Marcia C. reviewed on 4/3/2019 + 670 more book reviews

I found this book engaging up to about the halfway point, at which point it started becoming clear that the author's concept of love is seriously weird. He claims to be obsessively in love with his wife, who has apparently left him, while carrying on a relationship with a different woman who loves him, and yet also seems to be on the hunt for yet more sexual relationships.

Unfortunately, the narrator (and the author?) believes he is God's gift to women, which is why his wife's behavior troubles him so much. And yet he doesn't seem to have sufficient insight into his own troubles, so he ends up coming off as simply horribly self-absorbed.

Worse, he comes across as an author contemptuous of his public and of people who don't fit his bourgeouis standards of success - or who do. An odious man in ways I don't believe Coelho intended.

Disappointing, as I found "The Alchemist" quite enchanting. By the end of the book I was so revolted that I'm not sure I would ever read another book by this author.

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