Veronika Decide Morrer

Veronika Decides to Die (or in it's orig. language; Portugese, Veronika Decide Morrer) is one of the shortest book i've read in the past year...but as they say, size does not matter. this book is the most touching.

The buk begins with a simple paragraph which totally pulled me thru to the end: "On November 11, 1997, Veronika decided that the moment to kill herself had - at last! - arrived." it makes you wonder ~ ~

Written by the author of The Alchemist, Veronika Decides to Die is about 24 year old Veronika from Slovenia who has everything she could ever want in life, but is somehow unhappy...so she decides to commit suicide by taking an ovedose of sleeping pills. her plan backfired and she wakes up to finds herself in Villete, a mental hospital in Slovenia. She is told that she only has a week to live.

The buk tells us of the lives of the patients at villete and how they were affected by veronika's arrival to the hospital. even the mad thought that veronika was crazy. the effects on several characters are put into focus. Zedka, Mari and Eduard. They all have their own history where most of them were once happy and sucessful but were brought down by the pressure that life brings.

Veronika on the other hand, learnt many things that she had never let herself to feel while she was in the outside world. here in a world where everybody's insane, veronika does whatever the hell she wants to coz nobody gives a damn. she let out her anger through music, she fell in love, she began to apprecite life; thus feeling fear. fear of death. now that she knew life had a meaning; it was too late. so, she lived life to the fullest as though there were no tommorow. (in her case, there isn't)

what happens in the end? read it. ha~!