Everand Logo

Welcome to Everand!

  • Discover millions of ebooks, audiobooks, and so much more with a free trial

    Only $11.99/month after trial. Cancel anytime.

    Veronika Decides to Die
    Veronika Decides to Die
    Veronika Decides to Die
    Audiobook5 hours

    Veronika Decides to Die

    Written by Paulo Coelho

    Narrated by Fran Tunno

    4/5

    ()

    Switch to ebook

    About this audiobook

    Twenty-four-year-old Veronika seems to have everything—youth and beauty, boyfriends and a loving family, a fulfilling job. But something is missing in her life. So, one cold November morning, she takes a handful of sleeping pills expecting never to wake up. But she does—at a mental hospital where she is told that she has only days to live.

     

    Inspired by events in Coelho’s own life, Veronika Decides to Die questions the meaning of madness and celebrates individuals who do not fit into patterns society considers to be normal. Bold and illuminating, it is a dazzling portrait of a young woman at the crossroads of despair and liberation, and a poetic, exuberant appreciation of each day as a renewed opportunity.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherHarperAudio
    Release dateMar 31, 2009
    ISBN9780061845642
    Author

    Paulo Coelho

    One of the most influential writers of our time, Paulo Coelho is the author of thirty international bestsellers, including The Alchemist, Warrior of the Light, Brida, Veronika Decides to Die, and Eleven Minutes. He is a member of the Brazilian Academy of Letters and a United Nations Messenger of Peace. Paulo is the recipient of 115 international prizes and awards, among them, the Chevalier de l'Ordre National de la Légion d'Honneur (Legion of Honor). Born in Rio de Janeiro in 1947, he soon discovered his vocation for writing. He worked as a director, theater actor, songwriter, and journalist. In 1986, a special meeting led him to make the pilgrimage to Saint James Compostela (in Spain). The Road to Santiago was not only a common pilgrimage but a turning point in his existence. A year later, he wrote The Pilgrimage, an autobiographical novel that is considered the beginning of his literary career. He lives in Geneva, Switzerland.

    More audiobooks from Paulo Coelho

    Related to Veronika Decides to Die

    Related audiobooks

    Literary Fiction For You

    View More
    View More

    Related podcast episodes

    Related articles

    • Article

      What It Is to Wake Up

      Jun 17, 2019

      What It Is to Wake Up
      5 min read

    • Article

      Bearing Witness

      Nov 6, 2023

      by Rachelle Unreich (Hachette, $34.99) by Anne Berest (Hachette, $34.99) A few weeks ago, I attended a discussion at Princeton University between distinguished American authors AM Homes and Joyce Carol Oates about the state of the novel in contempo

      5 min read

    • Article

      Weird Time in Frankenstein

      Feb 20, 2019

      Weird Time in Frankenstein
      8 min read

    • Article

      Resistance Fighter, Novelist - And Sartre’s Favourite Agony Aunt: Rediscovering Alba Céspedes

      Mar 25, 2023

      Postwar Italian neorealism was one of the most exciting literary movements of the 20th century, but it’s only recently that the female neorealists have had the attention they deserve. In 2018, the publisher Daunt began its vital championing of Natali

      4 min read

    • Article

      Venice Peach

      Oct 2, 2023

      1. THE DRESSMAKER AND THE HIDDEN SOLDIER by Doug Gold (A&U) WWII thriller about Kiwi soldier and Greek dressmaker 2. SUMMER FAVOURITES by Vanya Insull (A&U) Recipes from @vj_cooks 3. TE REO KAPEKAPE: Māori Wit and Humour by Hona Black (Oratia) Having

      4 min read

    • Article

      Great Read

      Jul 13, 2022

      Great Read
      4 min read

    • Article

      In The Middle Of Even This: Poetry

      Jan 1, 2020

      To be brought from the bright schoolyard into the house:to stand by her bed like an animal stunned in the pen:against the grid of the quilt, her hand seemsstitched to the cuff of its sleeve—although he wantsmost urgently the hand to stroke his head,a

      7 min read

    • Article

      Mary Beard: ‘Everyone Is Policing Everything. The Left Are As Bad As The Right’

      Mar 19, 2023

      Professor Mary Beard associates the restaurant Moro, in London’s Clerkenwell, with afternoons of flowing wine and pats on the back. It’s where her publisher takes her to celebrate when she has delivered a book manuscript. She’s nearing such a deadlin

      5 min read

    • Article

      Eccentrities And Obsessions

      Jun 29, 2023

      LORRIE MOORE IS ONE OF those writers who seems to shift whichever way you look at her. She’s the archetypal “writer’s writer”, acclaimed by her peers and a serious shoulder-to-the-wheel artist who, we sense, never forces the work, lets it come, and p

      5 min read

    • Article

      Snaps, Crackles And Pop Art

      Mar 30, 2023

      WRITING ABOUT MUSIC, as the comedian Martin Mull put it, is like dancing about architecture. Novelists who try their hand at the story-about-a-band genre rarely produce their best goods, even when the results are interesting (Don DeLillo’s Great Jone

      6 min read

    • Article

      The Art of Poetry No. 116

      Mar 19, 2024

      The Art of Poetry No. 116
      32 min read

    • Article

      Echos

      Jan 10, 2019

      Before Corrine’s husband abandoned her in Berlin, he liked to say that her name reminded him of the word “corrupt.” But ending in a twist rather than a split. Her last name was the French word for “swimsuit” but he never mentioned that. This seemed s

      17 min read

    • Article

      A Space for Bette Howland

      May 6, 2019

      A Space for Bette Howland
      7 min read

    • Article

      Memoirs Of An Ass

      Feb 28, 2018

      1. Just to give you the essentials: Probably around 180 A.D. (which is to say probably during the reign of the emperor Marcus Aurelius), a novel was written in Latin. It really is a novel. Trot out any definition of novel: it’s that. Also, it’s the o

      7 min read

    Related categories

    Reviews for Veronika Decides to Die

    4/5

    195 ratings69 reviews

    What did you think?

    Tap to rate

    Review must be at least 10 words

    • 5/5
      I loved this book. The mental health system, psychotropic drugs and emotional difficulties are subjects I am well acquainted with, so I felt at easy reading it as I was not swimming in unchartered waters.

      I was deciding whether to rate it 4 or 5 stars but once I read the last 4 pages, I knew right away it was a 5 star book for me, throughout the entire book, I never saw the end coming, but was awfully glad it ended as it did.

      1 person found this helpful

    • 4/5
      An interesting, well written book, although some of the themes are a bit clichy and it's easy to see the direction of the plot early in the book. No real surprises like I'd hoped.

      1 person found this helpful

    • 3/5
      As with all Coehlo, it's some great ideas wrapped up into a shiny little feel-good package that just makes me feel a little dirty for liking it. Does he seem awfully contrived to anyone else?

      1 person found this helpful

    • 2/5
      Dit boek behandelt een aantal fundamentele problematieken van de menselijke existentie: heeft het leven zin? En wat is het verschil tussen waanzin en normaliteit? Coelho zet die kwesties neer in de concrete context van een jonge Sloveense vrouw die na een mislukte zelfmoordpoging in een psychiatrische kliniek wordt geplaatst. Interessant dus, en regelmatig geeft Coelho goede voorzetten, maar elke keer weer laat hij de verhaallijn stilvallen om een nieuw personage te introduceren of een andere mijmering te lanceren. En op het einde maakt hij zich er van af met een wel heel goedkoop happy end. Tussendoor laat hij een pseudo-soefi-leraar wat wijsheden debiteren. Ik had hier meer van verwacht.
    • 5/5
      Young girl fumbles suicide only to learn she has limited time to live. Faced with her mortality she learns the beauty of life and desires to live.
    • 4/5
      Veronika unsuccessfully attempts suicide and is put in an insane asylum for her efforts; but she damaged her heart and only has a week to live anyway. During that week, she learns to let go of her inhibitions (now that nobody expects anything from her as a dying unstable lunatic) and finds more passion in life now that she's staring death directly in the face.It's an interesting look at how society defines insanity. 'Sanity' is kind of majority rule by definition, but then insanity becomes a rather subjective marker of when someone is making others around them uncomfortable, or acting out in ways we find disagreeable. Veronika Decides to Die is based in some part on Coelho's own experience in an asylum, when his parents sent him away for wanting to pursue art instead of something practical. Both the writing and the story are so simple and subtle, it reads more like a parable or allegory than a novel. But it raises interesting questions about sanity and the imperative to be accepted.
    • 4/5
      Beautifully written, extremely insightful. The rating is a little lower because I find the subject matter--suicide--depressing to read about, but I'll check out other books by this author.
    • 3/5
      To be honest, I'm just not sure what to make of Veronika Decides to Die. I've read a few of Paulo's books now, and am afraid I can't get as hyped up about them as the general mass of opinion. Maybe it's because I've read too many similar types of books over the decades? To start with I can't really get into and appreciate the whole 'package' because I don't like his style; it grates on me. Not exactly sure why; too removed, dispassionate, simplistic, superior, a bit too clever, even egotistical in parts... At best I'd call it bland. The characters are not convincing and there is no empathy engendered for Veronika (or Eduard for that matter) and that's sad. Zedka and Mari did get a slightly better deal from him though.I know some of the simplest books pack the hardest messages, but this one just doesn't do it for me. Some of the descriptions of the way people react to stresses and stressors and illness were insightful, and I agree with part of his theory on 'the madnss within'; but the way he portrays many of the aspects of the mentally ill and lumps everyone together in one big mad basket really is very annoying, and the bits about the 'heart problem' was absolutely and totally ludicrous. I know, I know, it's not meant to be a medical textbook - it's a fable.It was so obvious right from the start where the book was heading and what the 'message' was/is, that I'm not certain I gained very much from reading it. The same message is gleaned by and from anyone who has been diagnosed with a potentially life-threatening illness - and delivered with so much more passion.I'm sure the fans will love it no matter what, but I certainly will not be looking for any more of his.
    • 4/5
      Love this book. Makes us think about life and how to live our lives.
    • 4/5
      This book sketches an idea on the origin of insanity. Through the fates of four asylum inmates madness is seen to result from the conflict of our own desires and the expectations of our loved ones, and the force towards living a "normal" life, all of which create a fear of the outside world. Very convincingly, Coelho portrays normality as just a code enforced by a majority. An asylum is a place where one can ignore this code, where one can freely be "different", but the fear of reality persists. In this book, the haven is disturbed by Veronika's impending death, and some of the inmates are forced to face this fear.Apparently Coelho has himself been committed to an asylum. It seemed like a calm, safe place. This book has a positive tone throughout it, it is encouraging, soothing. Veronika's will of life in the face of death is like someone working harder to meet a deadline. I just wonder what happens when she finds out that she's not really dying...Coelho writes well, there is real thought to his text, but at times it's cheesy.
    • 4/5
      I really enjoyed this book and find that many things that I am encountering in the days, since finishing the book, are bringing back snippets of the story! I didn't think that the book had impacted me beyond a good read but I am finding it resonating with me in many areas.The story is compelling and driven well with the main character (Veronika) - I didn't find myself in a hurry to get to the next page but also didn't find myself putting it down until I couldn't keep my eyes open any longer.I highly recommend any book by Paulo Coelho and this one is no exception...if you haven't read his stuff - don't wait any longer!
    • 3/5
      Two hardest test on spiritual world; the patience to wait for the right moment and the courage not to be disappointed with what you encounter."
    • 4/5
      We all have ways that we deal with life. In Coehlo's book, these isn't much difference between the coping skills of the institutionalized and the rest of us. Should these people be in a mental institution, or is it really that they cannot cope with life in a way that is socially acceptable?"During her life Veronika had noticed that a lot of people she knew would talk about the horrors in other people's lives as if they were genuinely trying to help them, but the truth was that they took pleasure in the suffering of others, because that made them believe they were happy and that life had been generous with them. She hated that kind of person, and she wasn't going to give the young man an opportunity to take advantage of her state in order to mask his own frustrations." p. 37"She was in a mental hospital, and so, she could allow herself to feel things that people usually hide. We are all brought up only to love, to accept, to look for ways around things, to avoid conflict. Veronika hated everything, but mainly she hated the way she had lived her life, never bothering to discover the hundreds of other Veronikas, who lived inside her and who were interesting, crazy, curious, brave, bold." p. 76"You say they create their own reality," said Veronika, "but what is reality?" "It's whatever the majority deems it to be. It's not necessarily the best or the most logical, but it's the one that supports the desires of society as a whole." p. 95"That's how it should be with you; stay insane, but behave like normal people. Run the risk of being different, but learn to do so without attracting attention. Concentrate on this flower and allow the real "I" to reveal itself." "What is the real 'I'?" asked Veronika. Perhaps everyone else there knew, but what did it matter: She must learn to care less about annoying others. The man seemed surprised by the interruption, but he answered her question. "It's what you are, not what others make of you." p. 110She would consider each day a miracle--which indeed it is, when you consider the number of unexpected things that could happen in each second of our fragile existences. p. 217
    • 1/5
      Mr Cohelo's books are extremely popular and having read "The Alchemist" I gave ths one a chance. It was better but still patronizing. All his books seem to say much about nothing. They assume the reader will be taken in by trying to sound mystical and that there is something behind it but you are left thinking "What was all that about"
    • 3/5
      This was a gift from a dear friend of mine, actually the one who reminded me that reading is fun. Not at all morbid...I do remembering thinking the story tied up too neatly at the end.
    • 3/5
      It was not as captivating as the alchemist. The book felt boring in the first several chapters. It had a great ending though.
    • 5/5
      The title says it all... One day, Veronika decides to die. However, all does not go according to her plans. An awesome, awesome book. Very clever!
    • 5/5
      Greatly enjoyed! Sensitive, insightfully and incredibly tender.
      Coelho has the magic touch...
      I certainly recommend it..
    • 3/5
      The title character of this book, Veronika, tries to commit suicide through an overdose of pills. The suicide attempt fails, but the pills have caused irreparable damage to her heart and she only has 1 week to live. This knowledge of her imminent death gives Veronika new insight and a different perspective on life. My copy of the book included some interesting information on Paulo Coelho's life. As a young man, he spent several weeks in a mental hospital. He uses this information to frame many of the events of the book and provide a very different viewpoint of how we view and treat the 'insane'. Although the premise of this book was interesting, I am not a huge fan of Coelho. Rather than subtly stating a theme in his books, he tends to shout it out repeatedly. For this novel, the central theme seemed to revolve around how strict rules in our society force people to behave abnormally, but once a person is labeled 'insane', they have the freedom to behave and live as they want.
    • 5/5
      For me this book was about conforming to social norms and how we act and feel in our day to day lives to fit into what society prescribes. Veronika, a librarian (an awesome job I would imagine!), decides to commit suicide but luckily fails and ends up in an institution for the mentally ill. As she is 'treated' by the hospital's head physician she encounters other patients who are all looking for, but seldom finding, their place in the world.

      I loved the dialogue and the opportunity that her 'illness' allowed for her to finally find and express her true self. Viewed as an unstable person allowed for her to voice and act out in ways she (and we as 'normal' individuals) would otherwise never have done.

      "If one day I could get out of here, I would allow myself to be crazy. Everyone is indeed crazy, but the craziest are the ones who don't know they're crazy; they just keep repeating what others tell them to."

      With this (and an on-going experiment by said head physician) Veronika finds love, acceptance and her true voice.
    • 3/5
      What's "insanity"?This book makes you think about what insanity is.The book explores the experience of a young woman who, having survived a suicide attempt, finds herself in a mental asylum, where she is told irreversible damage has been done to her heart and she will be dead within a week.
It is sad that some people cannot truly love all that life has to offer, until they face death -- as would death's face be the only thing capable of waking up, inside of themselves, the will to live.
    • 5/5
      Loved this one. My only gripe about it is when the story sidetracks to give some background for the other patients. I thought that didn't really make much difference to me regarding the story, at times I felt they were just fillers. Four and a half out of five.
    • 3/5
      I have become less and less enamored with Coelho's writing, since I first read The Alchemist many, many years ago. Maybe I have become a bit more cynical or maybe my relationship with spirituality has shifted and matured in a way that doesn't relate to the kinds of messages he shares anymore (it would be interesting to re-read The Alchemist and see if I still relate to it as I once did). All of this is to say that I did not love Veronika Decides to Die, which tells the story of a young, beautiful woman who attempts suicide and is placed in the Villete mental hospital in Slovenia and how her redemption and growth inspires other patients to redeem themselves and find their own ways back into the world. My problem with the story is not so much a rejection of the idea that "normal" is a condition determined by the majoritythat condemns the unique and different as insane, but rather that none of the characters seem to behave as real people. Each character, including many of the patients turn out to be secretly wise old souls, able to spout deep and meaningful philosophy at a moment's notice. These four main patients are just "different" from what society expects them to be, which is why they have settled and become comfortable in the hospital. Although, some of the "real insane" are mentioned in passing, the complicated issues of those dealing with true mental illnesses is not treated well. The main focus of the story is on a more romantic vision of insanity and suicide as something that is just misunderstood, with the idea that if a person can just learn to take risks and live life fully everyday, then they can cure themselves of "insanity." While I agree in the concept of trying to live as fully as possible, here it is presented as such an oversimplification and repeated over and over again to the point that the story becomes dull and the message watered down.There is also a strange meta-moment early in the book in which Coelho inserts himself into the story in order to explain that he chose to write the book due his own experiences of being put in a hospital as a young man. Although this is both true and interesting (his parents thought his entry into the arts was a mental aberration), it felt like an odd distraction from the main story and was something I would have preferred to have seen better described in an author's note. Veronika Decides to Die — not a favorite of mine.
    • 3/5
      This is a difficult book to rate. I enjoyed the philosophy and there were quite a few thought-provoking statements about conformity and insanity. One favorite: "That is why embittered people find heroes and madmen a perennial source of fascination, for they have no fear of life or death."

      As a novel, the plot was minimal and the very lean prose made it difficult to feel anything for the characters.
    • 1/5
      Pretentious rubbish.
    • 2/5
      Who the heck decided that this book - out of the hundreds of millions of books out there - belonged on the 1001 books to read before you die list? Seriously, I don't understand. I do not like Coelho's style at all. The upside: it was a quick read.

      Two back to back 2 star books do not make me a happy camper. Jane Austen, I'm counting on you to get me out of this reading slump.

      ETA: I have decided that this book must have been commissioned by Hallmark. Are all of Coelho's books like this?
    • 1/5
      Frankly, this is a terrible book.I've read two other Coelho books, and I see the pattern now: these are fictionalised self-help books, and they are every bit as vapid and soulless as the worst self-help books.In this example, Veronika decides to end her life; she wakes up in a mental institute, and slowly rediscovers life and a reason for living. How very predictable. The other major characters, three other inmates of the asylum, all seem on the point of recovering, or have already recovered from their problems. In fact, we don't see anybody in the asylum who really has a problem to speak of.The writing is worse than bad. Coelho's style has been praised as being simple and pared-down, much in the way of Hemingway's 'Old Man and The Sea', but the difference here is between simple and simple-minded. Coelho's is definitely the latter. It almost seems lazy. The characters, when they speak, say the most tremendously profound things - or they speak in hackneyed, unrealistic tones. Regardless, they speak in the same style and grammatical structure as the rest of the book. We only know when the characters are philosophising and not just Coelho thanks to the speech marks.I've read enough Coelho now to know that his writing is not for me. I shall not return to his books.
    • 4/5
      Story set in Romania of a young girl who decides to commit suicide. She is not successful and is hospitalized for mental illness.
    • 4/5
      Simply written with prose that is almost dreamlike in its quality, Veronika Decides to Die explores life in the face of death, the meaning of insanity, and the importance of following one's dreams.Veronika, a young woman, finds herself in a mental institution in Yugoslavia after a failed suicide attempt. Told she has only days to live because of the overdose's damage to her heart, Veronika begins to re-evaluate her life. The characters Veronika meets provide the catalyst for her self-reflection: Zedka, the depressed housewife; Mari, the lawyer who gave up her dreams for panic attacks; and Eduard, a schizophrenic artist who has spent his life denying love. Dr. Igor, the administrator of the mental hospital plays a pivotal role in this philosophical novel and his theories of insanity are used to question the idea of normalcy.While I was reading this book, I began to think about the children and adults with Autism who I have had the privilege of working with...at a seminar several years ago a Speech Pathologist told the story of a young boy with Autism. Whenever he would flap his hands around his face, the boy's mother would caution him, "Stop that. Don't you want to be normal?" And the boy would agree, yes normalcy was what he wanted. One day the Speech Pathologist asked the boy, "Do you know what normal is?" And the boy confidently replied, "Sure. It's a setting on the dryer." I laughed when I heard this story because it was an example of how words like 'normal' only have meaning within the context of an individual's unique experience. Paulo Coelho makes this same argument in Veronika Decides to Die. Sanity is only defined by universal experiences - those individuals who are different or unique or view the world solely from their own perspective are often labeled "not normal" or "crazy."Coelho's message in this novel seems to be one of following one's dreams, going against the norm, living life to its fullest. As the character Mari explains:"When I was still a young lawyer, I read some poems by an English poet, and something he said impressed me greatly: 'Be like the fountain that overflows, not like the cistern that merely contains.' -From Veronika Decides to Die, page 198-As each character comes face to face with his or her own mortality, they are forced to look back on their lives and explore their failed dreams. They also ponder God and faith. This is the second Paulo Coelho novel I have read. Coelho has a unique voice and style - philosophical and dreamlike. His stories are written like fables, with messages about life, God and faith as the over-riding themes. I enjoyed Veronika Decides to Die because it made me think of my own dreams and life path.
    • 4/5
      I liked Paulo Coelho's novel "Veronika Decides to Die" more than his more famous book, "The Alchemist," which I thought was so-so. Veronika is a young woman who leads a sort of humdrum life not of her own choosing -- she decides to attempt suicide after realizing things aren't like to get better and will in fact decline as she ages. She ends up in Villette, a mental hospital in Slovenia and meets others who have checked out of society.Coelho had an odd way of inserting himself in the story, but other than that I liked the way it all unfolded, even if the doctor's tactics were pretty transparent from the get-go.