The Alchemist book review for Assignment

The Alchemist book review for Assignment 

I just want to get straight into a review of it today. For those of you who aren't familiar with the title at all, The Alchemist is about a young Spanish boy named Santiago. He is traveling from Spain to the pyramids in Egypt because he receives visions, notices signs, and feels like there is treasure there. Everything within his heart is telling him to go and find the treasure. 

The only problem is, that he's a young shepherd boy, and he has no means of getting from point A to point B, and that's where the story begins. We follow along as Santiago makes his journey, and it's much more than just a journey of location—it's one of exploration and self-discovery. 

Along the way, he meets an eclectic cast of characters. He meets people like kings alchemists, and many other kinds of people. He stays with them for different lengths of time, but from every single one of them, he learns something about himself, his quest, and the art of pursuing what your heart's desire is.

It's one of those stories that is more than just hoping that Santiago gets to the pyramids in Egypt and finds the treasure there. It's about the discoveries that Santiago—and we as the readers—make along the way.

Now, for a lot of you, that sounds boring, trivial, trite, or silly, and I get it. There are a lot of people who don't like this book. In fact, most of the reviews that I've seen are either one way or the other. It's either like five stars—"This book is amazing, I love it," or it's one or zero stars saying, "I hated it, I don't see what anyone likes in this, it's a piece of trash."

I get why people might not like it because it is in your face. It's very allegory-parable—that kind of story. It's not the most beautiful of literature; it's just telling this tale. But I'm very familiar with that kind of literature. I've read through the Bible multiple times. In fact, there's a lot of biblical imagery and citations in *The Alchemist* from the Bible, and probably from some other religious scripts as well. Paulo Coelho borrows very intentionally.

That kind of parable storytelling—telling a deeper story, preaching to the reader—I'm familiar with. I'm comfortable with it, and I quite like it. I found myself in the "love" category. *The Alchemist* was such a quick, easy, delightful read. I loved the main character, sure, and I loved the other characters, but I loved the lessons that the book was teaching.

A lot of people, I think, get it wrong and think that the book is teaching "just follow your heart." I too would probably dislike this book a little bit more if that was the message. Is that one of the messages in there? Maybe a little bit. But there are so many other important lessons to be gleaned here in *The Alchemist*, that I think just kind of pinpointing or laser-focusing on one of them and saying that that's the pervasive theme in there is the wrong idea. I think people are missing the point.

I absolutely loved *The Alchemist*, and I think that many of you would too. If this sounds like something that you would be interested in—parable, allegory, simple writing, quick read—you can read it in one sitting, maybe two, then *The Alchemist* might be for you.

 THANK YOU SO MUCH