Veronica Decides To Die by Paulo Coelho, reviewed by Pritish Menon

Veronica Decides To Die by Paulo Coelho

Reviewed by
Name: Pritish Menon (13 years)
School: Father Agnel School, New Delhi

Paulo Coelho, born in Brazil is one of the most widely read and loved author in the world. Having sold more than 85 million copies worldwide, he has bagged many prestigious awards and honours, such as the ‘Crystal Award’ by the ‘World Economic Forum’ and France’s ‘Legion d’honneur’.
One of his Incomparable books is Veronica Decides to Die.
The story winds around a young, pretty girl, namely Veronica, who has plenty of boyfriends, a steady job, a loving family and everything else one can wish for. But still for some reason she’s not happy enough to support herself to live. Finally one winter morning she decides to commit suicide by taking an overdose of sleeping pills.
As a result she finds herself at the local hospital (practically a lunatic asylum). As she was gazing at the florescent tube light and struggling with the pain- the unique, unmistakeable ‘earthly pain’, a member of the helping staff added to her despair saying that though she was alive then, she would not live more than a couple of weeks.
The following days in the hospital she got to know an entirely different aspect of what she called ‘madness’. The people compelled her to question herself about what actually ‘is madness?’ until she realised that every minute or rather every second of our existence is a choice that we make a decision between living and dying.
One night as she was playing the piano alone, she found a youth- Eduard standing on the door listening and maybe understanding her as she played the ‘Sonata’ on the piano. Gradually they stated to adore each other- their body and their soul, until they realised that they were lovers!
Soon they planned to escape from the asylum premises and succeeded in it.
The story moves slowly but fast enough to thrill any suspense lover.
Though the plot revolves around Veronica, but without the mysterious character of Eduard it wouldn’t be able to emit the heeling aroma it does.
The plot, aided by Eduard’s character succeeds in giving us the message that life is a song, like in the song each and every word means something, each and every moment of our life means something.
The thing is we must be able to understand what it tries to communicate to us.
I’m sure that this author’s works has a life- enhancing impact on millions of people.