Veronika Decides to Die

This book is one of my favorite Paul Coelho books. Veronika Decides to Die seems a very awkward title for a book, but in this case it just works out. The book tells the story of Veronika who is young, has everything in life, and decides to die because of the reason that everything in her life is the same every day. After she tried to kill herself with sleeping pills, she wakes up in a mental hospital called Villete. This was the last place she wanted to find herself, and as if it was not already bad enough having survived, she is being diagnosed with a weak heart due to the suicide attempt. She is only given a week at most to live. The story is wonderfully narrated and the surprise comes at last. His book is once again life affirming and brought even me to tears. I loved this book, and every girly girl should love this too, for we all have been, one way or the other, in situations like Veronika.

Excerpt from Veronika Decided to Die:

When they reached the ward, Eduard lay down on the bed. There were two other men waiting, with a strange machine and a bag containing strips of cloth. Eduard turned to Veronika and asked her to sit down on the bed. “In a few minutes the story will be all round Villete, and people will calm down again, because even the craziest of the insane feel fear. Only someone who has experienced this knows that it isn’t as terrible as it seems.”
The nurses listened to the conversation and didn’t believe a word of what the schizophrenic was saying. It must hurt terribly, but then, who knows what goes on inside the head of a lunatic? The only sensible thing the young man had said was about fear: The story would soon be all round Villete and calm would swiftly be restored.
“You lay down too soon,” said one of them.
Eduard got up again, and they spread a kind of rubber sheet beneath him.
“Now you can lie down.”
He obeyed. He was perfectly calm, as if everything that was happening was absolutely routine. The nurses tied some of the strips of cloth around Eduard’s body and placed a piece of rubber in his mouth.
“It’s so that he doesn’t accidentally bite his tongue,” said one of the men to Veronika, pleased to be able to give some technical information as well as a warning.