Paulo Coelho has an unmatched flair for writing.
Veronika Decides to Die is a clear indication of his prowness.
The book opens with Veronika, a young 24 year old girl, who has a caring family and a good library job and a number of boyfriends, decides to take her life.
She choses the traditional way- Tranquilizers to fix her date with God!
Yet she survives and is seen at Villette, the place where mental patients of Slovenia, the place where this story is based, are kept.
When Veronike learns that she has just around 7 days to live, she takes the news bravely and decides to live the next 7 days or the last 7 days of her life to the fullest.
And that is when she realises that life is colourful and precious.
The aspects that one learns in life is very small, one only gets to know all that life has to offer when time on hand is countable.
Veronika learns this fact when she lies in Vilette, waiting for her date to die.
She encounters the Schizophernic patient- Eduard for whom she develops a special bond.
The time where Veronika sheds her inhibitions and decides to masturbate in front of Eduard is touching.
She sheds her sexual inhibitions and encounters a Veronika she did not know all her life, yet it existed in her all this time.
The playing of the Piano in a starry night with only Eduard for company is touching.
Reading the book, one can relate things that we ourselves experience in our daily life.
We tend to take things for granted as they are always there at the time we need them, yet they are precious.
Life is one such element.
Respect Life for all that is has to give.
Paulo Coelho sure knows his Aces, again.