Veronika Decides to Die by Paulo Coelho

Veronika is a pretty, intelligent young woman who works in a library in Slovenia. She isn’t particularly unhappy, but she isn’t quite happy, either. She is generally bored with life and all of life’s possibilities. This is why, one morning, she ingests a handful of strong sedatives and waits for death to consume her.

Except that, of course, it doesn’t work. Veronika wakes up in a mental hospital called Villete where she is told she has destroyed her heart and has only about a week to live. Instead of trying to end her life again, she chooses to wait out the slow death and interact with some of the other patients in Villete. Among these is the ex-lawyer Mari who suffered from panic attacks, a schizophrenic young man named Eduard, and a woman named Zedka who, after her last dangerous treatment decides it’s time for her to leave Villete.

Many of the patients at Villete stay there because they have grown comfortable there, and don’t want to deal with real life’s difficulties. All of them are affected in some way by Veronika and her slow walk towards death.

I enjoyed this novel,  it’s an easy read with short chapters and a very gentle pace. The action is evenly distributed throughout the novel and intermixed with the characters’ insights on life and death. This pace has the result of feeling like you’re on a soft boat ride on a lake, lulled by the fact that you know how it will end, and allows you to enjoy the journey.

There is one wild card in this story, a Dr. Igor, who plays with his patients like puppets in a playhouse. He performs his own psychological experiments on them in hopes of curing what he thinks causes depression: a chemical he calls Vitriol.

This is one of the few books I have read (One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest and Girl, Interrupted are the others) that take place in a mental hospital where the doctors and nurses aren’t heartless villans. They are relatable characters with very natural personalities, doing their jobs but in a humane and understanding way.

Veronika Decides to Die isn’t the depressing suicide tale one might expect from its title, its focus is actually on the hope in life and the many opportunities life has to offer. It has a very Carpe Diem message and ends on a pleasant note.