(Book) Veronika Decides to Die by Paulo Coelho

title: Veronika Decides To Die

author: Paulo Coelho

publisher: Harper Collins, 2000

pages: 199 pages

rating: 4.5 stars

Veronika is a 24 year-old woman living in an almost perfect life. She's pretty, got a nice job on a library and her parents love her wholeheartedly. What more could she asked for, a husband, perhaps? But no, she has nothing to do with her life anymore. One time she decided that her life was dull enough, there was no meaning at all for her existence and she was tired with her routines. She woke up in the morning, took a shower, had a breakfast at the same cafe, got her job done at the exact same time everyday. She would go to hooked up with whoever guy she met in a pub, slept with them and went back to her apartment. It was always like this, she's someone who hides behind her four walls doing nothing much except her daily routines. She realized that someday her youth will gone and it would be downhill all the way. The world is a cruel place to live in and she has no power to make things right. Thus, she took a lot of sleeping pills to killed herself. Because jumping from the bridge is troublesome, and she didn't want her parents to deal with such terrifying dead of her only daughter.


The pills took quiet some times to registered in her body, much for her surprise. She decided to wait patiently and read a magazine. She found out that the journalist didn't know about Slovania at all and found the title dumb and misleading. She wrote them a letter saying that the article was ridiculous and she killed herself because of that before everything turned dark. She didn't die, though. She managed to survived and woke up in a strange place called Villete.

Villete was the place from which no one had ever escaped, where genuine lunatics—sent there by the courts or by other hospitals—mingled with those merely accused of insanity or those pretending to be insane. The result was utter confusion, and the press was constantly publishing tales of ill treatment and abuse, although they had never been given permission to visit Villete and see what was actually happening.

In Villette, Veronika learned that her life in this world only last for a week because the pills had caused irreversible damages in her heart. She was settled in Villette and eventually became acquainted with Zedka, her roommate. She then asked Zedka to where she could get the pills to commit suicide for the second time. But it didn't work because the nurse prevented her to do so. On the other night, the upset Veronika tried to play a Piano on the living room angrily before she realized there was someone watching her for awhile. It was Eduard, a schizophrenic who couldn't talk. He loved to watch Veronika played the piano.

She turned back to the piano. In the last day of her life, she had finally realised her grand dream: to play with heart and soul, for as long as she wanted and whenever the mood took her. It didn't matter to her that her only audience was a young schizopheric; he seemed to understand the music, and that was what mattered.

Veronika Decides to Die made me fall in love even more with Coelho’s writing style. This is actually my favorite book so far. I'm really enjoyed the story from the very first page. This book's just so beautiful. It's scary how much I can relate to Veronika. Sometime, people just don't understand themselves and thinking that they are useless; unworthy of living. But, no. Every living creatures are blessed, and everything happened for a reason. Every information about Mad people in this book is new for me. Initially, I thought that the mental hospital is a crowded and noisy place with screaming and raging mad people, but apparently not. Coelho gives a very clear picture of the view of Villette and also the activities there.

Veronika’s change was contagious, though, and I really like it. When she decided to be happy and to make a positive difference in her life, she influenced other people there to change their own lives too. Especially Mari, the one who suffered from panic attack. She was already cured, she knew it but she didn't have the courage to step outside the secured walls thus, she faked her own illness. This book gives me a heartwarming and positive feeling even after I devoured it. I realizes now that people in this world are neither mad or normal, it depends on how we see and respond to it. We may have the odd habits and still be called normal.

I can't wait to read another Coelho's books since they're always have different topics in each story. I'll comeback, probably next week, with a movie adaptation review of Veronika Decides To Die. I've watched it two days ago but still remember the scene clearly in my mind :)

xo, Puspita Sanri.