ELEVEN MINUTES: A BOOK REVIEW.

"Life always waits for some crisis to occur before revealing itself at its brilliant."

ELEVEN MINUTES is written by Paulo Coelho who obviously needs no introduction. Previously i'd reviewed 'THE ALCHEMIST', which is one of the most famous books written by him. And I'll highly recommend reading it if you haven't already.

This book is written very well, its readable and flows quickly. It talks about certain life philosophies. And the main theme of the book is searching the meaning of life, somewhat similar to that of The Alchemist.

"Everyone knows how to love because we are all born with that gift."

Maria was a young Brazilian girl living with her mother who was a seamstress and father was a travelling salesman. Maria was gradually transforming herself into a young girl. In her growing years, she met different boys. She dreamt of having a great family but every time she was disappointed. She was convinced that there is nothing called true love. To her, love is a terrible thing that makes us suffer.

"Don't listen to the malicious comments of those friends who, never taking any risks themselves, can only see other people's failures."

Maria after turning nineteen sets on a journey of discovering her quest of love, boys and money. She gets recognized by a Swedish stranger on the beach of Rio De Janeiro. He promises her fame and fortune, which surely allures her and she makes one of the worst decision of her life.

"Everything tells me that I am about to make a wrong decision, but making mistakes is just part of life. What does the world want of me? Does it want me to take no risks, to go back to where I came from because I didn't have the courage to say 'yes' to life?"

After taking a decision based on a very rare intuition, she lands as a club dancer in Geneva for a much lesser money than she was promised by the man. She gets into a fight with the club owner due to which she loses her job as a dancer. She thought to do some modelling. She did some photo shoots but no phone calls came for any work. Maria starts visiting a library, where she develops a friendship with the librarian. As days pass she gets a call from an Arab man, who tricks her into attending a fashion show but then she realized that it was just a trap and the Arab guy wants to sleep with her.

"Life moves very fast. It rushes from heaven to hell in a matter of seconds."

Maria ends up being a prostitute as she didn't have work or money to sustain herself in the new country. in the course of her profession she discovers that men pay for a prostitute for a moment that lasts for a moment that lasts an average of eleven minutes. But, in doing this men are always searching for something deeper, something they cannot get from their wives and girlfriends, a connection yet to be understood, a fire which not known to them, is found in souls melting, and not sexual organs melting.

"She wasn't a victim of fate, she was running her own risks, pushing beyond her own limits, experiencing things which one day, in the silence of her heart, in the tedium of old age, she would remember almost with nostalgia- however absurd that might seem."

As she continued growing in her profession she met many interesting men among them, Terrace was one. He fund pleasure in pain and suffering which is also called sado-masochism. Inspite of her professor, she found Ralf a painter by profession, was the love of her life. He was the one who saw the light in her. The (inner light) and both of them spends some beautiful moments which brought them closer to each other.

"He's seeing my soul, my fears, my fragility, my inability to deal with a world which I pretend to master, but about which I know nothing."

After falling in love with Ralf, Maria realizes that her profession does not interest her anymore, and then she makes a decision of returning back to Brazil. At the end of the novel, she boards the plane and still dreams of Ralf to come and stop her. But to her despair, that doesn't happen.

"No one loses anyone because no one owns anyone. That is true experience of freedom, having the most important thing in the world without owning it."

In my opinion this book by Paulo Coelho is very different to his previous ones. Maria is projected as an ordinary girl with dreams in her eyes, but her characters changes throughout to book. She seeks true love which gets from Ralf, but makes the decision of not hampering the purity of it by caging it into bonds of relationship. One of the best qualities of Maria, was her curiosity learn about things and tackling different situations. In her life and because of which her clients liked her more.

Thus, if you are a dreamer and want to discover about the concept of love, dreams, pain and suffering of human beings, a void in everyone's life no matter how successfully they get.Then you should definitely give it a read.

STAY BOOKED FOR MORE!!!

If you want to buy this book then click on the link.

https://www.amazon.in/gp/product/8172235631/ref=as_li_tl?ie=UTF8&camp=3638&creative=24630&creativeASIN=8172235631&linkCode=as2&tag=ishita076-21&linkId=877e509e038fa99931a88add303fe7f8