the alchemist review

(spoiler free)

so i got recommended this book like a year or two ago by an old creative writing teach and i put it off because that was aroundd the time where i just like dove into like thousand page long books and could not have been bothered to read a simple themed book under 200 pages. that being said - i went on a book shopping spree and ended up buying it since it was at a pretty low cost. i went in completely blind and honestly i ended up loving it way more than i thought i would.

overall? i loved the book for what it was - a simple "follow your heart" story full of beautiful settings and metaphors for how to live your life. it's kind of on a soapbox with the spiritualism and religion, and i'm a little biased as i'm heavily religious, but i honestly don't think that it gets in the way of the storytelling and i do love how it takes viewpoints from several different religions and not just one. it is not a long book by any means, only taking me a few hours to finish it with mild annotations, but personally i found it captivating all the way through. it's a classic and can be a little bit cheesy at times but i would definitely give this book a thumbs up and a recommendation.

here's a line from the book that does well to summarize its main theme (mild spoiler warning as it's kind of near the end):

"Tell your heart that the fear of suffering is worse than the suffering itself. And that no heart has ever suffered when it goes in search of its dreams, because every second of the search is a second's encounter with God and with eternity."