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Copy/paste the text below into your blog. <a href="http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/1431.Veronika_Decides_to_Die_A_Novel_of_Redemption?utm_medium=api&amp;utm_source=blog_review" style="float: left; padding-right: 20px"><img alt="Veronika Decides to Die: A Novel of Redemption (P.S.)" border="0" src="http://s3.amazonaws.com/photo.goodreads.com/books/1158211519m/1431.jpg" /></a> <a href="http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/1431.Veronika_Decides_to_Die_A_Novel_of_Redemption?utm_medium=api&utm_source=blog_review">Veronika Decides to Die: A Novel of Redemption</a> by <a href="http://www.goodreads.com/author/show/566.Paulo_Coelho">Paulo Coelho</a><br/><br/> <a href="http://www.goodreads.com/review/show/18169890?utm_medium=api&utm_source=blog_review"><h3>My review</h3></a> rating: 3 of 5 stars<br/>I read this book after finishing the Alchemist. Paulo Coelho, is very good at making you think about your own life. Both this book and Alchemist left me asking questions about myself and my own direction/decisions in life. With that I plan to read many more of his books as I find him to be a very good author. <br/> <br/>Veronika decides to die is an ok book. It gave me incite into institutional living and the thinking of what is confining and liberating qualities it has in this particular case anyway. <br/>It also made me think of the complacency in which most people live their life with. <br/> <br/>(*Spoiler Alert*) <br/> <br/>What I did not like about the book which is based on truth I guess is that I feel many of its main characters were mis-diagnosed and how some were just kind of hanging out due to choosing institutional life over what others consider normal reality. For instance one of the main characters Eduard is a Schizophrenic. But nothing in this story says how he is in fact schizophrenic which is a very serious illness. So that’s really the one thing that I didn’t care for about this book and I think it might have been done so purposefully. But I don’t feel that most people would choose to live in an institution as most of those places are dirty and not so nice in REALITY and that such a serious illness is taken so lightly. <br/> <br/>Also as spiritual an inspirator as Coelho is I was disappointed that much of what gives Veronika life is sex and I guess I was looking for something a little deeper then that. <br/> <br/>Either way, ok story. It kind of verified some ideas I already had but it did make me think about how reality is defined, it just seemed to make light of very serious illness at the same time. I’d probably give this 2.5 stars. <br/> <br/><br/><a href="http://www.goodreads.com/review/list/1007214?utm_medium=api&utm_source=blog_review">View all my reviews.</a>