And the one thing I cannot forgive her for is when she sexually assaults one of the people in the asylum. Veronika is unlikeable and just plain annoying the entire way through. These characters are wonderful, fleshed out, and realistic. I think its biggest saving grace is the way it deals with other characters in the story who are actually mentally ill – a schizophrenic, a woman who was depressed, another elderly woman with panic disorder. This woman is such a piece of work that I honestly can’t stand her.

Confronted with the fact that she’s going to die at any minute now, Veronika panics and realizes that she’s always wanted to be alive in the first place. Which is exactly what she wanted, right? Wrong. The novel does a good job of pointing out how fucking stupid she is, at least, by revealing that not only did she unsuccessfully commit suicide since she survived the ordeal, she has no irreparably damaged her heart and she’ll be dead within a few days anyway. She’s a selfish brat who has no reason to want to kill herself but she decides to anyway because she’s bored. Literally, Veronika has nothing to complain about. Veronika just doesn’t want to be alive anymore because she thinks she’s reached her prime and after this (she’s twenty-four, by the way), her life is only going to get worse and she can’t possibly be around to watch herself become unhappy. She isn’t upset about anything, she hasn’t gone through any violent or traumatic ordeal and she isn’t sick and dying of some terminal illness. The book centres around a young woman who is just done with life. I read it again recently, and boy do I have a different opinion of it now than I did when I was sixteen. I did some research, bought the book, and read it. I remember hearing about it for the first time because of the Billy Talent song called Saint Veronika which is loosely based on the book. |a Young women |0 |x Suicidal behavior |0 |v Fiction. |a New York : |b Harper Perennial, |c 2006. |a Veronika decides to die : |b a novel of redemption / |c Paulo Coelho translated from the Portuguese by Margaret Jull Costa.

Veronika decides to die book review