Kurze Inhaltsangabe
Die Geschichte einer unglücklichen jungen Frau, die sterben will und erst angesichts des Todes entdeckt, wie schön das Leben sein kann, wenn man darum kämpft und etwas riskiert. Ein wunderbares Buch über die Prise ›Verrücktheit‹, die es braucht, um den eigenen Lebenstraum Wirklichkeit werden zu lassen, und eine grosse Liebeserklärung an das Glück in jedem von uns. ( )

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... :) ( )

Veronika es una joven que tiene los mismos sueños y deseos que cualquier persona de su edad. Es guapa, cuenta con un buen trabajo y no le faltan pretendientes. Su vida transcurre sin mayores sobresaltos, sin grandes alegrías ni grandes tristezas. Pero Veronika no es feliz. Por eso, la mañana del 11 de noviembre de 1997, Veronika decide morir. Sueños y fantasías. Deseo y muerte. Locura y pasión. Veronika, en su camino hacia la muerte, descubre que cada segundo de la existencia es una opción que tomamos entre la alternativa de sequir adelante o de abandonar. Veronika experimenta placeres nuevos y halla un nuevo sentido a la vida, un sentido que le había permanecido oculto hasta ahora, cuando ya es demasiado tarde para echarse atrás.

Veronika decide di morire è un romanzo del 1999 scritto da Paulo Coelho. Si tratta di una storia sulla vita e la morte, sulla ricerca della felicità e sulla scelta di vivere una vita piena e significativa. Il protagonista, Veronika, decide di morire dopo aver scoperto che la sua vita è priva di significato. Si ritrova presso un ospedale psichiatrico e, attraverso le esperienze che vi fa, impara a prendersi cura di se stessa e a scoprire la bellezza della vita. Il libro è diventato un bestseller internazionale e ha ispirato molti lettori a vivere una vita più ricca e significativa.