Veronika Decides To Die

This is one of the best-selling novels written by Paulo Coelho, one of my favourite authors. This book was given to me by a friend last Christmas. It questions the meaning of madness and celebrates individuals who do not fit into the normal society.

The whole novel revolves around 3 main characters. Veronika who suffers a critical heart condition and had once tried to commit suicide by overdosing herself with sleeping pills. Mari, who suffers from panic attacks; and Eduard who has schizophrenia and with whom Veronika falls in love.
Veronika was said to be a beautiful woman from Ljubljana, Slovenia who appears to have the perfect life, but nevertheless decides to commit suicide by ingesting too many sleeping pills. While she waiting to die, she decides to read a magazine. After seeing an article in the magazine that asks "Where is Slovenia?," she decides to write a suicide letter. The point was to make the press believe that she has killed herself because people don't even know where Slovenia is. Her plan fails and she wakes up in Villete, a famous asylum in Slovenia, where she is told that she has less than a week to live. The kind of mental and physical problems that the main characters suffer brings them to Villete. But the novel is not about how they suffer or how Veronika dies. The novel touches few of the most important aspects of a man's life. It tells us how Veronika's presence affected others in Villete and how they found out the true meaning of life.
Being aware of the fact and the thought that she is about to die gives her freedom. Because of this freedom, Veronika did all the things she never allowed herself to do. She starts living her life full time and does what she likes to do most.

This novel inspired or affected my life in some way by making me realize that we should lead a life in such a way that we are not