Adultery

June 30, 2014
Coelho’s disappointing new novel suffers from its lead character’s navel-gazing. After an interview subject reveals his thoughts about living a passionate life to buttoned-up Linda, a 30-something journalist, mother, and wife to a loving, wealthy husband, she begins to believe her own life is empty. From there, she initiates an erotic affair with a high school boyfriend even after her first come-on leads him to suggest she enter marriage counseling. Her emotional nosedive includes an outrageous plan to win him over, and she ponderously dwells on John Calvin, St. Paul, King Solomon, Frankenstein, and Jekyll and Hyde. Coehlo’s best work is personal and expansive, whether it concerns a Jewish prophet in the ninth century B.C.E. (The Fifth Mountain) or a young shepherd (The Alchemist) traveling widely in pursuit of treasure. Unfortunately, this novel’s constrained Geneva setting lacks expansiveness, and what is personal quickly becomes plodding. For most of the story, Coelho abandons his beautifully spare, evocative prose in favor of overwrought sentences, returning to form only as the story nears its end.

July 15, 2014
A Swiss journalist strives toredress the meaninglessness of her life with even more meaningless sexualencounters in Coelho's latest pseudo-philosophical screed.Linda, a respected newspaperreporter in Geneva, is happily married to a handsome, wealthy and generousfinancier. The couple is blessed with beautiful and well-behaved children, atleast from what we see of the progeny, which isn't much. The vicissitudes ofdomestic life aren't Coelho's concern unless they offer a pretext forplatitudes about the eternal verities and The Things That Matter. When sheinterviews Jacob, a former flame from school days who's now a risingpolitician, Linda behaves professionally right until she administers a partingblow job. The ensuing affair jolts Linda out of the low-grade depression shehas been experiencing despite her enviable lifestyle. Her adulterous behaviordisturbs her, however, since she can't explain her own motives. After brieflytrying therapy, she consults a Cuban shaman, to no avail (except to generate asuccessful series of in-depth features on occult healing). Her bafflement isshared by the reader, who will be puzzled by the total lack of any convincingreason why she should be so infatuated with Jacob, who, in addition to beingvery thinly portrayed, apparently can't decide whether his amorous strategyshould be sensitive and romantic or something 50 or so shades greyer. After aclose call-Jacob's astute spouse almost exposes her-Linda decides that thefling isn't worth destroying lives over, as if these shallow existences wereunder any threat to begin with. Along the way to this realization, Coelho milkseach opportunity to preach-by way of endless interior monologues, quotes from Scriptureand talky scenes-sermons about love, marriage, sexual attraction, evolutionarytheory and every other imponderable he can muster. Occasional interestingtidbits about the novel's setting, the French-speaking Swiss canton of Vaud, are not enough to redeem the pervasive mawkishness.More trite truthiness from Coelho.

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September 1, 2014

Thirtysomething Linda has it all. She's fabulously wealthy with an adoring husband, two perfect children, and a challenging job as a journalist. Then, during an interview with a writer, his throwaway comment about preferring dangerous passion to comfortable happiness sets Linda on an increasingly out-of-control cure for her restless boredom. Desperate to climb out of her angst, she concludes another interview assignment, this time with Jacob Konig, an old high school boyfriend-turned-rising Swiss politician, by performing quickie oral sex. Konig, already being blackmailed for a previous affair, leads Linda into an ugly liaison of debauched sex and vengeful jealousy. Though each has so much to lose, they flagrantly push the envelope of their egocentric needs. VERDICT It is a risky literary challenge to generate interest in a character who rails wildly against her self-described boring life. Brazilian author Coelho (The Alchemist), one of the most translated international novelists of all time, is perhaps too successful. Linda's adultery, more tedious than convincing, will fail to convince the reader to accept her guilt-free rationale for her behavior. [See Prepub Alert, 5/19/14.]--Beth Andersen, formerly with Ann Arbor Dist. Lib., MI

Copyright 2014 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

October 1, 2014

The title says it all: the latest work by one of the world's best-selling authors (The Alchemist) follows what ensues when a happily married female journalist suddenly meets her successful politician ex-boyfriend.

Copyright 2014 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

June 15, 2014

A No. 1 best-selling author worldwide whose The Alchemist has remained on the New York Times best sellers list longer than any other paperback (304 weeks and counting), Coelho offers a new novel featuring a woman in her thirties who resists the ongoing predictability of what seems to be a picture-perfect life and engages passionately with a man who was a friend in her youth. Plenty of online marketing; with a reading group guide.

Copyright 2014 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.