Veronika Decides to Die: A Novel of Redemption

by Paulo Coelho

Certain people, in their eagerness to construct a world no external threat can penetrate, build exaggeratedly high defenses against the outside world, against new people, new places, different experiences, and leave their inner world stripped bare. It is there that bitterness begins its irrevocable work.

Her parents would still have loved her, but, afraid of hurting them, she had not dared to pay the price of her dream.