novel he tells of the story of a young woman who tries to commit suicide and recovers in an asylum. He asks a lot of questions about the nature of sanity and insanity, and who, or what, defines what that means. For anyone who has struggled with feeling different, alone, or even fearful for their mental well-being, this book will resonate.

The book started off well enough but then the author introduces himself into the story for about two pages. The chapter about Zedka and depression was OK. And then I found out that they were making a movie with Sarah Michelle Gellar as the main character, so I had to read it. I love stories about disillusionment with life.

The ending was pretty much what sealed the deal for me that this wasn't a very good novel. If the novel ended on page 204 (in my edition, this means the last two chapters would be cut) I would have given it three stars. Then I saw this book in the bookstore and thought it might be a good read. By the end of the book I was wondering: "Why." There was no need for the author to be in the book, and it only served to be an annoying distraction. I liked the part about astral projection though it went nowhere in terms of the story.

The most enjoyable part of the whole book was the chapter about Eduard the "schizophrenic" (highly unlikely from what I've read), and I think that's because the author had a similar experience with his parents when he was growing up. And now I see that my initial hesitations were correct. The rest of the book felt pretty "flat" to me. I think this book fails completely as a novel.

I've been hearing some great things about Paulo Coelho, but none of his books interested me enough to check them out. The chapter about Mari and panic attacks was unbearable. It felt like I was a reading a textbook example of the disorder. It felt inauthentic and I had a suspicion that that's the direction the author was going in, I just hoped he wouldn't be so predictable. It just felt like words on a page most of the time. The writing is average at best, the characters are one-dimensional, and the story is barely there and quite predictable. But I still hesitated because the author is known for writing "inspirational" fiction.

If you want to read some good fiction dealing with suicide and depression, I recommend "Suicide Notes" by Michael Thomas Ford and "The Bell Jar" by Sylvia Plath. The writing didn't come off the page the way good writing does. Besides chapters about Veronika and the other characters, there were three long chapters that focused on three different characters and their problems. Overall, it felt like I was reading someone's thoughts about madness rather than a story about a particular character. I'll still watch the movie (probably on DVD), just to see how they handled adapting this novel.

I really like the book I could not put it down. It help me to appreciated life and all the simple things that can make us happy and most important enjoy every single minute in life

Great book. It leaves the reader with much food for thought as Coelho is famous for. I thoroughly enjoyed it. The concept of insanity and 'normality' has always been one to intrigue me over the years & I've never read a book that peeled back the layers and exposed the argument with such intellectual finesse and raw idealism and simply and poetically written, such as this. The ideas of pleasure, custom, love and life. amazing.